Slacker radio

Internet radio dropped off the radar years ago because of royalty issues. Start up Internet radio stations streaming music were not always paying royalties, and the record companies responded by imposing absurdly expensive royalties that put most Internet radio stations out of business.

But the grudging acceptance of digital music by the record companies has led to more reasonable royalty rates, and a radio start-up called Slacker is trying to make a go of it by introducing yet another portable music player that is half iPod and half radio. The Slacker Portable, when connected to your computer, downloads an ever changing selection of tunes, based on your own preferences. You can listen to them anytime, in the same way you would listen to your own music on an iPod or other MP3 player.

Slacker's niche is that you are not stuck with your own, unchanging playlists; Slacker updates and changes the playlists automatically when you plug your Slacker Portable in to your computer.

It is a neat idea, and is likely to be popular if they can break the link between the service and the requirement for yet another specialized device. There are only so many gadgets people want to carry around.