Opening Pandora's music box

Recently, a friend introduced me to Pandora.com, and it's become one of my favorite ways to find new music.

Here's what to expect when you sign up: After a brief and free registration process, Pandora asks you to input one of your favorite bands or songs. Let's say you picked The Beatles; Pandora will then play a Beatles song, such as "Across the Universe." You've now essentially created a customized internet radio station. If you love "Across the Universe," as any rational human should, click "thumbs up." Now your new station will play the song regularly and, more importantly, seek other songs that have similar musical qualities. Some of the songs it finds will be Beatles songs but many won't.

After "Across the Universe" is finished -- you can also skip to the next song if you desire -- let's say your station plays the Doobie Brothers' "Listen to the Music." If you hate this song, click "thumbs down," and your station will never play it again. All of your thumbs up/thumbs down selections will affect what kinds songs your station seeks. If you're seeking a specific sound, add more "seeds," such as The Beatles, Doobie Brothers, Across the Universe, The Who, etc.

Just trust me on this one. Register and play around with it for a few minutes. It's remarkably simple, but I'd recommend reading Pandora's tips for optimizing your stations if you get hooked. Here's one tip of my own: If you're using Pandora primarily to find new music, you probably want to avoid clicking "thumbs up" on a bunch of songs you've already heard a million times. There's also an option that allows you to take the song off all your stations for a month, which definitely comes in handy.

Finally, you can only skip six songs per hour on one station, but there's no limit to the amount of stations you can create. You also can't rewind songs or play any song on demand, but you can pause a song. These limits allow the site to remain free.

Seriously, just give it a try. Happy listening.

(Pictured: "Pandora" by Dante Gabriel Rossetti.)