Tag Archives: XM Radio

Car stereo with USB port

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Eric Benderoff (Tech.Buzz/Chicago Tribune.com) loves his JVC KD-G720 car stereo, an aftermarket item into which he can plug (via USB port) an iPod, or a thumb drive filled with MP3 files. The songs play through the car stereo, and he can control the volume and song selection directly through the unit, not the iPod. When his iPod is plugged in, the car stereo charges the music player as it plays. And the song information scrolls across the stereo’s screen, telling him the artist, song name and album title. The thing can also receive satellite radio from XM or Sirius, spin CDs (in WMA and MP3 formats) And play terrestrial radio stations. All for about $200, not including installation.

JVC USB Stereo

This just makes so much more sense than some proprietary, factory-installed hardware. I might have to get me one of these. Yum. [via RAIN]

Is your “stuff” good enough to pay for?

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“Alltel Wireless customers will be able to access XM Satellite Radio programming via their cell phones for $7.99 per month. The deal links the fifth-largest mobile service provider in the United States with the world’s largest satellite radio company. Like its competitors, Alltel is facing the imminent prospect of market saturation, so the company is seeking high-value content to gain additional revenue from its customer base.”

Seems to me you’d have to be a big fan of XM to pay an extra eight bucks a month to listen on your cell phone. And wouldn’t that be hell on the battery? But the more interesting question (for me) is: Do you have the kind of content that someone would be willing to pay for?

As businesses figure out that they can –if they’re clever enough– take their message directly to their customers, they’ll stop paying to have their messages jammed down people’s throats. We are approaching a time when the only reason people will listen to an (unwanted) commercial message is because they can’t figure out a way to avoid doing so. If you want to talk to your customers, you better start listening to them.

If you don’t know how to do that, you’re in trouble with a capital T and that rhymes with P and that stands for pool.

The radio ads I want to hear

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Tod Maffin is looking forward to the day his satellite radio delivers ads he wants to hear:

“So, let’s take this to its natural next step in, say three years. You call up XM or Sirius and activate your radio. Besides asking for your billing address, they also seek out some basic demographic information. How old are you? What are your interests? Suddenly, your radio begins playing ads that are aimed at you and people like you. With my demographic profile in hand, the satellite service could have screened those (crappy spam-like ads) out and sent me ads specific to my interests.”

I sort of dread going through some long “check the products and services you’re interested in” procedure, but you’d only have to do it once and then keep it updated. Then, maybe once a month, they send me a link to a web page where I see a list of all the advertisers that hit my reciever in the past 30 days. I remove any that I don’t like. Sort like signing up for Netflix. Or, maybe they just have a bot crawl this blog and figure out what I care about.

Google makes ad deal with XM

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“In its biggest offline media play to date, online search giant Google this morning announced plans to begin extending the reach of its online search advertisers to the nation’s largest satellite radio service, XM Satellite Radio. The deal is the latest development in Google’s push to expand beyond the Internet into the traditional media marketplace, and follows a series of tests with print media and radio outlets.”

— Media Daily News [Thanks, XM Ben]

Trent Tomlinson on Stern

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Sirius might be a great satellite radio service but I think their website sucks. My plan was to record Trent Tomlinson’s appearance this morning by streaming the audio from the Sirius website. Couldn’t get their three-day-free-trial to work. Even borrowed a password from a subscriber and couldn’t get that to work. So, unless one of you recorded this, we won’t get to listen. It shouldn’t be this difficult to steal part of the guy’s radio show.

Quick Google search found an amazing website called MarksFriggin.com. It appears this guy posts a detailed description of each day’s show. I’ll add the archive link as soon as he puts it up (tomorrow?) but if you find the show for 7/24/06 and scroll down to 7:30 a.m., you’ll find his account of Trent’s segment. Here’s a portion:

Miss Howard Stern Performs With Trent Tomlinson. 07/24/06. 8:30am
After the break Howard said he was listening to country singer Trent Tomlinson warming up during the break and he was wondering why they were letting Andrea come in to ruin it. He said the song is a little more than country and he’s not sure how he missed the song. He’s not into country music so that’s how he missed it. Trent told Howard about how he came up with the lyrics for his song ”Drunker Than Me.” Howard told the guys to perform the song before Andrea came in since she was probably going to ruin it.

