Services we use: Pandora vs. Mog Review

The following blog post is part of an occasional series in which we review services that our employees use on a regular basis but that don't fit into our regular categories.

Service Name: Mog

Rating:

Service type: Internet radio/music streaming

Introduction:

Everyone, it seems, is talking about Pandora, the provider of free Internet radio. While its music-genome-powered recommendation engine is good, for my taste the service lacks both variety and control. Disappointed by the Internet radio favorite, I went searching for something new. And I found Mog. The name of the site seems to be a combination of "Music" and "Blog," which gives a clue as to the site's social media components.

Features:

Maybe I'm old fashioned, but very often I like to listen to full albums, or perhaps the works of a single artist, something Pandora doesn't allow. Of course sometimes I want a more varied radio-like experience. The thing is, with Mog I can do all these things. I can look up—and listen to—a full album. Or I can look up an artist I like, and then choose to listen to similar artists. I can even vary how much I hear of that original artist in the mix. For instance, I like Johnny Cash, but I want to hear some other country artists as well. Using a convenient slider I can vary the mix from 100% Johnny Cash to an equal mixture of other country artists. Or any ratio in between.

The algorithm is smart too. It knows what I mean by country (Waylon, Nelson, Williams). While Mog doesn't rely on the music genome project (a wonky, overly-scientific breakdown which sounds more like marketing than music), it manages to divine what it is that I like. To me, it delivers. I can thumbs-up and thumbs-down music to refine my experience. I can share my listening activity on Facebook or Twitter too.

Perhaps Mog's coolest feature is its track or album queuing. When I'm at work I might decide I want to listen to three albums in a row. I search for the albums, click "queue" and the albums will play in the order they were added. If I'm having a party, I can queue up individual tracks for your own unique mix. I can save my playlists, and make them public or private. Mog has a whole social component too: write reviews, blog posts, and create a profile to find fellow music fans.

Catalog:

But will Mog have the music you like? Mog claims to have over 9 million tracks in its library. For my tastes, which range from the aforementioned country to indie, punk, new wave, and folk, I find about 98% of what I'm looking for. Mog fully caters to popular music taste as well, featuring the latest from Taylor Swift, Kanye West, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Kenny Chesney, and Eminem. There's also plenty of jazz and classical to boot.

It's high quality streaming too. At 320 kbps (that's kilobytes per second) it bests any other streaming service, and is indistinguishable from iTunes downloads.

Price:

Of course, Mog is not free. But then again neither is Pandora if you want to go advertisement free and get high quality streaming. So it doesn't seem so bad that Mog will cost you $5.00 per month. This covers unlimited ad-free streaming to your computer or Roku device (if you have one of those). While slightly more than Pandora's $3.00-per-month cost, you're getting a lot more. A 14-day free trial gives prospective customers ample time to try it out.

$9.99 per month buys access to Mog Primo, which provides streaming to computers and smart phones. Initially I was skeptical about the upgrade, but the app, which is available for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and Android phones, is pretty amazing. I got faultless streaming of music with only one signal bar on AT&T's 3G network (I wish my calls came across that clearly). Actually, Mog's mobile app does more than stream. I can download complete albums or individual tracks for offline listening too, only limited by the amount of space on your mobile device. Meaning Mog may well replace my reliance on eMusic and iTunes too. The only drawback is that the songs stay on the mobile device; they can't be transferred to a computer.

Conclusion:

Mog is Internet radio for music lovers. I find it equally useful for listening to old favorites as for finding new music. If you appreciate the convenience of streaming music, but find Pandora is too hit and miss, this is definitely for you. Heck, even if you are a fan of Pandora, you might want to give Mog a try. Click here to sign up for the free trial.

This week's "Services We Use" review was suggested by Kent, NextAdvisor's Content Manager.

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