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Slacker Radio Goes Live In Canada!

By Bla1ze on 14 Jan 2010 01:56 am
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Slacker Radio Goes Live In Canada!

We've known it was coming for a while now but finally, Slacker radio has launched in Canada. You can head on over to Slacker website from your BlackBerry and download the app to get started. Create an account and you are all set. Slacker Radio is free for the first 30 days. Afterward, Canadian listeners can continue to enjoy the service by upgrading to Slacker Radio Plus, available for as low as $3.99 USD per month. Read the full press release after the jump folks to get a full run down of options Canadian users will have.

Slacker Radio Now Available in Canada

Canadian Music Fans Can Now Enjoy Slacker Personal Radio Wherever They Happen to Be

SAN DIEGO, CA – January xx, 2010 – Slacker, Inc. today announced that Canadians can now enjoy Slacker Personal Radio, which is the first personal radio experience to service Canada. The Slacker music experience is available now on the web at www.Slacker.com and as a free app for BlackBerry smartphones and Android handsets, with an application for the iPhone and iPod touch coming soon.

Slacker Personal Radio enables Canadian music lovers to create their own custom stations or listen to and personalize over 60 expert-programmed genre stations. They can also read artist bios and album reviews, while viewing artist images and album art. Users don’t have to worry about managing playlists, researching new artists or transferring their music collection from their home computers – just click play to start enjoying your favorite music today.

Canadian music fans will have access to the free Slacker Basic Radio for up to 30 days. After 30 days, they can upgrade to Slacker Radio Plus, featuring all the same great benefits of Slacker Basic Radio along with station caching for supported mobile devices, ad-free listening, complete song lyrics*, unlimited song skipping, song requests and more. Station caching enables mobile listeners to store their personal stations on selected smartphones for listening anywhere, anytime, uninterrupted.

Listeners can store a station by simply selecting “Cache Station” from within the supported app. The station can then be downloaded via Wi-Fi, over USB or through the cellular network. Cached stations are stored on the smartphone and can be accessed on planes, subways and everywhere in between requiring minimal battery usage and eliminating the need to access the mobile carrier network to play music.

“Turning Canada on to personal radio has been some time in the making, and we are proud to unveil our Canadian Slacker Radio experience,” said Jonathan Sasse, senior vice president of marketing at Slacker. “Whether it’s from the web or a smartphone, Slacker takes the work out of listening to your favorite music wherever you want.”

Slacker Personal Radio is the first and only personal radio service available for Canadian listeners. Slacker has agreements in place with key content owners providing listeners in Canada with a deep catalog of music for Slacker genre stations along with their own custom created stations.

Slacker Radio Plus:

  • Cache stations to BlackBerry and Android smartphones; soon on iPhone/iPod touch
  • Enjoy Slacker music even without a wireless network on select mobile applications
  • Unlimited song skipping
  • Ad-free listening
  • Complete song lyrics*
  • Create custom stations based on artists or songs
  • Unlimited song requests for creating perfect custom stations
  • High-quality stereo playback
  • Over 60 professionally programmed genre stations
  • Fine tune stations on-the-fly to play more of the music you like
  • View artist biographies and photos
  • View album art and reviews
  • “Peek Ahead” artist and album preview
  • Pause and skip songs
  • Rate songs as favorites
  • Ban the songs and artists you don’t like
  • Downloadable “mini” player for your PC

Pricing and Availability
Slacker Radio is free for the first 30 days. Afterward, Canadian listeners can continue to enjoy the service by upgrading to Slacker Radio Plus, available for as low as $3.99 USD per month. For additional details, please visit www.Slacker.com from the web. BlackBerry smartphone users can download the free Slacker 3.0 app from App World or by visiting www.Slacker.com from the BlackBerry Browser.  Android smartphone owners can find Slacker Radio in the Android Market or by visiting www.Slacker.com from their mobile browser. The Slacker Radio application for the iPhone and iPod touch is coming soon.

About Slacker, Inc.
Slacker is the world's first Personal Radio company offering “Your Radio Everywhere.” Slacker enables music lovers to play highly personalized music online at the Slacker web site or on the go with Slacker Personal Radio players and mobile phones. Visit www.Slacker.com for more information.

Topics: News & Rumors BlackBerry Apps BlackBerry Media

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40 comments

mrspock2002

This is great news for our Northern brothers!

NoKittyNo

I was all excited until it said it was unavailable in my region and that I was in Norway which I'm not. I'm sure Norway is warmer and has summer for longer than two months.

liam821

NoKittyNo, you should get a hold of Slacker's support team at http://support.slacker.com/ or use the forums at http://forums.slacker.com/ and tell them of your problem. They're really helpful and should get you all taken care of.

klourg

Well, it would say that if you're using mini-Opera. They're based in Norway.

CatAlex

Congrats Canada. Skacker is pretty great, IMO. The Chill station is excellent.

Roscopcoletrain

nice! Although I wish the caching was still free.

I also cant seem to find 3.0. 2.0 is still up.

Bla1ze

3.0 hasn't been realeased juuuust yet, sit tight buddy :)

joesworld

Only the web interface is available for Canadians right now, the updated Blackberry app has NOT yet been released.

Bla1ze

Considering I tested it on 4 devices on the Rogers network before posting, I assure you the mobile version is indeed working. Maybe it hasn't quite filtered across Slackers servers yet, but as mentioned. 4 Rogers devices all have it working fine for me and it's on two different accounts as well. 2 devices for each account.

