slacker

Bill Gates has said that prognosticators often overestimate the amount of technological change that will happen in a year, but underestimate the changes that will take place over a decade. With the Zeroes coming to an end this week, and Steve Guttenberg's recent column questioning the viability of recorded music in 2020 as inspiration, here's my pick of 10 trends in music and technology that will shape the next decade.

Songs instead of albums Musicians will always find ways to record their music--it's a fundamental drive, like painting for a painter or writing for a writer. But … Read more

As with Slacker Radio on other mobile platforms, the Android app lets you stream music from preprogrammed genres and stations, or from stations you set up yourself online. You'll be able to view album art and bios, block a song or vote it a favorite, and skip ahead--this is limited in the free version and limitless in the premium upgrade. If you like what you hear, you can share a link to that station on SlackerRadio.com via e-mail, SMS, or MMS.

Upgrading to the premium Radio Plus subscription service brings you song lyrics in addition to those unlimited … Read more

MOG offered me a free trial to its subscription-based streaming music service, MOG All Access, which launched on Tuesday. The service costs five bucks a month, and gives you unlimited on-demand streams of more than six million songs from all four major labels and plenty of indies. The site is trying to differentiate itself from competitors like Rhapsody and Napster with high-quality streams--all songs are 320kbps MP3s--and some fairly sophisticated music discovery features, like playlists posted by musicians (David Byrne got the featured spot on the day of launch) and other fans with similar tastes to yours ("Moggers like … Read more

It's been about a month since we got a peek at the first generation of the Slacker Radio streaming music app for the Android platform. We liked what we saw. On Thursday, other Android users can also cast their own vote about Slacker Radio 1.0 for Android by downloading it for free from the Market application on their Android smartphone.

Like Slacker Radio on other mobile platforms--and also similar to other streaming radio and music discovery apps like Pandora and Last.fm--the app lets you stream music from pre-programmed genres and stations, or from stations you set … Read more

Earlier today at CTIA Wireless 2009 (see all stories), Slacker Radio demoed its new apps for Windows Mobile, Android, and Blackberry phones. In typical slacker Radio fashion, the applications looked sleek, suave, and dark--we're not sure about dangerous. All three apps are gravitating toward a similar, standard look that tweaks the interface to add the same small improvements across the board: a new screen that tiles lyrics (visible in full with the Radio Plus subscription), biographies, and a review, and an area that reminds you which song is playing while you browse other categories.

The trio of Slacker Radio … Read more

At the CTIA Wireless conference (see all stories) this afternoon, Slacker Radio showed off its new applications for Android, BlackBerry, and Windows phones. Unfortunately, Slacker isn't sharing a time line for those release dates. That's not to say we'll walk away empty-handed. On Wednesday, Slacker will turn on Twitter integration, so registered members can tweet songs they're listening to in real time.

Know up front that this is a limited service that Slacker will flesh out later with those updated smartphone apps they teased us with. Think of the Twitter feature as a working preview.

Starting … Read more

When it comes to streaming Internet Radio, Slacker Radio is no schlub. After logging on, the dark-themed app lets you simply tap the icons at the top of the stations list to launch favorite and custom stations. Scrolling down, you'll encounter a search option and top music stations, followed by a long list of musical genres; a logical flow for the iPhone's design.

Slacker also takes advantage of the iPhone's height to much more prominently display album art than on other mobile devices. The controls to pause, skip, save, and ban an artist are finger-friendly. You'll … Read more

In mid-July, Verizon began automatically pushing Slacker Radio to BlackBerry Storm phones. Starting Tuesday, Verizon's partnership with Slacker Radio begins extending to BlackBerry Tour devices in its U.S. network as well.

As part of the agreement, Slacker Radio will hook into Verizon's V Cast store (which itself taps the Rhapsody catalog), giving BlackBerry Storm and Tour users the capability to purchase one of 4.5 million songs.

Slacker Radio's streaming music player competes heavily with similar Internet radio services, particularly Pandora.

Don't have a streaming radio application on your BlackBerry Storm yet? If you're a Verizon user, all you have to do to get one is wait.

On Thursday, Verizon started rolling out the Slacker Radio application to every BlackBerry Storm user in its U.S. network. The free version of Slacker Personal Radio App will appear as an icon on the Storm home screen. Those who would rather opt out can hide the button and ignore the service.

In addition to discovering and rating songs, Slacker's edge on BlackBerry is its ability to cache stations for offline … Read more