First, it was “sharing” of music over the Internet, followed by non-radio music broadcasters streaming music.
Then along came Sirius and XM radio, which proved that people would pay to listen to music without commercials in their cars
Then Apple came out with this device called the iPod that allowed downloading music and other digital content from the Internet The listener could build up a personalized collection of the music they liked – not what some music consultant looking at a demographic profile and focus groups says they should want. Plug the iPod into the input jack in your car radio, and the listener is in control.
And then several important members of Congress suddenly got the idea that Radio stations should share their income with the Artists whose music they play now for free.
What is a music radio station to do? What curve ball will hit them next?
Compiling a library of your music for your iPod is time consuming, and if the music is properly licensed (so you aren’t stealing it), maintenance of licenses and dealing with a lost or damaged iPod can be a major hassle. What if you could buy a memory card preloaded with 1,000 songs? a memory card about half the size of a postage stamp?
Introducing the Sandisk slotRadio player, which is currently hitting retailer shelves. For $99, you get a very tiny mp3 player with 1,000 songs preloaded. Perhaps you like Country music – get 1,000 country music songs for $39.99 more, properly licensed. Or you can just load up a blank memory card with your own music collection and plug it in.
The player also includes an FM radio (no HD decoder – sorry Representative Markey).
The Sandisk slotRadio has two major drawbacks, but it is the first of its kind. First, the playlist plays in sequence and isn’t editable. You can skip a song, but you can’t go back and forth or put it on random play. The second is that while the battery in the player is rechargeable, it is not replaceable. When the battery dies, you have to go buy a new Player.
The price of secondary storage (hard drives, memory cards) is getting insanely inexpensive. I received an offer today for a 1 TB external hard drive (that’s 1,000,000,000,000 characters of data) for $89 – that’s enough space to store 200,000 songs at near CD quality sound.