For quite awhile now I've been using and enjoying a relative newcomer to the Internet radio scene: Slacker.com. In three words, I love it. So much so that I'm beginning to consider dumping all my other Internet music sources, including my increasingly expensive Rhapsody Unlimited subscription. Don't get me wrong, I like Rhapsody and I'll probably keep it for awhile longer; at least until Slacker finally releases its long promised portable player. More on that in just a bit. But, more and more as time goes on, I find myself listening to Slacker and paying for Rhapsody. I'm listening to it as I write this post.
So...what is Slacker?
For those among us who happen to be hung up on labels (yeah, I guess that describes me), Slacker has been categorized as a "Music Recommendation Service" like Pandora and Last.fm. Its been put together by former CEOs from the digital-music pioneers iRiver, Rio, and Musicmatch and its aimed directly at those of us who are correctly categorized (again with the labels) as music "Slackers" - folks who want their music selections fine-tuned to their tastes without extending much, if any, real effort.
With Slacker, like some of the other music-streaming services, you can either choose a preordained station of a particular genre or you can create a custom station. This was a feature I liked, and still like, in Rhapsody but when you create a custom station in Slacker you do so by designating a particular artist and the Slacker algorithm offers up a host of other artists that it thinks you're likely to enjoy as well.
You go through the list and choose as many of them as you like. If you only pick two or three others then Slacker will fill in air-time with artists of its own choosing but, if you pick 15 or more, you're likely to only hear music from those artists. One thing I've noticed is that Slacker is really good at picking artists to compliment your original selection; and it often includes a few you might not have ever considered - or even heard of.
Throughout my experience with Slacker I've chosen at least 15 artists for each of my custom stations but, within the 15, I've included a few that I wasn't all that familiar with and I've been pleasantly surprised. Of course, even artists we like don't always make music we want to listen to and Slacker allows you to click a "heart" button for tracks you really like and it provides a "ban" button for those tracks you'd really rather not hear...ever. This kind of software-driven platform that gets to know you better with every positive or negative rating is nothing new, Pandora and iLike.com use it splendidly, as well.
Okay, I get it...but how do you play it?
Glad you asked, 'cause in just a minute I get to tell you about the coolest Slacker feature - the upcoming Portable Player. First, though, you have two ways of accessing Slacker.com, both of which work best with a broadband connection.
- Slacker Web Player: All you've got to do is visit Slacker.com, sign-up for a free account, and you can...just a minute, one of my favorite tracks is playing, I'll be right back...okay, sorry about that but I just love "Hallelujah" by Jeff Buckley. I'm not crazy about everything else but, heck, that's what the "heart" and "ban" buttons are for. Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, sign-up for a free account and just start creating custom stations and listening to great music.
- Slacker Desktop Player: This is the Slacker player I use most often. They've just updated it and, once you've downloaded and installed it, all the custom stations you've created within the web player will be transfered to the Desktop player, or vice versa.
- Portable Player: This thing was supposed to be available back in June but, unfortunately, its debut is long overdue. Yes, it is going to make its appearance one of these days soon but just when that'll be, well, your guess is as good as mine.
More about the Portable Player
The planned portable player will be both WiFi and satellite-enabled. Cool, huh? It'll automatically cache the custom tailored music from the stations
you've created via WiFi, USB, or satellite, depending on where you are. Also in the works is a vehicle docking station that'll allow you to stream your stations while truckin' down the road; according to the Slacker web site: "The Slacker Portable Player stores new music so you never have to worry
about losing the satellite signal. Your music never stops playing and
you can continue to personalize your music experience." The player loads up
with hundreds of songs in a matter of seconds, based on your previous
selections, and you're on the road.
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