by Bill Patton, Lead Interactive Strategist, hmc²

One of the oft talked about but rarely realized promises of the web is the ability to deliver “products” that can be tailored to suit a market of one. One site—slacker.com—that I have recently begun to use for online radio is an excellent example of Web-enabled customization done right.

First launched in beta July 2007, Slacker delivers a high personalized online listening experience by combining several “radio“ features into one:

1. 75+ genre stations
2. 10,000+ “artist” stations
3. The ability to skip songs you don’t like
4. The ability to “favorite” songs you do like
5. The ability to build custom stations that only feature artists of your choice

The result is a Web-based radio station that you can take full ownership of. Why bother to download songs at all when you can listen to a mashup of your favorite artists on demand? Whether you want a mix of the Rolling Stones and Thievery Corporation or continuous Willie Nelson, Slacker.com can deliver your exact listening experiences in ways that traditional radio never will.

From a Wired review of the service:

All in all, this adds up to some long overdue innovation in a market that has been dominated by a single player that has had the luxury of rolling out features slowly. Users of Apple’s upcoming iPhone will have to load new music manually over USB, as they do with current iPods. Slacker users, on the other hand, will be able to sit back and enjoy the music, which is, after all, the point of these devices.