The Wall Street Journal's Sarah McBride (who is, by far, my favorite reporter in this beat) took an in depth look at the growing space of Internet radio and it's evolution into the untethered space.

Profiling devices like the Sansa Connect, to Pandora's deal with Sprint (and their Wifi device), and of course, Slacker - the WSJ article does a pretty damn good job at looking at this rapidly emerging market. Lest we forget that terrestrial radio isn't sitting idly by, with CBS having recently acquired Last.fm and accounting for some 20% of all online radio listening.

A good chunk of the article is devoted to profiling Slacker as well as their upcoming portable device and satellite-powered car dock. One thing that we learn (well, it's news to me) is that the Slacker satellite "radio" antenna will measure in at about 4-inches. Their satellite service, because it isn't necessarily streaming (more like caching), will not initially feature newscasts, traffic reports or sports scores.

It's a good read if you have a WSJ account.

[Wall Street Journal] 

Melodeo, a service that delivers Web-based audio clips to phones, is currently testing a service that streams music to cell phones based on a customer's iTunes playlist.

The new Melodeo service will let consumers listen to their digital music libraries on the go without a portable player. It also lets listeners access songs from their library on more than one PC.

Mind you, Melodeo is not selling copies of songs you to store on your phone - it simply plays the songs contained on your iTunes playlist. That means Melodeo would only have to pay Internet radio usage fees (a tenth of a cent per song play).

"We're doing everything we can to follow the current legal guidelines and standard industry practices where the legal guidelines are not crystal clear," said David Dederer, Melodeo's vice president for music services.

Revenue could come from monthly fees for the service, software download fees, or even audio advertisements, added Dederer.

They expect the first version of the service to launch in 6 to 12 weeks, according to Dederer, who said he hopes to be able to announce a carrier deal by then. (Melodeo currently is partnered with AT&T and Alltel Corp.)

[Billboard.biz]
Thanks Tim!

San Diego-based Slacker has raised $40 million in Series B funding, led by Centennial Ventures and Rho Ventures, and repeat investment from Austin Ventures, Mission Ventures and Sevin Rosen Funds.

This comes on top of a $14.5 million Series A round announced earlier this year. 

PEHub points out that Last.fm raised $5 million, and was subsequently sold to CBS for $280 million (not a bad flip), so how much will Slacker flip for?

Of course Slacker's ambitions are a bit higher, combining their online player, desktop radio and soon a Wifi enabled Slacker Portable and a satellite powered car dock.

So judging by what Slacker wants to do, I think this will be the first in many cash infusions for the company.

[PEHub via Mashable]