... says Mark Ramsey. Mark has an audio interview (MP3) with Slacker.com's head of marketing, Jonathan Sasse, who describes upcoming developments. Slacker is a music service that learns user preferences and effectively delivers customized "radio stations" for the listener. It's not the only such service.
But the new developments are particularly interesting. Coming this summer is a portable playback device that operates in WiFi hotspots and enables the user feedback on songs played. This is a caching device, so music it downloads while you're in a hotspot it will be played back based on your preferences when you're out of the hotspot.
But wait ... there's more. The really radical thing in the works is a satellite fed kit for automobiles. This device will catch and cache a bunch of music from the sky and create for you on the fly program streams that reflect your preferences. Seems to me (and to Mark) that this may deflate (technology, yes, but ultimately competitive balance also goes to how successful the competition is in attracting subscribers) the monopoly arguments that us broadcasters are using to oppose the proposed Sirius/XM merger.
Link: Hear2.0.
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