Until today, Slacker was a free online music radio service similar to Pandora except for the better looking user interface. Slacker Premium Radio gives on-demand access to the Slacker music library (8 million songs) for $9.99 a month. It is the latest addition to the music service offering: Slacker Basic Radio is entirely free and Slacker Radio Plus ($3.99 per month) is ad-free and gives the ability to skip songs unlimited times.
With the new Premium service, Slacker now offers a similar subscription-based music service as Mog, Rhapsody, Rdio or Napster for a comparable price point. However, none of these competitors provides a free online radio service.
Slacker launched new features including the ability to create multi-artist stations with fine-tuning options and access to artists biographies and photos. Only Premium subscribers will be able to listen to stations that will only play songs from a single chosen artist or band.
Additionally Slacker launched its new iPad version. Users can connect to Slacker on-the-go from various mobile devices, applications are available to download for Windows Phone 7, Windows Mobile, Palm webOS, Nokia, Android, iPhone and BlackBerry smartphones.
Slacker Premium Radio features:
Search, play and replay specific songs or entire albums
Music library featuring over 8 million songs
Create specific playlists on mobile and on the web
Off-line playback of stations, playlists and albums on the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch, Android and BlackBerry smartphones
Replay specific songs on programmed and custom stations
Browse and play “Favorite” songs, now collected in one location
Unlimited song skipping
Ad-free listening
Complete song lyrics
Browse Top Charts on all Slacker genre stations
“Peek Ahead” artist, album and song preview
Ability to skip forward and backward
Available starting today for $9.99 per month at Slacker.com
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About the author: Eliane Fiolet is the co-founder and editor of Ubergizmo.com where she writes about smart devices, web applications, design and usability. In her parallel life, she owns a Corporate ID design business that helps companies create great brands. Prior to opening her own agency, Eliane worked for a top design firm, Minale Tattersfield Design Strategy, where she created identities for Fortune 500 companies. She also worked in the video game industry as a designer for an award-winning adventure game. Eliane holds a master degree in visual communication and design from the “Art Décoratifs” college and she majored in mathematics and physics in high school. Follow the author on Facebook, Twitter