Pandora

Internet radio service Pandora is distinguishing itself from the über-competitive music streaming market with its latest station, Pandora Premieres. Listeners will be able to preview select albums on Pandora before they go on sale with the new early access feature, which kicks off with singer-songwriter Laura Marling and roots rocker John Fogerty.

Both artists' albums are available for only a week at pandora.com/premieres, with the option to preorder the new releases on iTunes straight from the Pandora station.

Drawing in new users is very important in the crowded subscription streaming space, and exclusive recordings and early access to albums help music services tap into artists' fan bases. The competition between music subscription services is only getting stiffer. Google introduced its "radio without rules," Google Play Music All Access, last week.

Pandora still has a financial edge over other streaming services, however. Despite being forced into charging a small number of users due to an increase in royalties earlier this year, the site is still a steal at $4 per month or $36 per year for Internet radio.

Internet radio site Pandora has more social, discovery, and exploration features than ever in its brand-new apps for iPhone and Android (coming soon). The launch of Pandora 4.0 marks a huge leap from past versions of the app, with new social-media buttons to share music, a real-time feed of what friends are listening to, full-screen album artwork, song lyrics, artist bios, and a central profile page.

Music-streaming services, like Spotify, Rdio, and, most recently, Xbox Music, are all the rage this year, but Pandora remains the leader of free online radio, with 175 million registered users. The new mobile app shows Pandora's commitment to online radio and maintaining a free music experience for listeners.

But will Pandorans embrace the mobile app's new social features or even the company's shift toward becoming a music-centric social network? Download Pandora 4.0, and let us know what you think about the app's makeover.

Despite an uptick in competition (ahem, Spotify) Pandora isn't budging in its quest for online radio domination, as seen in the dozens of products they're embedded in at CES this year. Cars are the theme this year, as they announced 23 automotive partnerships for 2012. Can we expect a Pandora system in every new car sold now? Just about.

Look to BMW, Mini, Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC, Acura, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Ford, Lincoln, Mercedes-Benz, Lexus, Toyota, and Scion for Pandora embedded in the car, using voice commands or dashboard controls. Car stereo manufacturers like Alpine Electronics, Audiovox, Kenwood, and others throughout the year will roll out in-dash receivers featuring the streaming music provider.

Pandora's also integrating beyond smart TVs, with Sony's new line of WiFi-enabled Blu-ray players. Don't forget there's also the Samsung refrigerator we saw at last year's show, so you'll never have to be without streaming music again.

Source: BMW and Kenwood

To save ourselves from listening to our mom's record collection on repeat during this weekend's family gathering, we're taking on DJ duties. Forget flipping discs on a boombox; hook some powerful speakers up to a laptop and sign into these online music services to keep the party moving with new and unexpected tunes.

• Pandora — A classic, Pandora keeps us going through the work day with our curated stations. Due to copyright licensing, listening to songs by the same artist is limited, but the service does allow you to skip over song fails.
• Turntable.fm — We're taken with discovering new music through this new online digital music service. Hop into a crowd-friendly room; the "I <3 the 80s" room is a good choice.
• 8tracks — Mixtapes make a comeback on 8tracks, which lets users listen to mixtapes created by the community. Listen to playlists based on artist or genre and follow users whose mixes you love.
• Spotify — Check out what your friends are listening to and discover new tunes with this free music service. You can pay for upgraded and premium services to get wireless streaming on your iPhone too, which makes it easy to plug and play to whatever iPod dock your parents have lying around.

Click through for three more online music resources.

Start prepping for a your Halloween party and switch to the eight Halloween stations now available on Pandora. Ghoulish station choices include ambient sounds, instrumental melodies, silly, kid-friendly tunes, and even soulful songs for seasonal gatherings or at-work listening.

Search these Pandora stations for your favorite mix: Halloween, Halloween Party, Industrial, Spooky Symphonies, Goth, Children's Halloween, Witch House, Ghostly Grooves. When in doubt remember, "The Monster Mash" always gets the party started this time of year.

A common complaint of Spotify loyalists is that the music streaming service doesn't have the ability to discover new music like with Pandora. That's all in the past as a new app called Echofi adds an artist radio function to the popular music source.

Sign in to your account through Echofi, tell it which artist you want to hear, and it will play similar music. There are some reported quirks to the functionality, but with the ability to "love" or "ban" certain songs and take the guesswork out of new music choices, we're in.

Add one more website to your daily tech addiction — Turntable.fm, a digital music site with a seriously social premise. While adding a social element to services has become ubiquitous, the social side of Turntable.fm is simple, and the reason for its popularity — share good music with friends and strangers in real time.

Sign up for Turntable.fm via Facebook friends already in on the service. Choose which music room to have your avatar enter based on the room's name; think of it as a virtual nightclub without strangers spilling drinks on your shirt. If nothing sounds appealing, create a room of your own and invite friends. Each room has from one to five DJs spinning, while the rest of the room's listeners "stand" in the crowd voting whether songs are awesome/lame, talking in a sidebar chat room, or queuing up songs from Turntable.fm's large music collection or their computer's music library. If you deem a song awesome, the DJ will earn points, which can be used to change the avatar, and most importantly, up the user's music credibility. About 140,000 users have signed up in the first month since Turntable.fm launched.

Everything about the service, so far, is free. Like Pandora, the site is able to legally function under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, with a limit on the number of songs that can be played by one artist in the same hour. For the time being, international users can't access Turntable.fm, but for those located in America, hop in a room and discover new tunes.