Whether you’re blasting top 40 hits in your dorm room or listening to a smooth jazz station in your headphones at work, the Internet is becoming an increasingly popular medium for listening to tunes. Over the last few years, there has been a shift towards user-selected internet radio. The concept of these sites is to give you a reprieve from having to listen to songs on a generic station, half of which you probably don’t even enjoy. More specialized and specific stations cater to personal tastes and are a great way to introduce new artists with music similar to your favorite songs.Slacker Personal Radio: A free account on this site allows you to either create your own station of pick from hundreds of already created playlists. You can mark tracks you don’t like and make a note of one’s you do to help the program pick only ones that will appeal to you. If you like this site as much as we do, you’ll want to upgrade to Slacker Radio Plus, which lets you request songs, skip as many tracks as you want, and eliminates advertisements.Pandora: One of the most popular of its kind, users can create stations by either entering an artist’s name or a song title and the system begins playing songs with similar musical attributes. You also have the opportunity of buying any of the songs you hear using online music retailers.Live 365: In addition to creating your own station, you can stream other users’ stations, which is a great way to hear new, less-played songs. Like Slacker, you can also upgrade your account to a “VIP Membership” for commercial-free listening.Jango: While listening to their customized stations, users can designate a song as “play often” “play sometimes” or “play never.” Similar to the other stations, free accounts unfortunately come with advertisements.