Where I see “vanilla”, others may see “streamlined”, however. The site is all about finding new artists in your area or in the genre you like. There are no loud bells and whistles, no distracting graphics, no garish designs. It is a simple search by artist location and genre to find new music. You can also search by listener to find people with similar taste in music as you.

Users of Pure Volume are sorted into Artists and Listeners. Once you sign up under the correct category, you can immediately begin searching the site for music or fellow music lovers – no mucking about with your profile beforehand required.

One thing I noticed about the site was that it seems to have some bandwidth issues. This happens sometimes as a site gets more popular, but one thing I expect when I see a site that is so plain in design is a fast load time and fast search time. It took several minutes to return my results on a simple search for Artists in my area.

Aside from load times, Pure Volume is also suffering from other issues. For example, I didn’t like that I couldn’t search “All States” for a punk band. I already know that living in the toolies means there aren’t many punk bands around, and I’d like to find music I like elsewhere, without having to manually enter each state, then search, then go back and search the next state.

They seem to have their eye on a goal, and part of that seems to be becoming known as a streamlined, efficient music site. In order for that to happen, they have some work to do on interface and bandwidth. I’ll be keeping an eye on them to see how they grow.

My original version found at Profy site.

Trig is competing with other social networking music sites like MOG and PureVolume. It is closest in look and feel to MOG than to PureVolume. Trig has more unsigned music than MOG does right now, with MOG leading in the “bands you have actually heard of” department. Right now I’d recommend Trig for people looking to discover new music, and new music loving friends, and MOG for people who are looking for the signed bands they know and love.

Trig gives you a profile on sign up that you can customize, though happily not as much as MySpace. It lets you add your own avatar or photo, a quote, some basic biographical information, and choose a skin to alter the appearance of your Trig profile page.

You can browse Trig for fellow music lovers by using their Trig Public Timeline page, similar to Twitter ‘s public timeline feature. This lets you see the music files, videos, profiles and quotes people are posting in real time, and how each is rated according to the Trig society. You give music pages and music lover pages “Trigs” when you like them – the higher the number of Trigs, the higher your position in searches and on Trig pages.

You can browse bands and singers in a variety of ways on Trig. My favorite thing about Trig is that it includes the ability to browse by genre, location and other aspects of music, including what a band or singer sounds like. That’s fantastic when you are seeking new music to fall in love with.

All in all Trig delivers a nice package that includes accessible music and an easy to use format. It has the right edgy vibe and look, and is easy to navigate. It is in beta right now, but any user can send invites and sign up for the beta is open to all.

My original version found at Profy site