Sunday, May 31, 2009

Internet Radio: Slacker vs. Pandora

I think many of us count on music in some form or another to get us through the work day and take care of us in our non-work time. Some maybe are locked to the itunes library, or some other mp3 system. Many just prefer to listen to what they own or acquire, depending on how you roll.

Others of us are looking for diversity and enjoy listening to online radio. If you asked me six months ago, I would have swore by XM. But, we recently went through a sad divorce. I think satellite radio missed the mark on so many fronts - a rant for another day. I began to explore intenet radio and stumbled upon Pandora.



Initially I liked Pandora. It's free with commercials or can be upgraded for $36/yr for commercial free and a few other perks. It allows you to create your own stations by simply picking an artist, song or style of music. This seemed great initially, but I quickly felt that the selection wasn't vast enough. Lots of repeats etc. Plus, one thing I quickly learned is that there is no way to say create a "Counting Crows" station and expect nothing but Counting Crows. If you think about it, does make sense, otherwise, I might never buy another mp3 or album again. So, what you do get is similar mixes of like artists and songs. Plus they have an iphone app that worked really well. They have a "share" community based feature that you can see what others are listening to and share, seems cool. I just don't use it. If Pandora was more popular, I could see this feature being really cool, link it to your Facebook account etc. Often I found that I just wanted to pick a genre and let it rip. This forced me to poke my head around and see what else is out there.


Enter slacker radio. This was recommended to me by a good friend. I tried it out and loved it. Immediately upgraded to the Slacker Plus for commercial free. What I liked about slacker is that there are a ton of pre-programmed stations, literally 13 different alternative stations. Plus they also have an iphone app which is an absolute requirement for me as I want to listen as I walk the trails. So far so good, I thought the hunt was over. But, not so fast. The performance of the slacker iphone app has fallen off the charts. It blanks out at least twice a song. Absolutely, unusable. Extremely disappointing as I use the iphone version 85% of the time. Without it, its a show stopper for me. I haot good.

Pandora now is back on my radar. I have been using it successfully on my iphone without any issues, whatsoever. When it comes down to it, performance is key. I like Slacker's selections more, the iphone interface is much nicer than Pandora's, but if it doesn't work....I can't use it. Therefore you come in as a distant second. If I didn't pay for the Plus service, I wouldn't feel like I had the right to gripe. But, if you want me to remain a customer, how about it works every time, no matter what.

Both applications have a desktop version, so you are not required to run in a browser. I didn't appreciate this at first, but it's extremely handy to not have to tab over in Firefox to change a station etc. Both use Adobe Air for their desktop apps. Every Air product that I have seen is really slick. I use twhirl for twitter on both Vista and Ubuntu and I really like the Air look and feel. I am looking to see how Air can be leveraged for some engineering type apps.

One last thing -- both services are trying to push their own player/device. I see the value in it, but the last thing I need is another device. I wish they spent a little more time allowing me to leverage it with my car radio system or existing entertainment system. Perhaps the portable device is the way to go? Rather just use my iphone, but that's me..

Anyway, open for discussion on this one. What is playing in your office?

6 comments:

Jeff Waters said...

I use Pandora and Last.FM for most of my music needs now. I don't really need to own music anymore, and I don't have time to be my own DJ. So, these services are perfect for me.

I also had Sat Radio (Sirius) for a couple years and loved it. Mostly because of the variety, but especially the stations that have DJs. I kinda like having someone give me a little background about the songs and artists in between song sets.

That's what I'd like to see in an internet Radio app.

Scott said...

Pandora. Been using it for about 2 1/2 years now. Found tons of new artists through it.

Anonymous said...

After using Pandora I couldn't listen to XM radio anymore. I canceled my subscription. On my daily commute to work by car I was keep looking for a button to skip a song or to give a thumb up. Once you start enjoying "customized" radios, satellite radio inevitably looks obsolete.

BTW, some time ago I had the pleasure to meet Tim Westergren, the founder of Pandora and to interview him for the Novedge blog. If you are interested here is the link.

JeffM said...

At work, I listen to Pandora. I agree, though, that there are a lot of repeats. I'll have to check out Slacker.
In the car, I usually have my iPhone plugged in and listen to a random mix out of iTunes. Occasionally I'll listen to regular radio, but the commercial to music ratio is ridiculous.

jordan said...

Check out the Livio Radio featuring Pandora. This radio not only lets you create and listen to Pandora stations you additionally get 11,000 internet stations too. On the remote and on the radio itself there are dedicated thumbs up and thumbs down buttons. Press the the thumbs down and never listen to a certain song on that Pandora station again. The radio also has an auxiliary input so you can plug your i pod in and listen over the Livio's speaker. http://tinyurl.com/jhlivioblog

PatrickH said...

I have been a Pandora consumer since soon after it was first released and have been disappointed from time to time with the selection as well. That was until they introduced the ability to 'quick mix' stations.

I have created a list of stations based on my favorite artists. I created them even if they were already included in another station. Then I 'mix' the stations together into groupings that I would enjoy listening to together.

The result is a 'mixed' station with an enhanced selection. Pandora's ability to choose songs is great but does fall short sometimes, especially if the artist or genre is obscure (ie. Barbershop Harmony music.) Pandora can give me a Barbershop/Acapella mix. The last time I tried to create one with SLACKER I wasn't able to.

Another way to improve the selection is to use the 'add variety' tool. Just select one of your stations, click the little triangle icon to the right of the station name, then select 'add variety to this station.' enter another artists name and you are done.

Try it... :-)

P.S. I like Slacker too... :-)

Thanks for the blog...