Slacker CEO Dennis Mudd was profiled in USA Today, illustrating the history of his roots at MusicMatch (of which he and his founded, and eventually sold off to Yahoo).
It's an interesting look at this "dreamer" who is making some very large steps into bringing Internet radio for on-the-go use and into your car.
One interesting thing to note: Slacker apparently signed contracts with Sony/BMG and Universal Music, has an agreement in principle with Warner and is negotiating with EMI. So they won't be facing the same RIAA "scrutiny" that XM's Inno/Helix is experiencing.
Anyone see the slacker as a potential threat?
Thanks Ryan.
This is the first bit of news I heard about Slacker since you last posted about it weeks ago. It seems like these guys are....how should I say it......slackers? :P
Have to keep an eye on Slacker, they have some nice hardware coming out and hopefully SatRad can adopt some of those ideas.
If they're not using the DMCA statutory license and negotiation direclty with the big labels, then they're not going to have all that interesting indy label content. So their content isn't going to be as deep as XM/Sirius. I've used the service now, and I find for a lot of genres (like electronica) the pickings are limited because they only have access to the tracks that got picked up by the big labels. Maybe they can fix this in the future... but it's going to be hard to have an in-depth catalog of the more rare stuff if they have to sign licensing agreements with thousands and thousands of labels!
Actually Rusty, Slacker has agreements with hundreds of indy labels. Most any indy label will be interested in any means to showcase their talent and Slacker has obliged.
Also of note is that Slacker is still in "beta" mode. Songs are being added continuously and I have noticed some of the additions already just in my personal experience. As time goes on Slacker will deepen but the best part about the deeper playlists will be that YOU control just how deep it gets!
Slacker gets better and better every week. I will be snatching up a player as soon as they are released.