Listen to Web Radio Wherever You Are!

It's like having a radio with you all the time, only you get to pick and choose the genres and artists you listen to. Mercora M is a new wireless music service with an ambitious goal: to let you access the largest collection of music and artists ever assembled online. The subscription service allows you to access over 100,000 digital radio channels worldwide, with over 3 million songs. You can also access digital music you have stored on your or a friend's PC.

Mercora M gives you access to over 100,000 digital radio channels with over 3 million songs.

Mercora M is a subscription service with software that installs on your Pocket PC or Smartphone (Windows Mobile 5 or 2003 SE), allowing you to access the service through a wireless connection. The software lets you listen to music in near -CD quality from all over the world. You can search for the artist, song, or album, and save it as a favorite or put it in your library. (Searching for a specific song is tricky. It has to be playing on Web radio when you do the search or you won't find it. However, if the song is stored on a PC and if you are set up to access the PC, it will find it and play it.)

Once you have found the music you want, you can find similar artists, read artist biographies, and view artist images. You can also use the application to remotely connect to a PC via the Internet and listen to music stored on that computer. Mercora M will also let you chat with friends and make new ones online to discuss your favorite artists. (Note also that you can only add people to your chat list from the desktop version of the program, discussed below.)

To access music stored on a PC, the desktop version of the program—IMRadio—must be installed. The PC version also lets you become an online DJ and share your music with listeners all around the world. You can Webcast music that you have ripped from CDs or downloaded from another network—as long as you legally own it. Note that the Windows Mobile and PC versions behave a bit differently. For example, IMRadio will continue playing songs while the Windows Mobile version stops after each song has played, forcing you to restart it to play another selection.

Minor kinks; get an unlimited data plan

This innovative service is a wonderful way to listen to your favorite tunes and discover new ones. Remember that you are not downloading music files but listening to music that is streamed live over the Internet. It works remarkably well over a phone connection, but I did experience some buffering gaps, especially when using a slow phone network connection. I tried it in my car while driving, and the reception was so intermittent that it was virtually worthless. Friends tell me that it works much better with EVDO and other broadband connections. I found that it worked more satisfactorily with almost no buffering issues when connected through Wi-Fi. Finally, you should have an unlimited data plan if you plan on using this service via a phone connection.

Navigation on the mobile version of the program was a bit problematic. At first, I couldn't figure out how to back up in menus or hop from one area to another without exiting the program and starting over. However, I accidentally discovered that you can do this using the navigation button. This brings up the fact that the current version of the program lacks a decent Help feature to clarify these things. (Mercora has said that they will include one in the near future.)

The search function is embedded inside a non-related sub-menu and needs to be accessible from the main menu. Note also that I rarely scored a hit when searching for a song or artist on the mobile version of the program, but had great success doing the same on the desktop version. (I don't know why there would be a difference.) It seems to me that, if you are looking for a specific album or song, it's better to use the mobile version in conjunction with the desktop version to find them on a PC.