When I was in high school, my friends and I would trade mix tapes of our favorite songs, trying to impress each another with new discoveries and artful combinations. Unfortunately, I was never very good at it, in part because my handwriting was so bad. My cassette sleeves were illegible, so no one knew what they were listening to.

Today, all of us have iPods. No one trades mix tapes, and cassette sleeve handwriting is never an issue. But the need for discovering and sharing new music is as strong as ever. Just the other day, I got an email my friend Pat in Boston with the subject line "Need New Music."

My response to emails like this is often a few pithy lines about a relatively unknown artist and maybe an attached MP3 file. As I've said in the past, I don't think the recording industry can stop these kinds of exchanges. It shouldn't even try. But the industry could learn from this sort of thing.

I've got 30GB music on my iPod, but I've already heard it all. There's nothing new there. And I don't have time to read Blender or hang out on Pitchfork all day. I need a service that automatically sends me songs I might like, so I don't have to go out and find them myself. I'm thinking something along the lines of radio.

And I don't mean commercial radio. Commercial radio sucks. Even if you fit a generic profile like "Dance," "Classic Rock," or "Easy Listening," you're forced to put up with 20 minutes of commercials every hour. No, thank you. Some people argue that the emergence of HD radio will make radio better, but not me. It's just the same old radio concept delivered at a higher quality. For me, the answer is satellite or even Internet radio. They offer more variety with less--and sometimes no--commercials.

Sirius gives me most of what I want. The playlist on my favorite channel, Left of Center, always includes a few new tracks. Unfortunately, I can't take it with me. I have a receiver set up at home and if I wanted to, I could tune in at the office over the Internet, but I can't listen in the car or on the subway. Yes, Sirius offers a portable player, the Stiletto, that streams live broadcasts and caches songs, but the company has been curiously reluctant to send PC Magazine a review unit, so I haven't tested it out. Fortunately, there's a new competitor in the Satellite/Internet radio business.

At its core, Slacker.com is an Internet radio service. It's a site where you can listen to about 100 stations, and if you set up an account, the site will learn your preferences, streaming artists and songs that match your interests. Sure, there are other sites that do the same thing. LastFM.com and Pandora.com are both eerily good at making music recommendations. But Slacker will soon offer a hardware player.

Due out this summer, the Slacker player is a small flash-based handheld where you not only stream Internet radio but also load MP3s. Whenever you're in range of an open WiFi network, the player automatically fills itself with new music based on your Slacker profile. Plus, it receives satellite broadcasts, so you can load up just about anywhere. If you love a song that's playing, you can click a button, buy it, and it will automatically be added to you library, so you can play it as many times as you want. Even better, you can recommend songs to friends with just a few clicks.

There are 52 million people in the U.S. who listen to Internet radio each month. And with 12.5 million subscribers, Sirius and XM have shown that there's a market for subscription radio. I think Slacker could get a decent slice of both pies.

It's too early to give Slacker a free pass. After all, building a successful digital audio player is no small feat. But the company seems to have a feel for the social side of the music business. It's backed by former MusicMatch, iRiver, and Rio executives, and they've even got the brilliantly oxymoronic slacker.com domain name. What was that URL doing all these years? Sitting around doing nothing?

Most of us don't have the time to follow the latest bands or the expertise to set up great playlists. We just want to listen to stuff we like and easily share it with friends. And we're willing to pay for the privilege. Especially if it means we don't have to squeeze all those track names on a cassette case.