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Slacker
File:Slackerradio logo.jpg
File:Slacker screen.jpg
Type of site
Internet radio
Available inEnglish Only
OwnerSlacker, Inc.
URLhttp://www.slacker.com/
CommercialYes
RegistrationOptional (Limited Plays), Free

Slacker is a US-only interactive Internet radio service, available as a web player or a portable device. It allows users to create and share customized music stations starting with either Slacker's presets or a list of artists. In April 2009, the service had over 2.4 million songs, organized into over 100 programmed stations and 10,000 artist stations.[1]

History

The company was founded in 2004 by Celite Milbrandt, and was launched on March 15, 2007 - Slacker, Inc. [2][3] The company was founded by Dennis Mudd, CEO, [4] the former CEO of MusicMatch, which was purchased by Yahoo Music and is now known as LAUNCHcast. The president is Jim Cady, former CEO of Rio.

On September 20, 2007, the service [5] finalized its deals with 4 Major labels; Sony BMG Music Entertainment, EMI, Universal, and Warner; it also announced deals with thousands of Indie labels. [6]

On January 31, 2008 the company began shipping a portable player.[7][8] The second generation of the player, the Slacker G2 Personal Radio Player,[9] was released on September 16, 2008 [10]

April 2, 2008 - the service announces its partnership with Devicescape, allowing Slacker to integrate Devicescape Connect into its Portable Players. [11]

April 8, 2008 - the company announces agreements with top music publishers, including EMI Music Publishing, Sony/ATV Music Publishing, Universal Music Publishing Group and Warner/Chappell Music. The agreements, signed before the Slacker Portable Player launched, allow Portable Player users to listen to cached Internet radio stations and allow premium radio users to save songs for later playback. [12]

November 19, 2008 – Sony introduced Slacker Personal Radio as the latest Sony BRAVIA Internet Video Link content provider. Slacker’s library of CD-quality music across all genres and eras ensures that music lovers can enjoy radio stations on their BRAVIA HDTV ranging from music of the golden-era classics to today’s hottest hits. By simply linking their BRAVIA Internet Video Link to your online Slacker account, users can easily enjoy their own custom Slacker stations created online where they have fine-tuned categories to set artist, year, popularity and more.[13]

December 19, 2008 - the service announced the availability of Slacker Radio Plus. This service provides unlimited skips, unlimited request and no ads. This is essentially the Premium Service minus the ability to save songs to your Slacker Library. The cost of Slacker Radio Plus is $3.99/month (billed as $47.88 annually).[14]

January 8, 2009 – the service announced the availability of the free Slacker Mobile application [15] for BlackBerry smartphones from Research In Motion. BlackBerry smartphone users can now hear their favorite Slacker radio stations wherever they go, whether they are connected to a wireless network or not – a Slacker Mobile [16] feature exclusive to BlackBerry smartphones.[17]

January 14, 2009 - the service announced the availability of the free Slacker Mobile application [18] for iPhone, iPhone 3G and iPod touch at the Apple iTunes App Store. The free application [19] is available immediately by visiting www.Slacker.com from your iPhone.[20]

January 22, 2009 - the service released new features and visual enhancements to their web interface at Slacker.com. [21] Additions include a streamlined visual interface with one-click access to artist bios and album reviews, new station creation options, as well as a “Buy Now” feature to purchase favorite tracks.[22]

February 4, 2009 - the service announced a new version of their Blackberry Slacker Mobile application now supports the BlackBerry Storm smartphone from Research In Motion.[23]

March 31, 2009 the service announced the addition of song lyrics to Slacker Radio Plus [24], providing the ability to read and sing along with the words to their favorite songs. This is an upgrade offering which gives listeners access to all the features of the free Slacker Basic Radio service, plus advanced features including the ability to skip an unlimited number of songs, unlimited song requests, ad-free listening and now full song lyrics provided by LyricFind. [25]

May 13, 2009 - Sony today launched its Walkman X1000 series [26] and the addition of a new, last-minute feature. In addition to a web browser and YouTube streaming video, the touchscreen Walkman now has a built-in Slacker Radio app; similar to Slacker's own device, the X1000 subscribes to music channels that automatically cache whenever the player is connected to Wi-Fi, supplying it with enough music to continue playing offline. It works with Slacker's free, three-channel service as well as its paid service, which gives more more control and lyrics while removing ads. [27]

