Slacker Inc. to offer the

[Hum]

SAN JOSE, Calif. - Whether it's the albums you buy, the radio stations you choose or the songs you put in your portable player, music has always been a matter of personal taste. Now, a startup led by a team of veterans in the digital music arena seeks to offer what it considers a new level of "personal radio" by combining elements of Internet radio, portable music and satellite distribution, while letting users choose the tunes, genres or artists they want.

Slacker Inc., based in San Diego, plans to launch its radio service Wednesday, when its Web site goes live initially in a beta, or testing, stage.

A separate Wi-Fi-enabled pocketable gadget that will be able to play the personalized selections will be available in the early summer, with models ranging roughly from $150 to $299, the company said. A car kit that will deliver the music via satellite signals will be available later in the year at a price yet to be disclosed.

Here's how it works:

Users who log on to Slacker can begin listening to music from more than 10,000 stations that are built around specific artists and preprogrammed genres. Users also can create their own stations by indicating what types of songs they want and letting the Slacker "DJ" ? a mostly automated system based on complicated algorithms ? fill out the station program with more content.

Customization adjustments to stations include choosing "more popular" versus "more eclectic," or newer versus older music. Users can click on a button to ban a certain song. Clicking on a "heart" button will mark the track as a favorite and cause the song to be played more often on that station.

Users also will be able to e-mail their friends with their favorite stations.

After the Slacker players become available, users will be able to have their personal radio stations delivered to the portable devices. Slacker says it will push radio tracks to the portable players or car kits, on which they'll be stored for playback. The gadgets will not have to be connected to a wireless network for playback, the company said. They'll refresh the music data whenever the devices detect a Wi-Fi or satellite connection.

The basic Slacker radio service is ad-supported and free. A premium level of service that is set to launch in the second quarter will cost $7.50 per month, eliminate advertising and give users more flexibility and features.

"It's on-demand access to radio tracks," said Jonathan Sasse, Slacker's vice president of marketing. "People will be able to take it with them, and they won't have to work for their music."

Sasse, the former chief executive of portable player company iRiver America, joins the who's who list of Slacker executives who are betting Slacker can fill a need that hasn't been addressed yet in the growing market of digital music.

"The only problem is that until now, personalized radio has been stuck on the PC. Slacker solves that problem," said Slacker co-founder and Chief Executive Dennis Mudd.

Slacker is the first to make "personalized music" portable _ not tethered to a laptop, desktop computer or home media server."They're leveraging multiple distribution channels, so they won't be just satellite radio and they're not quite an online music provider either," said IDC analyst Susan Kevorkian. "And they're providing a high level of ease-of-use for the consumer that no one else has offered before."

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[Danrarbc]

Interesting idea for sure. Cheaper than the satellite only providers too.

[Hum]

:blink: I read thru it twice, but I still don't quite understand how it works, but it sounds neat.