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New Digital Music Player Not Just An iPod-Light
from the for-the-lazy-people dept
Plenty of companies have tried to break the iPods's stranglehold on the digital music player market, but so far none have come even close. Part of the reason may be that all of the alternatives are just iPod wannabes that don't offer anything unique. Without offering something original, it's just too difficult to get past the iPod lock in as well as its ecosystem of related products and services. The latest entrant in the space at least deserves credit for trying something new. Slacker is a digital music player that basically offers the user a personalized radio station. This is a concept that should be familiar to anyone who uses Last.FM or Pandora. Using WiFi and satellites, the Slacker device will constantly play new music, and it will adjust what it plays based on user preferences. So, for example, a user can ban a song from ever being played again if they really don't like it. Conversely, if the listener indicates that they really like a song, then the service will find more songs like that one. This is interesting, but achieving mass adoption is going to prove really difficult. For one thing, current iPod users are unlikely to make the switch, since the device isn't intended to play a user's music collection (and DRM might make that switch impossible anyway). So the Slacker is hoping that there's a large pool of people out there that want a portable music device, but are too lazy to come up with their own playlists. In fact, it's called Slacker specifically because its targeting the lazy crowd. But it's a big assumption to think that the people who aren't using iPods (or other MP3 players) are just lazy, and want a service to stream their music for them. The company's other idea is to license the service to other devices, such as phones or possibly cars. This is a more promising strategy than trying to build a new gadget. There are plenty of people who might want to take a service like Last.FM out on the road, but aren't interested in shelling out a few hundred dollars for a specialized device. If that option were on a phone, however, perhaps for a monthly fee, it could prove rather appealing. As with many other companies, the challenge for Slacker will be to position itself as a platform, not just a product.
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A good chance to explore...
This could be great exposure for unknown groups to get an audience.
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So..
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Not Enough
I am a user of both Last.fm and Pandora.com, but neither of these services have displaced my use of my iPod to digitize my music collection. Sometimes I'll be interested in discovering new music, but when I really want to listen to something to relax or have some nice background music, I usually pick something I'm familiar with.. a playlist that I know I will like, where I know exactly what is on it.
I guess the device would not necessarily be playing new music all the time (I often encounter music I know from last.fm or pandora), but those services, from my experience, are usually much better for exploring new music than they are for simply enjoying music in a passive or reflective way.
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here is is
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weak
And who are they trying to appeal to? Folks that are too lazy to make a playlist? Their market research must have been conducted by slackers too. Anyone that lazy won't have the money to buy one of these things.
Unless they steal it from their mom's purse.
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Re: weak
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Sounds great to me
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If it catches on Apple could clone it
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Re: weak
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Re: weak
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For the lazy?
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Do your home work
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Sounds good to me
Based on the comments in this post I've just 'discovered' Pandora and Last.FM - Pandora wouldn't let me play as I'm not in the US and I couldn't be bothered fiddling around
Last.FM has been keeping me amused all afternoon - thanks guys (really thanks i'm loving it - feel free to take the piss out of me for not hearing of it before)
The concept seems great, yes I can organise a playlist (I have several) but even I am not arrogant enough to assume I know all songs there are. I've discovered several this afternoon I'd never heard of and hearted them - so far the sites sucess rate is about 70% hearts, 90% listenable no bans
If the solution here is basically a mobile version of this (which I think it is) bring it on - depending on how well implemented this is it could be ace
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Creative's Zen Vision:M kills iPod
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