Dan Patterson

Today @abcnewsradio - my team at ABC News - launched a partnership with a mobile audio/radio/music company called Slacker Radio.  @SlackerRadio is an app (this is an iTunes link, though the app is also available on Blackberry, Android, and a number of other devices) that - much like Pandora - streams music and audio based on a a personalized recommendation engine.  

For the past several months the ABC News Radio team has been working their collective asses off to develop a great news product for mobile devices.  Slacker too has worked hard and been a big help.

You can read more about the service here, and you can listen to Slacker on your desktop here.

In NYC media circles we spend a lot of time discussing both the death of traditional news media as well as the emergence of disruptive technologies and the real-time web.  As we move ever closer to the real-time web, the convergence of traditional broadcast platforms with new technology becomes more and more interesting. The ABC News + Slacker deal is exciting because it brings us one step closer to this convergence.

Here are a few blurbs from around the web:

From Mashable

Good news for Slacker Radio fans — the web/mobile music application integrated ABC News into its stable of content today, allowing users to customize their news consumption as well as incorporate it into their Slacker stations ... For 14 days, basic Slacker users will be able to access ABC News content; Slacker Plus users can keep on tuning in after the two-week period ends (the Plus subscription is $3.99 per month). The content — which includes segments from Good Morning America, anchored by Robin Roberts, George Stephanopoulos, Juju Chang and Sam Champion; and Nightline anchored by Terry Moran, Cynthia McFadden and Martin Bashir.

From Read Write Web

When we think "slacker", we think dirty jeans, video games, gas station food and couches. But now, a partnership between ABC News and streaming music service Slacker Radio is looking to redefine our knee-jerk association, bringing news to those who can't care enough to actively chose their music. (We jest.) ... The partnership is the first we've seen between a streaming music service and a news service. ABC's content will be available in two ways - as a separate stream of news and as a top of the hour update, which will interrupt streaming music with a news update each hour ... According to the site, news will consist of "a mix of the day's most compelling news including Headlines, US and World news, Sports, Business, Politics and more" and will be added throughout the day. According to the release, the news station "features segments from ABC News programs, including "Good Morning America" anchored by Robin Roberts, George Stephanopoulos, Juju Chang and Sam Champion, "Nightline" anchored by Terry Moran, Cynthia McFadden and Martin Bashir and much more." Users will have the ability to skip and queue stories just as they can with music.  Overall, we really like the idea of an hourly real-world interruption of our streaming music and hope to see a similar option make its way into other services.

Thanks much to everyone who helped make this happen (not to mention those of you who covered this).  I'm stoked and hope you are too!

- DHP

@DanPatterson

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