Most of you have probably heard of Pandora, but for those that haven’t I’ll give you the rundown.

Pandora is an internet radio platform that lets you build stations around an artist, genre or specific song. Founder Tim Westergren and his team of musicians listen to music all day long and tag the songs they hear according to a million different categories. Tags like key tonality, prominence of vocalist, primary instrument, etc.

Similar to StumbleUpon, Pandora adds value by aggregating content around your interests. And just like StumbleUpon, it’s a great way to discover new content. For example:

Say want to build a station around “Is This Love” by Bob Marley. Not only will other Bob Marley songs play on your station, but other relatively unknown reggae artists will as well. They have similar characteristics to the song you already like, so there’s a great chance you’ll like their music too.

It’s a great site to help pass the day at work and discover new music.

Happy Stumbling!

Have you ever just wanted to check out what’s on a website, but the only way they let you in is if you fork over an email address? Or, better yet, you need to register for a site through a confirmation email, but don’t want to be on someone’s spam list. If either of these things have happened, Mint Email is right up your alley.

Every time you access Mint Email, a fresh email address appears at the top right. You enter it into the website asking for an email address, and keep the window open.

As soon as the confirmation email comes through, the browser window (or tab) starts blinking, letting you know that your confirmation email has arrived. Four hours later your temporary address expires, and any email list you would have been on now has a non-existent address.

I use Mint Email all the time to try new sites out. Give it a shot, at least it’ll stop spam.

Happy Stumbling!

If you’ve ever bought an airline ticket, you know how it usually works.

A flight costs $200 on Monday and then jumps to $550 by Wednesday, only to drop to $330 on Sunday. It’s as if no matter what you do, there’s always a better time to buy.

Enter farecast.com.

A couple brainiacs at the University of Washington started Farecast as a research project a few years ago. They took massive amounts of airline pricing data, analyzed it, and devised algorithms to predict the best time to buy an airline ticket.

And boy, does it work.

You put in the airport you’re flying out of, where you’re going, and the dates you plan to leave and get back. Farecast then scours the airlines’ websites for the cheapest flights.

They display the lowest prices for your flight, a prediction on whether to buy or wait, and a 90-day history of the lowest fares for your itinerary.

I just booked a round-trip flight to Jamaica two weeks before my trip for $150 less than I was about to spend on another airline’s website.

And if I would have booked a day sooner, it would have been a $200 savings.

And not only did I get a great price, but I watched my fare actually go up right after I bought it, just like they said.

So try it out, see how cheap flights really can be, and get info on the best time to buy.

And keep Stumbling.

Anywhere.fm is a goldmine, one of the best Stumbles of my life.

The premise is pretty simple: you upload your music library to the site and then you can access it from anywhere with their online music player. So far the users have uploaded over 10 million songs.

Oh, and its FREE.

Basically this means that after you upload your library you can listen to your music anywhere with internet access. At the computer at work, on your mobile device, at any wifi hotspot. No need to buy an mp3 player with tons of storage, it’s all there online for free.

As if all that wasn’t enough, the guys who run anywhere.fm bought licenses for 99 of the best songs you’ve never listened to. I actually listen to the free music more than my own library. The songs are that good.

Just like all good Web 2.0 programs there’s a friend and sharing component too. You can find your friends, find new friends, and listen to their libraries and playlists. My username is xander54, and my (incomplete) library is www.anywhere.fm/xander54 once you become a member.

Check out the site, upload some songs, and friend me!

Happy Stumbling.

I’m starting a new series called “This Week’s Best Stumble.” And the first in the series is, you guessed it, StumbleUpon itself!

If you don’t use SU, start. But I will warn you: it’s incredibly addicting. So addicting, in fact, that I barely watch TV or check social networking sites anymore in favor of Stumbling. It’s just that good.

The premise is simple: you register, input a list of your interests, download a no-frills toolbar to your browser, and click Stumble! SU then takes you to a random internet site having to do with one of your interests.

I think of it as a personal Google. Instead of compiling the most important information around a specific search term; it lines up relevant websites that it predicts you will enjoy.

And believe me, whatever algorithm they’re using, it’s spot-on.

In typical Web 2.0 fashion, the SU geeks have built a community component into their software as well. You can “friend” fellow Stumblers, and send them links to pages you believe they will enjoy.

SU also allows comments for any website indexed in their database. If you want to check out the reviews of your (or any) website, just go to www.stumbleupon.com/url/*website* where *website* is the url of the site you want to see.

Be sure not to overlook what people are saying about your site.

Next week I’ll post the best Stumble I’ve found to date. Feel free to link to any good ones you find in the comments.

P.S. My SU homepage is here. Take a look at what I’ve liked, and friend me!

Happy Stumbling!