http:\/\/www.slacker.com\/<\/a> and try it out!<\/p>\nBut know that you can only fast-forward a limited number of times per hour, unless you pay for premium service…\u00c2\u00a0 And then you can click through AD INFINITUM!<\/p>\n
This is similar to Pandora.\u00c2\u00a0 But only the legal construct is the same, the limited number of skips.\u00c2\u00a0 The two services are truly as different as kindergarten and college.<\/p>\n
It’s not only the preordained channels on Slacker.\u00c2\u00a0 You can create your own, just like with Pandora.\u00c2\u00a0 Only you get to FINE TUNE YOUR STATION!<\/p>\n
First, with the Popularity category…\u00c2\u00a0 Do you want "Auto", "Fringe", "Deeper", "Familiar" or "Hits".<\/p>\n
You can tell your station what year you want the music to be from…\u00c2\u00a0 "Auto", "Classic", "Older", Recent" or "Current".<\/p>\n
And then, there’s the favorites tab…\u00c2\u00a0 Which you can set on "Auto", "Minimum", "More" and "Maximum".<\/p>\n
In other words, if your station is only playing music you already know, and you want to go deeper, you’ve got that option!\u00c2\u00a0 You can discover or go on autopilot listening to the familiar.<\/p>\n
And you can fine tune the PREEXISTING STATIONS!<\/p>\n
So, after going to Slacker.com, click on "Stations"\u00c2\u00a0 on the left-hand side.\u00c2\u00a0 After choosing a genre and a specific station, you’ll ultimately hear music.\u00c2\u00a0 The key is to click that link with the little heart on it, that says "Customize", to the right of the album cover, to fine tune…<\/p>\n
So why is Pandora ruling and Slacker almost completely unknown?<\/p>\n
Tim Westergren.\u00c2\u00a0 The guy who runs Pandora.\u00c2\u00a0 He says he’s on your side, he wants you to e-mail your Congressman, keep your beloved Pandora alive!\u00c2\u00a0 I don’t know what the fuck for.\u00c2\u00a0 Like I said, the service is unusable.\u00c2\u00a0 Tim Westergren isn’t about music, he’s about MONEY!\u00c2\u00a0 And he’s done a great job of promoting his site.\u00c2\u00a0 Pandora’s projected to be profitable next year!\u00c2\u00a0 Take that major labels!<\/p>\n
But Slacker had a million downloads of its app on the BlackBerry.\u00c2\u00a0 Which is kind of like saying you had a million downloads on the Palm Treo.\u00c2\u00a0 BlackBerries are great e-mail devices, lousy web-surfers.\u00c2\u00a0 But the iPhone\/iPod Touch is great at surfing!\u00c2\u00a0 Turns out you can download a Slacker Radio app for the Apple platform!<\/p>\n
Still, buzz is limited.<\/p>\n
Because Slacker employed the wrong strategy.\u00c2\u00a0 Kind of like satellite radio.\u00c2\u00a0 Satellite radio’s formula was to give you no choice.\u00c2\u00a0 It was supposed to be the only alternative in the car.\u00c2\u00a0 And to a great degree, it is.\u00c2\u00a0 But now, with 3G, people are streaming via their plugged-in iPhones.\u00c2\u00a0 So, Sirius\/XM has to be about programming.\u00c2\u00a0 But too many of their stations are turn-offs, with playlists too tight and deejays too jive.\u00c2\u00a0 But they can’t see this, since the programming department is run by the same people who ruined terrestrial radio!\u00c2\u00a0 In order to succeed, Sirius\/XM needs to focus on the programming.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s where it’s at today, WHO’S GOT THE BEST SERVICE!<\/p>\n
Slacker made an equal mistake.\u00c2\u00a0 They created their own device!\u00c2\u00a0 That’s like creating your own computer operating system.\u00c2\u00a0 Now it’s about apps on the iPhone!\u00c2\u00a0 Thank god, Slacker adjusted (and now Sirius\/XM has too, they’ve got an iPhone app ready to go!)\u00c2\u00a0 But they just haven’t gotten the word out.<\/p>\n
But I’m doing it for them.\u00c2\u00a0 To combat the incredibly lame service known as Pandora.\u00c2\u00a0 Like I said, I don’t know if computer-suggested playlists are the future.\u00c2\u00a0 I think not.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s where I believe Sirius\/XM has an advantage, all the human overhead they’ve got.\u00c2\u00a0 But if you LIKE Pandora, PLEASE check out Slacker.\u00c2\u00a0 Using Pandora is like computing on a PC when the Mac exists.\u00c2\u00a0 WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO DO THAT?<\/p>\n
\nBob,<\/p>\n
Thanks for the tip about Slacker. So far, it’s blowing the doors off of Pandora. I love the option of being able to choose deeper cuts. And I like the sneak peek at the next cut. <\/p>\n
Every time I’d turn on my Pandora’s ELO station (so sue me, I am an unrepentant fan) it’d start off with "Mr. Blue Sky". Great tune, but come on. There’s a lot more to choose from. In fact, every Pandora station seemed like a tepidly, politely programmed radio station — the very thing I was hoping to avoid. Surprise me, man! Anyway, Slacker is still new to my iPhone, but so far, it’s impressive.<\/p>\n
Thanks, Bob…
Dag Juhlin<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pandora SUCKS! I’m not sure computer-compiled radio is the future, but the fact that bozos listen to Pandora illustrates to me that you can sell crap to the public, because people are too dumb to know any better. Try fine-tuning your Pandora station.\u00c2\u00a0 I know someone who’s invested 200 hours in creating ONE Pandora station!\u00c2\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5,7,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-online","category-radio","category-technology"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-vS","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1976"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1976\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1979,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1976\/revisions\/1979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}