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I’ve written in the past on how I’ve largely supplanted commercial/public radio stations with a combination of my iPod and XM. XM is great, but it’s not free and not available everywhere (I’m lucky I can pick up a signal at my desk, but a lot of buildings don’t get a signal). My iPod has limited batteries and is limited to music I already know. Enter a slew of internet startups that want to fill the gap between my iPod and XM.

MP3.com attempted the first personal radio station by allowing people to upload their MP3 collections to stream over the web. They were sued out of existence by the RIAA. There were several other startups that were similar to Launchcast, which was later purchased by Yahoo!, that allowed listeners to stream music stations based upon preferences. The more songs you rate, the better the selections got. These couldn’t support the model based upon advertising and collapsed with the internet bubble (other than Launchcast which was purchased and then begun charging for unlimited playback).

In the last couple of years, several music startups have developed around Web 2.0 guidelines. The largest of these new websites is Last.fm, a UK based company that allows you to stream personalized radio stations. Last.fm puts a plugin on your computer to read what you are listening to on your computer or iPod. It then programs a radio station for you out of the tracks in its database, but does not allow you to listen to certain songs on demand or download new tracks. (Last.fm was recently purchased by CBS for $280 million).

The last caveats are the reason for several new startups that have been highlighted in the past couple of weeks. Lala seems to be the most interesting concept. Lala will allow users to upload their libraries and listen to individual tracks on demand (similar to MP3.com). Unlike MP3.com, they have already gotten the ok of the RIAA by writing a big, fat check. If Lala has the rights to the track, which they do from all 4 major labels through the RIAA, they will substitute their copy so you don’t have to upload every track in your library. Lala will make their money by selling you music based upon your library. That music will be downloaded directly to your iPod, bypassing iTunes entirely. That opens up a problem though if your iPod needs new software, which wipes the drive, or if there’s some sort of error which causes the hard drive to disappear. You can share your playlists and discover new music from people with similar playlists (another way to sell music), which gets around the problem of only your library being available to you.

ubroadcast is another startup hoping to cash in on the personal radio boom. It’s a free service that allows anyone to create and broadcast their own radio station. You can upload your own tracks, create live broadcasts, or use tracks uploaded by other listeners. The service is free (per TechCrunch, I haven’t tried the service) but listeners must download a separate player, Realplayer and Windows Media Player are not supported. I don’t see the business model here, I’m guessing that the player contains ads, but if you want to create your own radio station to broadcast and you don’t want to pay for Shoutcast, ubroadcast appears to be for you.

I have played with Last.fm, but since I mainly use my iPod for podcasts it hasn’t been very helpful. Lala would be a great concept if I could stream internet radio at work. But since I can’t, it will probably be of limited benefit to myself. I’ll have to stick to my iPod and XM, but there are some interesting concepts coming out that will ultimately allow for the perfect personal radio station.