David Emery OnlineSlacker
14 March 2007
Slacker.com is the new site getting all the hype, having just launched at SXSW in Austin, Texas.
The main concept is of an internet radio station, very much like Pandora or the radio component of Last.FM. For free (ad supported) you can listen to a stream of music which you control (to a certain extent- you get 6 track skips per hour). Further down the line, if you pay them $7.95 a month you get to save songs to your HD (they don’t mention what format this will be in, and whether it’ll be DRM-less or not) and you loose the adverts.
Where people seem to have got most exited is the hardware player they plan to launch (which you can see here). This is basically an iPod sized device with a large screen, a small amount of storage (it’s flash based, so probably 2gb – 8gb) and WiFi which allows the device to connect to the online Slacker service and stream tracks.
Apparently, according to the articles I’ve seen, this is revolutionary.
It’s an iPod and iPhone killer.
Apparently.
Firstly, lets just ignore the fact that this whole thing – other then the Pandora clone web radio – is vapourware.
The idea of streaming audio from the internet to a portable device is a great one, and is quite obviously where portable music is going to end up – whether it’s just streaming from your home computer library, or streaming from someone like Apple or Rhapsody (although they still have the lack of ownership subscription problem). So, the idea of this player that wirelessly streams music is pretty good, although I find it very strange they’ve gone with the traditional radio model where you get no real choice of what you listen to.
So, iPod killer?
No, because the iPhone is the only true iPod killer.
Ok then; iPhone killer?
No, because the iPhone can do everything this player claims it does.
The iPhone has WiFi, storage and music capabilities and while we don’t know whether third party apps will run on it, we do know that it has a fully capable web browser. Which means that you can listen to Last.fm on it, or Pandora (or Slacker.com, if you really wanted to). Not only that, but I’m sure we’ll get an iPod that has the iPhone interface and WiFi soon as well, which will be even more perfect for music on the go – no matter whether you want to listen to your music library, or stream some tracks from the internet.