Trent and his band performed the song ”Drunker Than Me” (from the album Country Is My Rock) which is the song that Andrea sang while drunk the last time she was up there at the Stern Show. Howard said he was amazed that Andrea could remember the lyrics to the song because they’re not easy to remember. Trent said he even has trouble with them sometimes.

Howard said that Trent has opened up for bands like Bon Jovi and John Mellencamp so it’s not strictly country fans that he’s performing for. Trent told Howard that one of his guys used to be in The Black Crows but he had a falling out with them. The guys said that he’s talking to the band now but he had to get out back then because they were playing too long for him. They turned into a jam band and would just keep going on and on while playing.

 

Howard spent some time talking to Trent about his career and how his father actually wanted him to be a basketball player. Trent said his father used to play himself so he tried to groom him for the same career. He said now his father is happy with what he does and calls radio stations trying to get them to play his songs.

Reminder: Kennett’s Trent Tomlinson on Stern Show

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A reminder for Kennett readers that hometown boy Trent Tomlinson will be on Howard Stern’s show on Monday monring. I think I’m all set to record the segment and will post it here until the Sirius lawyers make me take it down.

I wanted to play the Drunker Than Me video for some neighbors last night and did a google search (drunker than me video). It still amazes me that smays.com is number five in the search results. Power to the bloggers!

Former Learfielders meet up at CW event

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Two former Learfielders met up in Nashville yesterday where they were working the big country music event called Fan Fair. Chuck Zimmerman is blogging the event for New Holland Tractor. Ben Krech is a (the?) production director for XM Satellite Radio which, obviously, has a bunch of CW channels. Chuck shares a brief (6 min) interview with Ben. I mention this because they’re friends and because each has moved into interesting new media directions.

Programmer responds to Lee Abrams blog post

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Randy Raley calls bullshit on Lee Abram’s recent blog post (XM Sound). As a long-time jock (I still love that term) and programmer, Randy was “there” when Mr. Abrams was making his radio bones and offers a local radio perspective. In a perfect blogging world, Mr. Abrams’ blog would have his comments open and Randy could have added his. Then, Mr. Abrams could have responded. Then you have a conversation.

XM’s Abrams is blogging

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XM Radio “Chief Creative Officer” Lee Abrams is blogging. Today’s post reads like it might have also been an all-staff memo (and not necessarily today’s memo) but, hey, he’s hanging it out there and I hope he keeps it up. Would be fun to get even a tiny peek behind the scenes at XM. Couple of nuggets jumped out at me:

I can’t think of ONE FM station that would be worth taping and playing to the XM Staff. There are some OK ones, but most really are doing nothing especially interesting, compelling or new.

Local radio is dead. It’s irrelevant. For us we should be ALL OVER THE NATIONAL thing. Big ‘n bad ass. Local radio is a quaint relic. BUT—We are NOT taking advantage of this if we aren’t Talking to America.

It’ll be interesting to see if Mr. Abrams groks the “conversation” part of blogging (Turn those comments ON, Lee). He strikes me a a passionate, opinionated guy. Can he listen as well as he writes? We’ll see.

Mark Cuban getting show on Sirius

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Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is getting his own two-hour weekly show on Sirius Satellite Radio. Cuban says he’s “going to cover everything and anything, from sprots to business to technology, movies and entertainment.” This just seems so much more interesting than David Lee Roth or Bob Dylan, for that matter. But not enough to make me switch. One of your Sirius subscribers could aircheck and send me an MP3 file. If you loved me. Wonder what sort of format they’ll use? [Ft. Worth Star-Telegram via RAIN]