Slacker, a new music service out today in beta, "is essentially a personalized Internet radio station, similar to popular services Last.fm and Pandora," reports Matt Marshall, but it will also have its own portable device (above), like a satellite radio service. Marshall continues:
On Slacker, your "station" refreshes automatically with new music. It plays music that matches your tastes, which you determine by clicking "love it" on a song you like, and "ban it" for one you don't like. Slacker then constantly updates the music it plays for you, finds new songs that match the bands you like, and songs from bands that are similar in style to those bands (those that have say, a similar energy level, popularity, or era; Slacker does not, however, assess "acoustic characteristics," like Pandora does, to decide what music to send you). It reshuffles songs just like a radio station, but it feeds you newly released songs, and also other songs that match your updated tastes.
How much does it cost?
The basic Slacker account will be free. A premium service of $7.50 a month lets you save tracks, and avoid ads. The hardware devices, depending on the model, will cost $149, $299 and $399. They'll ship during the second half of the year. Slacker wants to integrate its music service within other devices, too, such as cellphones.
There is a FAQ.
There's also an AP story, San Diego startup launches 'personal radio' service, which provides more background. It says chief executive Dennis Mudd was the co-founder and former CEO of Musicmatch, while Jonathan Sasse, Slacker's vice president of marketing, used to be CEO of iRiver America.
Anyone likely to sign up?
