Friday, August 29, 2008

Fear Not, Internet Radio Listeners

Yes, Pandora is nearly likely demised, but the substitute has arrived- Slacker. Here's the high point of the PC World review:
The strongest aspect of the Slacker Portable is the associated Slacker Web music service, which you can listen to for free without the player. I suggest that you do so right away, even if you don't plan on buying the player. As with the Pandora online music service, users can enter an artist's name on the Slacker site, click Enter, and create a custom "station" consisting of free music from that artist and others similar in sound or genre. The Slacker site does a great job of matching your demonstrated tastes to other music that you might enjoy, though Slacker's artist roster and music-matching abilities don't seem quite as deep as what I've experienced with Pandora's
service.

Here's where the Slacker Portable is unique: After entering an artist's name and creating a custom station at the site, you can sync your stations to the player, for free. As a result, you'll always have a pocket full of music that you like, plus the element of surprise as to what's coming next on your station's playlist.

I imagine Keith Newman & I will talk about this a bit, along with the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, Sunday night on WCSB, during my Cleveland visit.

1 comment:

Michael Jarrell said...

All well and good, but they are likely to run into the same problem as Pandora. Usurious rates for music. No amount of add revenue can match what the government backed industry is forcing them to pay. Unless substantive changes are made in the regulations internet radio is likely to sink before it ever really got off the ground.