The joys of radio

What kind of rube would browse a record store (chuckle), listen to the radio (what?), or trek through snow to a video store (sniff). The magic of the Intertubes can find all this stuff for me - and not only that - tell me new stuff I'm going to like, for free!

Last.fm and Pandora are awesome because as soon as you hear something you like, with a click you can find out what it is, see the cover art, read a bio of the artist, and file it away for later consumption. But in terms of discovering new music, the services aren't good for much better than exploring musical genres I know nothing about. I still think the best place to hear new music is always on the radio. Looks like a lot of people agree with me.

CBS Radio's network of radio station Web sites saw its total number of unique visitors increase 30% in December 2008, compared to the same month in 2007, according to Web analytics service OneStat.com, reaching an all-time high for CBS Radio. The online measurement company also noted that unique visitors grew 7% between November and December 2008. (via MediaMemo)

Patrick Bryant, the music director on MIT's college radio station WMBR (full disclosure: I used to have a show there) told me the iPhone app Shazam can correctly identify less than 15 percent of the music he plays on his program, Subject to Change.

I have a question for any Web 2.0 acolytes who have predicted the demise of radio and records. Did you really think a robot could pick good music?