Gadget watchers sat up the other day when Slacker announced the debut of its personalised streamed music service, delivered via in-car/home satellite, wireless, web and a bespoke portable player. According to Engadget’s report, Broadband Instruments is a San Diego-based company that has employed former execs from the likes of iRiver, MusicMatch and Diamond Rio, so there’s a fairly impressive pedigree there already.
Users can indicate their preferences via the web or by flagging played tracks. Users will be able to use the Slacker portable player, pictured above, to listen to personalised radio stations, provide feedback to improve the accuracy of the music, and purchase and download tracks (at the now-standard $0.99 rate). It’s claimed that the player, which will debut this summer, will offer capacities between 2GB and 120GB (!) and supply metadata gleaned from AllMusicGuide, the web’s most comprehensive music information service. Fascinatingly, Wired reports that the company has employed professional radio programmers to programme genre-specific channels:
(…) even after users customize the channels, they will follow longstanding programming principles. For instance, rather than merely providing “shuffle within the hip hop genre,” stations will kick off every hour with a “power track,” emphasize new, hot tracks, and mix well-known tracks with lesser-known tracks to allow users to discover new artists without becoming alienated.
Slacker’s website player offers a plethora of radio stations, but tellingly while it offers the following (often pretty funny) alternatives for Rock: Rock, Classic Rock, Hard Rock, Soft Rock, Southern Rock, Party Rock, 90s Rock, 80s Rock, 70s Rock, 60s Rock, Oldies and Teen Rock, under its Electronic/Dance section it only offers Progressive Trance, Chill and Disco. Choosing Electronic/Dance indicates that it will play the “best music from Jamiroquai, Orbital, The Crystal Method, Underworld, The Chemical Brothers, Basement Jaxx, Sophie Ellis-Bextor and more” - in other words the usual, unimaginative suspects and a few dodgy people who shouldn’t be there. This isn’t that much of a surprise given the mainstream US slant, perhaps the situation will improve if Slacker proves popular.
Another test is what similar artists Slacker recommends when an artist’s name is supplied. A Kraftwerk query results in an emphasis on 70s electronic German rock (Neu! Can, Tangerine Dream) alongside Brian Eno, Depeche Mode and New Order. Looking to Last.fm, which supplies similar artists based upon user listening habits, shows people who like Kraftwerk listen to Aphex Twin, New Order, Depeche Mode, Boards of Canada and Brian Eno. A fair correlation, though without the German electronic rock (which only comes 19th and 24th).
The web version of Slacker is live now. Reports are that the service is good. Unfortunately, I’ve been unable to get it to work on Firefox, Camino or Safari on my MacBook Pro. However, the online FAQ doesn’t indicate any Apple incompatibilities, so I’ll keep trying until I can report back on its performance. A free version of the service with ads will be available or there’s a paid-for version for $7.50 with enhanced personalisation and no ads. The free version bears the dread limit on number of songs that can be skipped that I first encountered with FineTune’s service.
From the coverage it looks like this is the equivalent of Pandora or Last.fm’s recommendation radio stations, but freed from its ties to the computer. Whether its ease of use will make for a serious threat to the iPod’s hegemony will prove interesting. Slacker, the revenge of radio?
Via: NYT, Gizmodo, Engadget, Wired
