Is Satellite Radio Falling Behind?
Are you a Rush fan? I am. Check out Rush Radio on Slacker. Rush Radio plays the best music from Queen, Styx, Queensrÿche, Asia, Kansas, Boston, Jethro Tull, Blue Öyster Cult, Meat Loaf, Heart and more. Oh, and yes, it plays all of the tunes from Rush as well. A fan of another band? There is likely a customized Slacker station that has a channel dedicated to them.
Slacker is filling a niche that satellite radio has left out. Highly selectable and easy to use tunes at your fingertips. Satellite could take this step, but at this point neither Sirius or XM have chosen to do so. Why is satellite not making more of an online presence?
Slacker is interactive. Album Art is displayed. You can rate songs as favorites, ban songs, and even download a song instantly if you are a premium service member. Even without the premium service the highly selective nature of radio stations is a service that bests most anything out there. If you are hearing a song, you can learn what album it is from, and even see a write-up about the artist. If you get to a song that you don’t like, you can ban it from the station (this does not ban the song from everyone, just you). If banning seems harsh, simply click the fast forward button and the next great tune will play.
Sirius and XM by contrast have fairly simplistic on line radio players. You can select between the channels, but nowhere do you gain the ability to fast forward, mark songs for download, etc. Nowhere are you building a customized radio station. The online experience with Sirius and XM leaves a lot to be desired when compared to what the folks at Slacker are doing.
Now, some readers at this point must be scratching their heads wondering why a satellite radio fan such as myself is so high on Slacker. Well, I am also a Slacker fan. In a perfect world, Sirius and XM (or the merged company) could do something along the lines as what Slacker has developed. I find myself listening to Slacker more than either satellite service when I am on my computer. Slacker seems to have some great aspects to the service which I find very desirable. Sirius and XM are actually more mainstream, and carry sports, talk, and other programming that Slacker simply does not offer. Thus, I am a fan of and use both satellite as well as Slacker.
Now, if what I have written is not enough to get you to try Slacker, consider this. Slacker is giving away a free portable. If you recommend slacker to someone and they open a free Slacker account, you will get an entry in the free portable contest. Here’s the deal. If I win, you win (or bat least one of you wins). If you are interested in test driving Slacker, simply send an e-mail to satellitestandard@gmail.com and put Slacker in the subject line. I will get a Slacker invitation sent to you, and when you try Slacker through my invitation, I get an entry into the contest. If I am a winner in the contest, I will draw a name from all of those who participated and give the Slacker Portable to that person!!! The more people that participate the better my (and by extension your) chances in winning.
Loving Sirius and XM is great, but why not consider broadening your horizons? Slacker makes radio fun, easy, and enjoyable.
Position Long Sirius, Long XM
Slacker is a cool device for music.
Luckily I don’t listen to satellite for music. There are much better alternatives for that. I DO listen to satellite for live content that I wouldn’t be able to get on Slacker or an iPod (at least without it being tape delayed). I listen for the NHL, MLB and the NBA. I listen for O and A. I listen for other live talk be it news or sports.
Bottom line, in my opinion, is that satellite needs to grasp that they really aren’t the cool place for a music fan. They need not market themselves that way.
They need to focus on the live content that one can only hear on satellite. It seems they really only do this with Howard and occasionally sports.
iPods, Slacker and a multitude of other devices will make the music of satellite almost obsolete. It’s time for them to focus on what they can do that others can’t.
Here, here Hunter, “Content is king” and always will be. I will never get how anyone would want 3 different devises/services, to get the same comparable thing at a larger cost, then just one devise/service at a lower cost. Does it offer something that is that big of a difference then sat. radio, not really the 80s channel gives most of those artist, at worst you may need to go to a second channel. But can you get Stern, O & A, Martha Stewart, ect., ect., on Slacker, answer: NO. Once again content is king (plus there is more of it) and is the main difference between satellite radio and everything else. It is why they will succeed or fail. A fact Mel knows all to well.
I feel that Slacker is filling a niche. The fact that satellite has all of the live programming will keep SDARS going. However, the fact that they do not cater to on line listening to the potential that they could is something that will have consumers getting content from elswhere, and thus why a service such as slacker can come into being.
I love SDARS, but I also think that for music on line, Slkacker has Sirius and XM beat by a healthy margin at this time.
Tyler, maybe for someone like you who needs or wants everything that comes down the pike in the audio bussiness that is true. I believe that kind of individual is few and far between. I personally am more simple and will take the one thing that works best and use that. A company can go broke tring to fill every niche. You cant please all the people all the time.
I know you have a respect for satellite radio you have both SIRI/XMSR. By the way, how many people do you think have both? I dont think it is a big percentage of subcribers. Even the ones who dont care about the cost, they just dont want to deal with the hassle. Thats not to say if both radios were not combined into one with one payment, then it becomes less of a hassle to have both and more would carry both.
I downloaded Slacker several months ago on to my desk top computer. It was loaded with adware and spyware. It consistantly jammed my computer. I finally had to pay $300 to have it completely removed from my computer. Their spyware files were spread all through my registry. Beware of anyone’s recommendation here.
If you don’t want to open yourself up to the spyware and adware SiriusInvestor mentions, just play Slacker from the webiste: you don’t need to install any program. I’m not ot excusing Slackker’s poor choice to infect their awesome product with junk, just telling you there’s another option for listening.
@SiriusInvestor
I am not sure that was the case. I haven’t seen anything that resembles spyware in slackers service.
That being said, you got ripped off by whoever charged you $300 to remove “spyware” from your computer. You can buy a new computer for $500 for crying out loud.
Next time just remove the spyware yourself for free with ad-aware!
Charles… I was able to get the adware out but not the spyware. It took almost 5 hours to get it out the registry. It spread like a virus. I paid $3800 for my Dell XPS. Can’t buy what I have for $500.
@SiriusInvestor
Adaware removes both adware and spyware and as I noted before…it’s free. I am not trying to rub it in or anything but, you paid far too much to have your computer cleaned. I am just arming you (and anyone else who reads this) with the info you may need for the future. Check adaware out, it’s a great freebie;
http://lavasoft.com/products/a.....e_free.php
BTW are you an online gamer? I am just curious as to why you would need a computer that powerful yet not know how to remove spyware.
I am reading what I just wrote and I think I come off like a jerk but, I am honestly just asking.