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more on XM Radio pulls PC-based receiver over piracy concerns
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Wed, 08 Sep 2004 13:26:48 -0400
Begin forwarded message: From: Joe Crawford <artlung () artlung com> Date: September 8, 2004 1:17:47 PM EDT To: David Farber <dave () farber net> Subject: Re: [IP] XM Radio pulls PC-based receiver over piracy concerns Reply-To: Joe Crawford <joe () artlung com> PVRBlog, run by Matt Haughey of Metafilter, has a great take on thisdecision -- essentially it's a huge missed opportunity to serve customers
who love radio. http://www.pvrblog.com/pvr/2004/09/xm_radio_is_tot.html XM Radio is totally taking its ball and going home over TimeTrax ========While not directly TiVo related, recently on a few threads here mentioning
the radio features of networked appliances and Microsoft's Media Center, we've talked about how great it'd be to get a "tivo for radio." Everyone has their favorite radio shows, but we've all got our own schedules that rarely allow us to catch them. Well, someone heeded ourcall and made a program called TimeTrax that schedules recordings off your
PC-based XM satellite radio and saves them as MP3s you can listen to later. So let's look at this for a second. XM radio is a subscription-basedsatellite radio network that runs $9.95 per month. There are several types
of receivers but one of the cheapest is a USB-based unit that works onMacs and PCs, costing around $50. Simply put, folks that get XM radio are
big fans of radio.XM radio is fairly well scheduled, with daily talk programs, super hip DJs on music channels, and various bits of esoteric comedy and news programs.
I myself tried it out for about 5 months earlier this year. I originallygot it to hear some BBC and Air America, but quickly found myself spending more time enjoying the various jazz and alternative stations. In addition to talkshows, the music channels are superb, almost seeming like a college station where all the DJs are way into their kinds of music and the boring
corporate stuff is nowhere to be heard. Eventually I gave it up when Icouldn't always be around to catch various comedy and talk shows on time.
TimeTrax not only lets you schedule recordings, but you can have it search
for keywords like bands you like and people you want to hear on shows.Basically, it gives big time radio fans a powerful tool to let them enjoy
their radio even more. So what did XM radio do when they found out? They decided to stop selling the USB-XM radio hardware altogether. Theyclaim piracy, but if someone's paying $10 a month just to save a few MP3s,
I seriously doubt they are redistributing it to thousands of folks that would otherwise be XM customers (unless someone can show me an XM radio archive somewhere of all these pirated MP3s). XM shouldn't be pulling devices off the market that get them new subscribers (duh, the units are inoperable without a subscription), they should have bought the TimeTrax product and incorporated it into their PC control software, which didallow you to set alarms when your shows were on (you still had to actually
sit in front of the computer and listen to them though). XM dropped the ball, picked it up, and is now taking it home instead of giving their most loyal customers a chance to further enjoy their subscriptions on their own time. But at least for me, there's now an upside. I can take my $40 XM radio PCR unit and sell it on eBay for upwards of $400. ========= Joe -- Joe Crawford Web Building, Blogging, Product Evangelist e: joe () artlung com http://artlung.com/blog/ - being myself aim: artlung () mac com http://sandiegoblog.com - daily san diego t: +1 (619) 516-4550 http://websandiego.org/ - community f: +1 (928) 752-6311 http://lamphost.net/ - get web hosting ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as interesting-people () lists elistx com To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/
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- more on XM Radio pulls PC-based receiver over piracy concerns David Farber (Sep 08)