One frustrating aspect of the Radiohead pay-what-you-want experiment is the lack of definitive numbers — yet. ComScore says this, Radiohead says that, the record industry says this, the artists say that.

The Radiohead experiment is now old news, but that doesn’t mean others will not attempt their own experiments. Following in the footsteps of Radiohead, Steve Hofstetter, an up and coming comedian with a strong Internet following among high school and college-age kids, has released his latest album “The Dark Side of the Room” on his Website. He’s believed to be the first comedian to take a pay-what-you-want approach.

Hofstetter’s last CD, “Cure For the Cable Guy”, reached No. 20 on the Billboard comedy charts, and he’s performed on VH1, Showtime, ESPN, and others, as well as his work being available at his Website and on YouTube. He’s extremely popular on MySpace and Facebook with hundreds of thousands of friends.

Hofstetter is no Radiohead, mind you, but it’s interesting to see all sorts of known, somewhat-known, and unknown artists experiment with the pay-what-you-want model.  What’s nice is that Hofstetter has provided real numbers:

Radiohead’s grand “In Rainbows” experiment ended this week. Whether it has been a success, only Radiohead and its management knows. Everybody else can argue about it.

But one thing is for certain: Radiohead put in motion, as The New York Times notes, “the most audacious experiment in years.”

Radiohead is no longer selling the album as a download from the Web site inrainbows.com.

“It’s been the most positive thing we’ve done,” Radiohead’s frontman Thom Yorke said. “We hope you shared the experience with others.”

Walter S. Mossberg, The Wall Street Journal technology reporter known by many as Uncle Walt, got his hands and ears on a prototype of the once-again-delayed Slacker Personal Radio. His verdict: buggy.

Bugginess is a part of any Version 1 product release, and the bugs explain why the Slacker portable player — due this month — has been moved back to a January 31 release date. (Slacker info.)

Mossberg describes the player as “chunky, black plastic” and “dominated” by a four-inch color screen. It provides a rich listening experience: the sound is good, the Wi-Fi connection worked in both Walt’s home and office, and included were album art, other photos, artist bios, and album reviews.

These were overshadowed by the bugs detailed in Walt’s review. “The two prototype Slacker units I tried, however, were hobbled by bugs and glitches that the company must expunge by the release date.” Mossberg notes that Slacker is aware of the glitches and is working to fix them.

What caught my eye  — over and above the bugginess — was how Mossberg characterized Slacker’s positioning of the product. He notes that 100 million music fans know the joys of owning portable digital music players, but to get the most out of these products he says takes too much effort or money for some people.