slacker

Webware Radar: Bebo launches site for Latinos

AOL-owned social network Bebo announced Monday that it has launched a U.S. site for Latinos. According to the company executives, they decided to open a version of its site catering to the Latino community after enjoying success in offering a similar experience to those in the U.K., Ireland, Poland, and elsewhere.

Along with the launch of the new site, Bebo also announced that it has partnered with Hearst Magazines Digital Media and AOL Latino to incorporate offerings from both companies into Bebo. Hearst will be providing interactive content syndicated from its MisQuince Magazine, and AOL Latino will give … Read more

Webware Radar: TripAdvisor adds new restaurant features

Responding to its users' desire for more restaurant review offerings, TripAdvisor announced Tuesday that throughout 2009, it will be adding features that will allow visitors to do more than review eateries on the site. So far, the site features 2 million reviews and ratings on 500,000 restaurants worldwide. To help users search through those more effectively, TripAdvisor added price, cuisine, and "recommended for" filters to its restaurant page Tuesday.

Also, the company has partnered with OpenTable.com to allow U.S. users to make a reservation directly on TripAdvisor's site. The company's new iPhone app, … Read more

Slacker Radio blows onto BlackBerry Storm

When Slacker Radio first introduced its streaming Internet radio app for the BlackBerry, it only worked on standard BlackBerrys running version 4.3 and above. Starting Wednesday, the free app gets touchy-feely with a brand new version for the BlackBerry's touch-screen Storm.

Slacker Radio for the Storm brings with it everything we loved on the Curve and Bold, including its best feature ever, caching a song to play offline later. It also throws in some touch-screen specials, like support for landscape mode.

The app still serves U.S. customers only on the BlackBerry and iPhone.

To get it, go … Read more

First Look video: Slacker Radio for iPhone

Slacker Radio for iPhone 1.0 (and iPod Touch) may be late to the party of streaming-music apps for the iPhone, but that's no reason to overlook it.

The excellent, free app offers up a sleek, dark display and a lot of visual goodness, from large album art to visual icons for your favorite and custom stations.

Sure, we've got a few complaints, too, but if you're deciding whether to add another music app into the mix, this First Look video may help you decide.

First Look video: Slacker for BlackBerry

Slacker Radio started 2009 with a burst, releasing a mobile version of Slacker's streaming-Internet radio app for BlackBerry (story|download) that takes unique advantage of its hardware and storage capabilities to add some truly useful features.

Check out this First Look video to watch these features play out on the BlackBerry Bold.

MP3 Insider 130: Personal radio apps for the iPhone

Donald and Jasmine discuss Pandora 2.0 and the new Slacker app for the iPhone and the iPod Touch. Also on deck: a bit of info from the NAMM show and a little good-natured ribbing at Haier America's expense. Oh, and we poke some serious fun at Microsoft...prepare for your ears to bleed a little first, though.

Listen now: Download today's podcast… Read more

Too lazy for Pandora? Try Slacker

Correction: as a commenter pointed out, you can in fact create stations on Slacker based on a favorite artist or song--you select "Find Music," then search by artist or title and it will build a station around your search. I thought this feature was missing on the iPhone app. Now, you cannot customize those stations by adding "seeds" like you can on Pandora, nor can you use the Fine Tune feature to tweak them, but the basic idea--stations based on a particular artist or song--is available. My bad.

Slacker released its radio app for the iPhone … Read more

How to cache Slacker stations on BlackBerry

Updated 5:40 p.m. PST with more information on storage capacity.

Caching radio stations to listen to later is, as far as I'm concerned, Slacker for BlackBerry's No. 1 feature.

While sound quality and speed are excellent as long as you're on a Wi-Fi connection, as soon as you stumble into 3G territory, quality takes a noticeable nosedive. It still sounds good, mind you, but buffering bumps and delays take their toll. Even worse is when you're cut off completely from all data sources and you just have to have your Slacker Radio. My personal … Read more

Get your tunes on

We weren't disappointed by Slacker Radio's free iPhone app. After logging on, the dark-themed app lets you simply tap the icons at the top of the stations list to launch favorite and custom stations. Scrolling down, you'll encounter a search option and top music stations, followed by a long list of musical genres; a logical flow for the iPhone's design.

Slacker also takes advantage of the iPhone's height to much more prominently display album art than on other mobile devices. The controls to pause, skip, save, and ban an artist are finger-friendly. You'll be … Read more