Mark Ramsey Media LLC - sync radio and digital media

Slacker interviewed by Hear 2.0 (highly recommended)

Slacker’s head of marketing Jonathan Sasse sat down with Mark Ramsey of Hear 2.0 in an incredible audio interview, and I highly recommend everyone take a listen to it.Not only does Ramsey address the thought that Slacker, with their own satellite deliv…

What are they offering “between the songs,” as you so often say?

Looks to me that they are trying to make this sound like they ae on satellite like XM & Sirius and from what i see they are not.
Say satellite and people look no further they think it is satellite.
Stereo on a Cell Phone no way.

What do you call two satellite firms that merge to compete against no other satellite firms??

George, as you well know, there is an element of the audience interested in music only. And one of radio’s strengths – besides “between the songs” – is discovery of new music. Slacker turns an iPod or a cell phone into a music discovery device that is immediately responsive to your tastes. This is not to be underestimated.
John and Ed – especially Ed – while your simple-minded logic may compel a congressman, it will not pass muster for anyone who’s thoughtful. If it looks, acts, and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck.
And if you are an audio entertainment service that can be received via satellite you are CLEARLY and UNAMBIGUOUSLY competing with XM and Sirius, thus they are BY DEFINITION not a monopoly as a merged entity.
This is beyond obvious.

Mark
Great piece on Slacker. I spent some time with the software and while it’s a great system that seems to allow lots of choices, portability (as it evolves), and interactivity. It’s a bit hard to use – trying to build a station is a long process having to listen to songs and select them as favorites. I started with a Byrds channel hoping to build a sort of folk rock channel for fun. I got about 15 songs on my list in 2 hours. But the Byrds channel has all the artists that ‘hang on the Byrds branch of rock’ So Dylan, Airplane, CSN, Petty, Paul Simon, and all the off shoot bands are there with all their titles. You end up going through the whole Fold Rock world including most of the Dr. Hook catalog. A Byrds song is up maybe every 8th song. You can’t access the whole library and just check what you want you have to wade through the titles and can only skip 6 songs an hour. I bet in the Byrds channel there are 1000 titles and to sort through them you would need 60-70 hours of listening. A lot of work in a busy world to build my channel. If they can make this easier and quicker it could be interesting.

I agree with you, Dave.

I don’t expect this to be an iPod killer, or even a Zune killer. But i really think the Slacker portable is really just touching upon a different segment of the market. I have been using the slacker web player since it’s release in March and have to say if the hardware is upto par with the software then they will have a great combo. Also noted that if they can get the third party support then i think they will have a good following. Slacker also stated that it would not be affected by the recent internet radio royalty price hikes (for now). A couple more weeks, and we’ll let the reviews come rolling in. Also check out http://www.slackersocial.com Seems to be a good start to a social backing. I’ll try to post an unboxing and complete review as soon as it arrives.