Basic functions

Slacker offers traditional genre, specialty, and artist stations pre-programmed by professional DJs while also letting users build entire stations of specific artists. Slacker users can continue to develop any of these stations by rating favorite songs and banning artists or songs. Stations can also be adjusted to play older or newer music, more hits or more eclectic music. Users who log onto Slacker can begin listening to music from more than 100 professionally programmed and 10,000 artist-specific stations.[1] When a user inputs the name of a specific band or artist Slacker will instantly create a station based on that musician along with similar artists. This feature allows users to discover new artists similar to the ones they already like. Users can also create their own stations by inputting artists they want and letting Slacker and Slacker's professional DJs fill out the rest of the station with similar songs and artists. If a user adds 15 or more artists into a selected personal station, Slacker does not add additional artists and only songs from the specifically chosen bands will play on that station. All of the genre, artist and user created stations are completely customizable.

Web Player

The free Slacker Basic Radio user account is an advertisement-supported service. It allows registered users to have free access to the basic features, and works on all Flash-enabled web browsers.

In addition to its free, ad-supported service, Slacker offers two levels of subscription services.

  • Slacker Radio Plus adds unlimited skips and song requests, no advertisements, full lyrics, and the ability to turn off DJ’s on stations.
  • Slacker Radio Premium also adds the ability to save songs to the user's music library online and the Slacker Portable Player. Songs stored in the library can be played an unlimited number of times.

Slacker Mobile Applications

Slacker Mobile apps work with the free Slacker Basic Radio service and Slacker Radio subscription services. The applications provide high-quality stereo playback from any wireless connection. Listeners can take advantage of the Slacker Radio service features on the mobile phone applications including: station creation, recently played station folder, fine-tune options, view artist biographies, photos, album art, reviews and lyrics (if they are a Slacker Radio Plus subscriber). The mobile apps have the ability to pause, skip songs, rate songs as favorites as well as ban songs and artists.

iPhone, iPhone 3G and iPod touch

iPhone and iPod Touch listeners[28] have the ability to toggle between full screen, current and upcoming art views, having the ability to “peak ahead” while listening to their station. The Slacker Personal Radio Mobile application for iPhone and iPod touch is available immediately as a free download at the Apple iTunes App Store, visit www.Slacker.com from your iPhone or visit www.slacker.com/iphone on the web for more details.

BlackBerry® Bold™, BlackBerry® Curve™ series, BlackBerry® Pearl™ series, BlackBerry® Pearl™ Flip and BlackBerry® Storm™ smartphones

Slacker and RIM have provided station caching exclusively to BlackBerry users. Caching allows listeners to store stations to the actual devices enabling them to listen to Slacker Radio without having a network connection. The Slacker Mobile application on BlackBerry smartphones also have multi-tasking capabilities and Bluetooth[29] support. The Slacker Personal Radio Mobile application for BlackBerry smartphones is available immediately as a free download on BlackBerry App World or by visiting Slacker.com from your BlackBerry® Browser.

Android

Listeners on DROID by Motorola[30], HTC G1, HTC MyTouch Android handsets, DROID ERIS by HTC and HTC Hero smartphones can now listen to Slacker from their mobile phones. The free Slacker Radio application for Android is available in the Android Market or by visiting www.Slacker.com on any supported Android smartphone. Owners of the DROID by Motorola can find Slacker quickly in the Verizon channel of the Android Market.

Slacker Community

Slacker has provided its listeners and all music fans with the opportunity to connect via Twitter, MySpace and Facebook to further promote music discovery.

Twitter

Twitter users can login to Slacker[31] and select the option to automatically or manually tweet the following items to alert their friends and followers about their music discovery experience:

  • Station changes/plays
  • Favorite Song
  • Banned Song
  • Banned Artist
  • Pick from any or all of the above

Facebook

Facebook users can find Slacker Radio on Facebook and become a fan to get the latest on music news, new features, promotions and Slacker contests.

MySpace

Listeners can add their Slacker Radio station to MySpace with the free Slacker widget. Simply click the "share station" button from the Now Playing screen. Then click the "add to MySpace" button.

