Go fishing for online music with Radio Tuna
Radio Tuna let's you easily search thousands of online radio stations based on the artists played, the genre, or the name of the station.
Like any decent self-proclaimed music discovery slacker should be, I'm a sucker for free services that help me expand my audio horizons. Even better when it's an attractive Web site adorned with bubbles and represented by a pink tuna with a giant googly eye.
Naturally, this means I was quite eager to check out Radio Tuna when a representative for the service contacted me. In the simplest terms, the service is a search engine that is designed specifically to scour Internet radio stations based on a variety of parameters. You have three search options: station name, genre, or artist. The most compelling of the three is the artist search, which lets you narrow in on a radio station that is playing your desired artist at the moment you enter the term. It also populates a list of stations that have played the artist in the past.
In addition to the search capability, Radio Tuna includes direct genre and subgenre links in the left column, as well as bookmarks for those who register for the service. What's really nifty about it, though, is that when you click on a station in the search results, you're not booted off to that separate Web site. Rather, Radio Tuna integrates its own player--a nice touch, especially for those who might switch between stations frequently. I also like that there are little status bars next to each station that let you know the main genres represented as well as their weight of playback.
Radio Tuna is in beta and is not without some issues, though they are pretty minor. The first is that the "stations playing [artist name] right now" aren't always doing so. Also, I'd like to see some deeper dives in the subgenres, but hopefully that will come later.