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.
Of course Slacker won't initially offer news reports. They are not a live service. You cannot get CNBC anywhere but from XM or Sirius in your car. Besides, Slacker's CEO even said they won't offer news at first; they plan to provide a personalized news service via caching. He said that in the audio interview you posted on Orbitcast a while back. Didn't you listen to it?
I found this picture on this website http://venturebeat.com/2007/03/13/slacker-the-real-ipod-killer
....can anyone tell me if the first picture is of the slacker car kit? I dont remember seeing it pictured before.
Slacker seems interesting on the surface, but idunno how big of a hit it will be. Of course there will be some that will hop on it regardless, but I'm not in to this satrad stuff JUST for the music.
They will have no "content" other than some short playlist channels with zero personality. Just an iPod with a 4" (seriously 4", that's a big ass antenna) satellite antenna.
When their online service came out I listened for a few days and then when right back to Sirius/XM online. Then when their desktop player came out I tried that for a few days. I went right back to Sirius/XM online. The service just doesn't cut it for me. I doubt that some glorified MP3 player with a 4" antenna is going to make a dent in the amount of money that give to Sirius and XM.
The one big flaw that I read in the Journal this morning was how the streaming of new music works. Slacker will beam a set list of music to everyone and the device will discard music that isn't in your "favored" group of tunes. Let's say this thing really gets to know what you like and what you dislike and discards 90% of the stuff that is downloaded to it. How fresh will your content be? At least with satrad I can change the channel, or switch to the other service to find music or talk or news that I want to hear at that moment. This Slacker device will either limit your genre of music or you will get very limited selections if you have a wide range of musical interests.
>>....can anyone tell me if the first picture is of the slacker car kit?
Yes, I have seen that picture before and I think that it truly is the car docking cradle. I saw it on Gizmodo or some such site that interviewed the Mudd guy from Musicmatch and that was one of the images that was supposed to be supplied by Slacker for the interview. That is a big SOB as well.
> I doubt that some glorified MP3 player with a 4" antenna is going to make a dent in the amount of money that give to Sirius and XM.
The car satellite kit will basically be for truckers or people on the road a majority of the time. I'll be able to use the WiFi at work and home, and the unit will have the ability to pre-cache well in advance, so shorter trips will be covered. Long trips one could load MP3's.
As I said in the other thread, they are still in "beta" form and just recently got that large, 40 mil. cash infusion. I would expect their playlist and channels to expand based on the many comments they've been receiving through their easy comment system.
Like I said, the XM unit was sitting at work, and all shifts had the option of using either that or Slacker.com on the PC. The choice was always Slacker, so the XM was canceled. It's not a true replacement for satradio, (not without live content) but never having to hear artist X on the channel (after you ban them) is worth it alone. I find that with the classic rock channel, I'm only blocking 3 or 4 songs all day, nowhere near 90%. Yes there are a bunch of songs that repeat everyday, but it's alot less than on terrestrial stations.
>>I find that with the classic rock channel, I'm only blocking 3 or 4 songs all day, nowhere near 90%.
You misunderstand. Let's say that you are on a long trip and won't be near WiFi that you can access. You rely on the satellite stream right? That satellite will stream a set group of music. It won't be based on your wants and likes. It will be a set stream of music. It will be largely made up of stuff that you don't want to hear. Your device will discard what doesn't fit your list. That much is said just like that in the article. How much new content will you actually get?
I'm not sure that the WiFi will be different, but I would imagine that it would be because the device can actually log you in and should work like the desktop or online player. I can tell you that I don't spend a lot time in WiFi range most days.
And I'm not a long haul trucker or anything like that. Most of my listening is still done in the car or a boombox. I am not the kind that could get a lot of music over an Internet connection. The car kit would be a must for me and I don't see it meeting my needs at all.
As I said, I am not in this for just the music. I listen to talk, news and sports on both XM and Sirius every day. Some of it I could likely find on the radio but most of it I could not. $8 a month for music alone (and it is very repetitious, much worse so than Sirius) or free but ad based just doesn't cut the cheese for me.
>It will be largely made up of stuff that you don't want to hear. Your device will discard what doesn't fit your list. That much is said just like that in the article. How much new content will you actually get?
Well I don't think the device is streaming the songs in realtime in sat mode, I thought I read they planned on having a capability of 10,000 songs downloaded in a 24-hour period. Even if 95% of it is discarded that's still hours of content away from home.
I think your worries are valid in the scenario you are thinking of, but it's going to be streaming "data" much faster than if it was just playing and grabbing stuff you wanted like an Inno would.
It won't function exactly as XM has for me, but I definately see a Slacker device in my future - as long as they continue to refine the software and connect the dots on the hardware end. They say it'll have video playback, I'd like to see Divx support. I'd also like to be able to stream stations over the WiFi and mix in my own MP3's with the playback. If the reviews are decent and the price-point right I'll try it out.