The creators of Slacker have very high ambitions, apparently. They have all but declared war on Pandora, Apple’s iPod and iTunes, and XM satellite radio, not to mention several other online music sites. How, you ask?
- Slacker vs. Pandora - First, they have a brilliant online music player that closely resembles, if not surpasses, that of Pandora.
Now, I have always been one to praise Pandora and the Music Genome Project. It has been my music player of choice for about a year now. But I am really impressed with Slacker. I’m especially grateful for the ability to choose a genre to listen to. It’s tough for me to always figure out a certain band or song that I want to base my musical mood on. And a lot of the time, the music chosen by Pandora doesn’t give me enough variety. I am one to almost always put my music collection on shuffle and let it do it’s thing. With Slacker, I can choose a time period or genre and I get a nice variety.
Not only is the variety impressive, but it seems that Slacker provides songs that are a higher bitrate, meaning much clearer, crisper sound. That’s always a plus. - Slacker vs. iTunes - Second, they will offer a standalone desktop application to listen to their music and organize your music files. For $7.50 per month, they will remove your ads and allow you to download your favorited songs to your computer for permanent storage.
- Slacker vs. iPod - Third, they will soon market a standalone portable player that resembles an iPod. The device will feature a very large 4-inch color screen and will be able to sync with the desktop software as well as cache songs that are queued for your stations.
- Slacker vs. XM - Fourth, they will offer a satellite car kit that will be able to receive, cache, and play songs via satellite. It is still unclear whether or not this will incur an extra monthly fee.
What do you think? I’d say it’s a very ambitious move, but I like the idea. I’m already addicted to the online radio player; maybe they’ll pull me in enough to want to buy the extra toys someday.
[via TechCrunch]
Tags: online radio, Slacker, Pandora, Apple, iPod, iTunes, XM, satellite radio, startups