Slacker Portable Radio Player

The first generation players were available in 2GB, 4GB, and 8GB capacities [32]. On January 9, 2008 the not yet released Slacker Portable Player received Laptop Magazine's Best of CES Portable Audio/Video Player Award.[33]

Slacker G2 Personal Radio Player

The Slacker G2 Portable Player doing a station update

On September 16, 2008 Slacker released a new portable player called Slacker G2. [34] When located in a WiFi hot spot or connected to a PC, its radio delivery network can download and refresh selected songs on the device and turn them into "personalized radio stations." The players do not have to be connected to WiFi for playback.[35] The player ties in with your Slacker account, and features available depend on whether you use the free, Plus or Premium service. It has a 2.4” color screen (Resolution: 320x240 TFT) and comes in capacities of 4GB & 8GB. It is compatible with existing digital music formats (MP3, WMA and ACC), and claims up to 15 hours of battery life.

Devicescape Connect

Devicescape Connect is a feature that was added to the Slacker Portable Players to allow users to access WiFi-hotspots that would normally require a web-based login, something that the Slacker Portable could not previously access because of its lack of a web-based browser. [36]

Third-Party Last.fm Audioscrobbler Hacks

The application has an unofficial hack available from LastSlacker that tracks the songs played on the player and reports them to Last.fm. Essentially this enables the Last.fm Audioscrobbler in Slacker. Users with both a Slacker and a Last.fm account can build a library of cataloged songs in Last.fm profile that reflect both services.

Alternatively, the LastFM Firefox Extension automatically "scrobbles" songs heard on Slacker to a user's account on Last.fm. Also works with Pandora.

Similar Services

References

  1. ^ a b CES 08: Slacker Portable arrives this month
  2. ^ 'Slacker' Music Service Combines Player, Recommendations
  3. ^ Slacker Introduces Personalized Radio Everywhere-Free Beta Service Unveiled Today
  4. ^ Slacker's CEO isn't one
  5. ^ Slacker (beta)
  6. ^ Slacker Music Service Signs Deals with All Major Labels, Thousands of Indies
  7. ^ Slacker Personal Radio - Portable Devices, Music Players
  8. ^ Slacker Portable Ships Tomorrow. What's Next?
  9. ^ Slacker G2 gets reviewed
  10. ^ Review: Slacker G2 Personal Radio Player
  11. ^ Slacker and Devicescape Partner to Simplify and Expand Wi-Fi Access for the Slacker Portable Radio Player
  12. ^ Slacker Announces Major Publishing Agreements
  13. ^ Sony adds Slacker to BRAVIA Internet Video Link
  14. ^ Slacker introduces new cheaper premium plan
  15. ^ Slacker for BlackBerry
  16. ^ Blackberry Apps Review
  17. ^ CES 2009: Slacker Available for BlackBerry Smartphones!
  18. ^ New Slacker Internet Radio iPhone App
  19. ^ Six must-have iPhone freebies
  20. ^ Slacker’s iPhone Music App Gives Pandora a Run For Its Money
  21. ^ Slacker.com (Winter 2009)
  22. ^ Slacker Revamps Site
  23. ^ Slacker Radio Comes to the BlackBerry Storm - Officially!
  24. ^ Slacker introduces new, cheaper premium plan
  25. ^ Slacker Adds Song Lyrics to “Radio Plus” Service
  26. ^ Sony X-series Walkman up for pre-order, features Slacker Radio
  27. ^ Sony touch Walkman hits US with Slacker Radio
  28. ^ Slacker’s iPhone Music App Gives Pandora a Run For Its Money
  29. ^ Slacker Updates BlackBerry App With Bluetooth Support
  30. ^ Slacker Radio now playing on Android phones
  31. ^ Slacker Radio Adds Twitter Functionality To Give Music Fans A New Method To Share Lady Gaga Songs
  32. ^ Slacker Music Service Launches Portable Player
  33. ^ Best of CES 2008
  34. ^ An alternative to the iPod, plus free music
  35. ^ Review: Slacker G2 Media Player a Bit of an Overachiever
  36. ^ Slacker Portable gets Devicescape WiFi manager

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