Roscopcoletrain

Yeah been running the mobile for a few days now. Just the cacheing part. So far its been great! Im with Bell btw :)

jqian

What service is available if I don't pay after 30 days?
The slacker statement is vaguer about this.

archpopoy

It looks like either you go full account or it won't work anymore.

FAIL.

Smurfy71

Trying to create an account, but it will not let me unless I enter a valid 5 digit postal code. In Canada we have 6 digits, numbers and letters, it will not even let me use letters. Any tips? Bla1ze?

fenderf4i

Don't put a space in the postal code and it should be fine.

Jayreyd

Nope same postal code problems. There's only 5 spaces and letters won't enter just numbers

Bla1ze

Use a zip 85201 is what i used,

Roscopcoletrain

i had no issues putting in my postal code

speedmetal69

I just downloaded the app using the above postal code, It downloaded and is working fine. I'm with Rogers in ONT.

jchanel juliet

Am new to crackberry here is my pin u can add me 256DB324

pkcable

You should check out our Forums, and in particular our PIN sharing area....

http://forums.crackberry.com/f51/

fletchyyz

Hit slacker.com from the BB browser - download v.2.0 (hopefully 3.0 comes soon) - create an account and enter any 5 digit postal code (I'm sure they'll update the account screens for Canada later) - It works!
Looks great, lots of stations.

pkcable

Looks like the Slacker folks are no longer "hosers" eh?

DenDen2008

It says Norway for me.
I'm on Rogers in Alberta.

Slacker FAIL

klourg

That's cause you're using mini-Opera. Opera is a Norway-based company.

aindik

They are charging for access in Canada. How long before they start charging for access in the United States?

pkcable

They are NOT charging, it's free unless you want to subscribe. Benefits to subscribing are no ads and unlimited skips.

baconcow

According to the advertisements and webpage, the BASIC subscription is free to Canadians only for 30 days. After which, we will require upgrading to continue listening (going off of their words).

Roscopcoletrain

3.0 is on app world :)

davidnyc

I only see 2.0 on App World on my T-Mobile 9700.

out2late

Think Im going to wait until XM releases their Blackberry app...

Delrahim69

when will 3.0 be in USA??

lordnordeth

I only get audio if I cache the station, nothing comes through on any method (speaker, headphones or bluetooth) if I try to stream the service. Gonna try and re-install, and will see if it fixes it.

-Edit- Yep, deleted ver 2, went into App World, downloaded ver 3 and it's working great. Paid for my first month already, if it holds my interest for more than 30 days, then I'll pay for the full year...although the Cache feature is SWEET! Especially now that I've made my own custom station!

pmich

quite impressed so far... might upgrade already

Shadowlore

Glad to see you guys are finally getting it :)

At the risk of being a bit of an arse... anyone care to host the 3.0 files for this? Going to be on the northern side of the border on Monday... last time I was up there, couldn't use slacker at all. (kinda pi**ed me off to be honest)

eltawil

I hope this piece of news will also open up Pandora.com in Canada too. It used to work years ago but then Canada had to block it for copyright reasons...while our US friends are still enjoying it.

laryhanis

Cut me some slack, I'm Australian but live in Canada and cant quite understand what is happening.

http://www.goarticles.com/cgi-bin/showa.cgi?C=2236872

Dementius

Spamming a comment thread? Do you think that will actually make people have the slightest interest in your product?

linkkoriri

I tried this out, it is pretty darn sweet! This app rocks for when I get bored of the same music day in and day out.

jallot

Having read the release, what happens for Canadians when the 30 day trial is up? Do we have to start paying to continue using Slacker, or can we just choose to use the free version with limited skipping and ads.

UPDATE -- Just read the following article from Billboard. If true, then this blows for Canadians, as there is no free version after 30 days.

http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/content_display/industry/e3ia62d19a7acb83...

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Slacker Goes Live in Canada with Paid-Only Offer
January 14, 2010 - Digital and Mobile

By Antony Bruno, Denver

The Slacker customized Internet radio service is now live in Canada, but with a much different offer than in the U.S.

Slacker, if you remember, is the service that allows users to create their customized radio stations compiled automatically using the system’s recommendation technology, much like Pandora. However unlike the U.S., where the service is offered both for free and with various premium tiers, Canadian users can only use the free tier for 30 days before they have to upgrade to a paid tier—starting at US $4.

According to Slacker senior VP of strategic development Jim Rondinelli, there are several reasons for the different offer. For starters, the advertising market in Canada is not as mature as that in the U.S. and as such couldn’t support a fully fledged ad-supported free tier indefinitely. Also playing a role in the decision is that Slacker has no competitors in Canada, as its main rival Pandora is does not operate in the country.

“We have a very different landscape in Canada,” Rondinelli says. “The absence of competitors allowed us to take a different approach the marketplace, but our research convinced us we would be more likely to have success offering a fully featured service than our standard ad-supported service.”

Canada also has no compulsory webcasting license in Canada the way there is in the U.S. While Rondinelli says that was not a factor in the different pricing strategy, it is a factor keeping out other such services as Pandora.

“We won't move until the economics make sense,” says Pandora co-founder Tim Westergren. “I think the licensing entities are doing a terrible disservice to their constituents (artists) by keeping us out. It drives me up a tree.”

The Slacker service is accessible online as well as via a downloadable app for such mobile smartphones as the BlackBerry and Android devices. An iPhone version of the app is expected shortly.
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