Ambitious Music Firm Launches Radio Service; Player and Satellite Service Later; $13.5 Million Funds

Not so much mobile content, but heavy elements of mobility built in and surely competing with mobile operators: Slacker, based in San Diego, certainly has big ambitions, judging by its new website and service plans it announced. And it has some veterans of the industry behind it: Dennis Mudd, former CEO of MusicMatch–which was sold to Yahoo in 2004 for $160 million–along with Jonathan Sasse (formerly of iRiver), and Jim Cady (formerly of Rio).
The radio service went live in beta today, and a separate Wi-Fi-enabled pocketable gadget that will be able to play the personalized selections will be available in the early summer, with models ranging roughly from $150 to $299, the company said. A car kit that will deliver the music via satellite signals will be available later in the year at a price yet to be disclosed, reports this AP story.
The basic Slacker radio service is ad-supported and free. A premium level of service that is set to launch in the second quarter will cost $7.50 per month, eliminate advertising and give users more flexibility and features. The Slacker Personal Radio Player, which is about the size of a deck of cards, sports a 4-inch color screen and can also store and play back digital music and videos that a user owns.
It will have some tough competition, not the least from iTunes, and then the possibly-merged XM-Sirius, besides the mobile operators.
Wired News: The company will lease portions of Ku-band satellite bandwidth (which also used for GPS and satellite TV) to offer several channels to mobile users who own the Slacker device…it will use a small receiver, similar in size to the ones used by XM and Sirius, to add this feature using optional docking stations/receivers for the car and home.
Updated: VentureBeat reports that Slacker has raised $13.5 million in venture capital from Sevin Rosen, Austin Ventures and Mission Ventures.

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