I�m not going to talk about this �podcasting� thing until I have experienced it. Fortunately enough for me, I don�t have anything like an iPod, so that might take a while.
Now, I have listened to live365 for a very long time, and I was more recently introduced to yahoo�s launchcast, which seemed to be much of the same thing. I still listen to both, but I�ll give you my thoughts and feelings on the matter and let you clever people make up your own minds.
Launchcast is a lot like the radio, but with feedback. When you first sign up, it asks you about what genres of music you prefer and rate them on one of two scales (percent or stars). According to these ratings, it will then select music based on what you chose. For example, if you clicked the �Never Play Again� option for country, it wouldn�t select any country music. Now, as it plays music for you, you are given the ability to rate the artist, album, and song that you�re listening to (again, with the �never play again� option). This means that if you hear a song you despise (�complicated� for example), or an artist you loathe (in my case, Hillary Duff), or an album that didn�t strike you as worthwhile (Weird Al 3-D for me), and rate it �Never Play Again� and it won�t! The songs you rate higher will be played more often too!
But there is a downside: It IS too good to be true. First of all, because it wouldn�t be real radio without doing so, they are required to play songs that you haven�t rated or requested at all. They�ll abide by the �never play again� rule, it seems, but once in a while there will be songs that you may not want to listen to. This happens about every other song. You can skip songs, of course, but you only get a limited number of skips before you can�t do that anymore. Second, these people need to make money somehow. So at the beginning of every month you get to listen to x many minutes of songs (don�t worry, it has gotten me through a couple of work days), before you no longer get the freedom to have your own customized options. After that, you can listen to preset stations (I prefer comedy stations, or �fan� stations), and there is plenty to listen to there, but then you�re just listening to radio you can rate. This means that your songs will be all the more customized at the beginning of the next month. Of course, like all internet radio sites, you have the option of paying a small fee for free access, unlimited skipping, etc. But I imagine they�ll still play songs you haven�t requested.
Live365, by comparison, doesn�t seem quite as interesting. There are infinitely more advertisements that take more time than launchast, and the rating system has a much smaller impact on what you actually get to hear. The advantage of live365, for those of you who are into that sort of thing, is that there are many many many more songs that you can listen to. On my preferred stations, I�ve got several video game themes, cartoon themes, movies, comedy, and even some ddr. I can listen to the Power Puff Girls theme on live365 along with Dance Dance Revolution hits, which do not exist on launchcast, and probably never will. Paying for the service for live365 seems only to limit the advertisements that you have to listen to, and you get access to exclusive and full broadcasts. This doesn�t seem to be quite as worthwhile to me, but that, dear readers, is left to you.
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Radio"