Slacker Radio Joins the On-Demand Music Fray

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Watch out, MOG and Rdio; Slacker Radio is getting into the on-demand subscription music scene with its own $10 per month offering.

I’m a pretty big fan of these services, which are all to some extent interchangeable. For $10 per month, you get unlimited streaming of any song on the services’ respective music libraries. Provided you’ve got an steady Internet connection, it’s like having access to the entire iTunes catalog for a flat rate, and you can also store individual albums and songs on smartphones for offline listening.

But there are some key differences between all three services. ReadWriteWeb does a good job of summing it all up, but here are the major points: MOG has the most music at 11 million songs, compared to 8.5 million for Rdio and 8 million for Slacker, although they’ve all got licensing deals with the big music labels. Rdio and Slacker both allow playlist management on mobile devices, while MOG does not. Rdio and Slacker support voice commands on Android phones, which can literally be a lifesaver if you’re driving. MOG has featured playlists from editors and other users, while Rdio’s social element is powered by your own friends. Slacker Radio forgoes the social element in favor “top 50” stations by genre.

In other words, it all gets kind of confusing. If you’re considering one of these services, you should first make sure your mobile device is supported — MOG is the only one that doesn’t have a Blackberry app, Rdio is the lone supporter of Windows Phones, and Slacker’s the only one with a proper iPad app. Then, choose based on which features are most important to you. Good luck!