Say you’re chilling at home or at work with a hankering for some new tunes. Where do you turn? We know there’s hundreds of great ways to find new music online and you’ve probably got a few favourites you regularly head to. But there’s always room for another fun, collaborative, innovative new player in the music world, isn’t there?

Today’s new music tool is JamCloud, which is an awesome new way of listening to music and watching videos socially. Users create listening rooms with their friends or like-minded listeners and vote on the tracks being played. DJs take turns and build ratings as they go, while anyone can build playlists for personal or public use.

Get Started With JamCloud

Sign up on the JamCloud website, then download the Adobe Air application. This will run on all operating systems and it’s easy to install. You’ll probably be ready to roll in a couple of minutes.

Solo Fun On JamCloud

JamCloud is one of those applications which is just as fun solo as sociable. You can easily search through the music and video collection and make playlists for yourself or for sharing later. JamCloud starts by guiding you through the process of making playlists, getting you straight into the music fun. It’s really easy and will get you jamming in no time at all.

Sociable Listening On JamCloud

The next thing to check out are JamCloud’s listening rooms. Click on “Go Social” in the bottom left corner of JamCloud’s application. Either find a room by genre or popularity or create your own room for sharing with your friends. Click “Go Solo” later to jump back to solo music playing.

Users can chat about the music in the room using the room’s chat channel.

The DJ responsibilities will rotate and you can jump in and have a go whenever you like. To become a DJ, you’ll need to have a playlist prepared to share with the listening room. The playlist will need to be activated by clicking on the light to the left so that it’s clear which of your playlists you’re keen to share with this room. Then press “Click to DJ” and the top item of your playlist will start when it’s your turn to DJ. Make sure you get a feel for the the room before you give DJ’ing a go. DJs are ranked, so you don’t want to be upsetting people by misreading the taste of people present.

To establish DJ ratings and track ratings, users are encouraged to rate the tracks as they’re played using a “Meh” or “W00t” scale. If you really love the track, you can add it to your library by using the buttons in the top right. This will make it easier to add to your playlists later.

Sharing Rooms

If you feel a JamCloud room needs some more attention from your friends, it’s possible to generate a quick shout-out to Twitter or Facebook from within JamCloud.

Importing Playlists

You may have already created some great playlists on YouTube, so Jamcloud makes it easy for you to import these. Try searching, but limit it to the “Playlists” option.

JamCloud Music

At the moment, JamCloud uses music from SoundCloud and YouTube. In the future, they hope to add more sources, but with 325 million tracks already available you’ll have plenty to start you off.

More Music Madness

If JamCloud’s not your thing for some reason, there’s plenty of other music streaming applications out there to do similar things. Try out these cool services:

• Hang Out On Console.fm To Hear Great New Tunes
• 5 Websites To Play Music Matching Your Mood
• Top 10 Free Ways To Discover New Music Online

What did you try on JamCloud? Are you more into personal online playlists or social?