Palo Alto, Calif.
– Aha, owned by Harman International, announced it has teamed with Slacker to
bring Slacker’s Personal Radio and Premium on-demand music services into cars.
This deal marks
Aha’s first official music partnership, Harman said, and provides Aha listeners
with millions of songs on-demand as well as more than 150 programmed genre
stations. Slacker also has personalized music, comedy, sports and news
stations, including ABC and ESPN news. This Aha product will be available in
cars (OEM), aftermarket A/V systems and on smartphones.
Aha provides
access to web content from the radio, including news, traffic, local business
ratings, Facebook, Twitter feeds and podcast. It’s available as a free app for
smartphones, and Aha said it is currently working with automotive and consumer
electronics manufacturers on multiple integrations that will launch throughout
2012.
Chia-Lin Simmons,
Aha’s marketing and content VP, told TWICE that the Slacker service will be
available on Aha’s platform and that “soon, there will be other music partners.”
She noted that OEM and aftermarket manufacturers will be able to choose the
service that’s available to customers. “Once
Aha is made available, we offer automotive partners, aftermarketing OEM, etc.,
the opportunity to receive fresh content anytime. The Aha platform is
constantly adding new content and they are made available as soon as they are
up on the system.”
“Harman had the vision
of offering a program that product crosses multiple automotive brands,” Simmons
said.
“Come next year,
Aha will be rolling out automatic integrations with several auto manufacturers”
as soon as the first quarter of next year, she said. “By next year you’ll see
hundreds of thousands Aha-enabled systems across multiple auto manufacturers
that will be selling head units that have Aha functionality built into the
audio navigation system. When you sync up your smartphone to these auto
navigation systems, it will show an AM tab, an FM tab, a satellite tab and an
Aha tab,” she explained.
Simmons said the
Aha service will continue to be made available through aftermarket and OEM
products.
Simmons noted that
Aha’s current iPhone app doesn’t include the Slacker service. It will be
refreshed later this year, along with a new Android app, that will include
Slacker functionalities.
