Pandora

Do you want to hear some new music that matches your music tastes but struggle with human interaction? Intimidated by record store clerks? If so, then Pandora may be the site for you.

Here's how it works:

• You enter a band or song that you like.
• Based upon what you entered, it'll play a song that it believes is similar.
• Then you guide them by clicking on "like it" or "don't like it".
• They'll then play another song based upon what you've liked and disliked and so on and so on.

Eventually, you'll have a radio station that is tailored to your tastes. Despite my snarky first sentence, I actually think this is a cool site. It's recognized every band I've entered and has introduced me to a lot of bands I've never heard of before.

The other nice feature is that it remembers your preferences from prior visits so you can jump right back into a "station" that you created. You can even email the station to your friends if you think they'd enjoy it.

If you like a song, you can click on the song's title and buy it from Amazon or iTunes.

You do have to register for an account after a few songs but it's free (as long as you don't mind a few banner ads) and they don't collect much personal info.

However, they do collect your age, zip code and gender which gives them some decent demographic info to tie to your listening preferences. That info is probably valuable to record companies so I wouldn't be surprised if they are selling the data to them. I also wouldn't be surprised if the site gets bought by Amazon or iTunes (or another online music store) so they can steer all of the traffic to their shop. It's a great application to tie into a music store.