Entertainment, Arts and Media

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RADIO
Pandora
Type in the name of your favorite band, and within moments the site will be streaming a radio station, featuring songs from that band and others like it, to your desktop through your browser — no registration and no downloads required. You can "tune" the play list by using the thumbs-up and thumbs-down buttons. A new Backstage section is a searchable directory of artists and albums — "your door to the music universe" — courtesy of the Music Genome Project.

VIDEO BLOG
The 9
Each weekday morning, this vlog delivers some of the latest-greatest stuff that can be found online — video clips, movie trailers, online discussions, blog posts, news stories, quirky websites — as a five-minute streaming videocast starring the foxy (if unnaturally tan) host, Maria Sansone. The must-clicks, presented as a countdown and linked from the home page, range from NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day to movie-poster spoofs in http://hoffgallery.com/index.php (an homage to David Hasselhoff) . Honorable mention goes to Rocketboom 2.0, a mix of Daily Show-esque reports, Web news and commentary on Internet culture. (We lament Amanda Congdon's recent departure as host, but new host Joanne Colan seems up to the task; check out her July 14 bit with the funny folks from Tiki Bar TV. ) For more silliness, head to Ask A Ninja . And be sure to stop by It's Jerry Time!, for hilarious, cleverly-animated "true-life" tales.

ART
Drawn!
This collaborative blog, geared to "anybody who likes to draw," is produced for artists by artists for the purpose of sharing links — mainly sites where you can view individual artists' works — and resources. There's a welcoming vibe, so even if you're not an aspiring Picasso or Pekar, you'll enjoy the illustrations, cartoons, animated video podcasts and other works highlighted here.

INDIE PICKS
Sundance Splinks
This collection of funky, artsy sites compiled by Sundance Festival staff includes Off the Map, a section of Pbs.org that lets you create your own "backyard paradise" — you select images and flash animations (grouped under Watchamacallits, Doohickies and Wigglies, among other categories) and drag them onto a virtual scene — and the fabulously droll Billy Harvey Music. Click Watch on the festival home page to find the Splinks list.

PHOTOGRAPHY
Photo Muse
A joint project by the International Center of Photography in New York City and the George Eastman House in Rochester (the world's oldest photography museum), PhotoMuse remains a work in progress. The site's current online database of images is just a fraction of the ultimate goal of 200,000 by the fall, but it's a fine start. Search by photographer — there are two dozen listed in the drop-down menu, including Weegee (109 works) and Gordon Parks (40) — or keyword. Not to miss: Alfred Eisenstaedt's 1963 shot of children at a puppet theater in the Tuileries, Paris.

HOME MOVIES
Jumpcut
It's an all too common tale: you're capturing fantastic footage at the family barbecue, but by the time you edit it down to a watchable 3-minute clip, your audience has all gone home. You could burn multiple DVDs and drop them in the mail — or you could save yourself the trouble and just upload your masterpiece to Jumpcut.com, add music and visual effects using the site's own editing tools, and then email everybody the link. Give your friends access to your stuff and they can remix it or blend it with their own footage of the same event (What's a little video mashing among friends?). The site recently added original trailer footage from the movie Revenge of the Nerds for users to play with, and promises more licensed material in the months to come. (Users are asked not to upload anything that would be in violation of copyright law.) For straight-up sharing, try ClipShack, which will store up to 50 megabytes worth of media files for you, for free, including stills; video files must be 20 MB or smaller, and in one of the supported formats (.avi, .wmv, .mp2 and others are accepted). Clipshack will also take clips emailed from your cell phone. Think your video warrants wider attention? Post it on YouTube (see below) or Eefoof, a lesser-known site that shares its ad revenue with its contributors (your take depends on how many unique visitors view your work). If you'd rather send your video directly via email, go to Pando. There you can download a neat little peer-to-peer file-transfer application that will make the job faster and easier, essentially by moving it from one computer to another, using Pando's server as a way station (and as a backup; content that you send via Pando remains on the company's server for 14 days). Pando allows you to package up to 1 gigabyte worth of stuff — videos, photos, power-point presentations — at a time.

LONG LIVE ROCK
Wolfgang's Vault
Click "Vault Radio" to stream recordings of live performances of all your favorite rockers from the 1960s and '70s: The Doors, The Stones, Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, Bob Marley, Aretha Franklin, Elvis Costello and lots more. Vault Radio plays selected tracks from these concerts in an FM-quality, 128K digital radio stream. Click "In Rotation" to see what's included in the current stream; it's always changing. (We were lucky enough to catch the Allman Brothers Band's March 12, 1971 performance of "Whipping Post" at the Fillmore East.) The site also sells vintage posters, photographs, T-shirts and all manner of memorabilia.

PODCASTS
Podcast Pickle
The sheer quantity of podcasts and videocasts now available make the existence of sites like Podcast Pickle a necessity — how else would you keep up? Last we checked, the directory boasted nearly 10,000 casts. Use the advanced search tools or browse the Top 100 list or weekly picks to find something worth loading onto your own portable player, or add your own cast to the mix. The site automatically downloads new feeds as they are posted by the source; register to create a personal page of favorites, and you'll be able to access everything you want in one place. Recently launched by the same outfit: Sportpodcast.com and Churchpodcasts.com; other genre-specific sites, including SciFicaster.com and WallSteetpod.com, are coming soon. CLick here for TIME's podcast picks.

VIDEO WORLD
YouTube
By far the most popular video-sharing site on the Web, YouTube catapulted into public consciousness after the posting of a certain cupcake-fueled Saturday Night Live spoof. Although "Lazy Sunday," was eventually removed from the site after NBC complained — the network now posts teaser clips from hit shows like The Office — YouTube's numbers kept growing: by July, less than a year after its public launch, traffic was up to 65,000 new video uploads and 100 million video viewings per day. Relive treasures such as Journey's "Separate Ways", observe a Great White grabbing lunch or see what folks with too much free time can do with a digicam and a dream. Often, video quality isn't great, and a lot of the stuff is junk, yet somehow we can't stop digging around in it. Neither can network execs, apparently: a comedy pilot called "Nobody's Watching," written two years ago for the WB but only recently posted on YouTube, was just bought by, yup, NBC.