Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Satellite Radio - Karmazin Wants To Buy XMSRFiled under: SIRIUS, XM, Digital Broadcasting,


Karmazin Wants To Buy XMSR

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Go go market unification. Well, not just yet, but it could be coming. Even with regulatory "question marks" looming, Mel Karmazin says he'd buy XM if the price were right.

The merger idea has been floated before, and many are certain that a consolidation between the two is inevitable in the long term. Still, when Karmazin talks, people listen and when he talks about a buy out of rival XM, it gets everyone talking.

Not the least of which is long time industry cheerleader, The Motley Fool. In the Fool's analysis, "If it does happen, it's likely to happen sooner rather than later. If XM and Sirius hit their mark and start producing positive operating cash flow in a few quarters, a lot of the bearish sentiment that has been marinating the stocks in recent months will evaporate. Prices will start inching higher, creating less of an incentive for XM and Sirius to cash out, and the potential acquirers may not be willing to pay those higher prices."

The Motley's have a point. Profitable, these two are going to be giants to contend with in terms of stock price. They will have created a new industry, something that isn't easy to do. To the victor goes the spoils, as they say.
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Lessons from the launch
By Mike Orren: First person: The head of Pegasus News reviews what he's learned, so far, on the road to starting a new local news website.

Sirius CEO reveals portable receiver/DAP

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Our sister blog Engadget is all a buzz about SIRIUS' first entry into the DAP market. Tech Effect even managed to snap a picture of the device when CEO Mel Karmazin briefly flashed it during his keynote at this week's Convergence 2.0 conference, and we were lucky enough to be tipped off.

No new concrete details but, SIRIUS promises that they'll have the new DAB in stores by the end of the summer.

Engadget expects to see more pictures and get more specs before the launch date, and we'll be sure to keep you posted.

[via Engadget]
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Fake grassroots don't grow...
By Robert Niles: Commentary: But that's not stopping would-be news entrepreneurs from fantasizing about networks of "reporterless" news sites.

XM Nabs Willie Nelson

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Rumors of this were running around recently, but it's now a confirmed deal. Loveable, pot-head bio-diesel salesman Willie Nelson is coming to XM Radio with a whole channel to himself.

The new channel will replace "Hank's Place" (channel 13) and will be, quite predictably, called "Willie's Place" effective July 10.

Namesake, Willie Nelson, will play cretive director for the new offering. Possibly the coolest part of all this, XM is building new studios for "Willie's Place" at Nelson's BioDiesel Truck Stop in Carl's Corner, Texas. The channel will begin broadcasting live from Carl's Corner in 2007.

Willie is a hep cat, and this shoud bring a depth of alterna-county programing to XM that SIRIUS can't currently match. With Country being a popular segment amongst a large portion of the US population, bringing a heavyweight name like Nelson on board can only be good for XM.

Read the press release here.
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Will podcasting become Argocasting?

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Well let me jump on the Microsoft iPod reporting bandwagon. Our sister sites engadget and PVR Wire have posts on the Microsoft Argo Personal Media Player including a scoop on the first look on the device.

Now to add the Droxy angle to the discussion, with the WiFi connection it is rumored to have, will it come with some kind of podcast aggregator built-in? I think it would be a great advantage for them to have that built right int the device. Anytime you go to a feed on the wifi connection it check to see if it has any enclosures in it, and then ask if you want to subscribe to it, if you are not already.

Of course this is all just my dreams for the device. It would require a little more of an interface to allow browsing of feeds. But I would guess they will be having some kind of interface to whatever music (or should we say media) service that you can buy / download stuff from. So if they add some kind of Podcast (Argocast, or maybe just Gocasts, or in the Pirates of the Caribbean theme, Arrrrgcasts) directory like in the iTunes store, it could work.

Microsoft, if you are listening, this would clinch me as a convert from my iPod.

[via PVRWire]

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NVIDIA's Preface puts a pretty face on PortalPlayer's SideShow gear

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There's a new line from NVIDIA, and for once it isn't concerned with FPS, PCI-X or your PSU. Nope, this time NVIDIA is showing off its softer side, with its new "Preface" line of SideShow devices powered by PortalPlayer, that can in turn be used by OEM manufacturers in their PCs or other media devices. As you're no doubt aware, SideShow is simply a pretty way to access your computer's information while it's off or closed, so you can play around with emails or MP3s without going through the trouble of booting your PC. We've already seen a couple of PortalPlayer auxiliary displays make their way into laptops such as Asus' WF5e and LG's Z1, but now things are really spicing up with Bluetooth and IR functionality in media remotes and portable players. The player pictured above, which we saw with a bit of dubious Dell branding while at CES, can not only communicate with your PC wirelessly, but can also take your media to go with a bit of flash memory. We'll have to wait and see what manufacturers actually do with these technologies and reference designs, but it looks like NVIDIA isn't making it too hard for interested OEMs to get this stuff into the hand of consumers -- we suppose we'll find out soon enough. Peep the remote after the break.

Continue reading NVIDIA's Preface puts a pretty face on PortalPlayer's SideShow gear

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!



Gizmo Call brings VoIP to the browser

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If downloading a whole entire app for making VoIP calls is just too much commitment, or perhaps you'd like to get in a few free phone calls on some random PC you don't quite have that kind of privilege with, SIPphone has quite a dealio for you. The builders of Gizmo Project have just unveiled Gizmo Call, which allows you to make phone calls from your browser, using a Flash-based mini-app. You get five minutes a day of free calls to any phone line, along with unlimited free calls to users of Google Talk, Windows Live, Gizmo Project and any other SIP service. There are fancy little "Call Me" links you can hand out to your friends, along with the ability to customize your CallerID to make your call look like it's coming from your mobile or landline. The service is live now, so start pranking your friends before they catch on!

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!



Satellite Radio Sales Slowing
Crikey! Sat radio sales are slowing all over, according to Banc Of America securities analysts. Citing high gas prices and deflating hype surrounding Howard Stern's move to SIRIUS.

Year-over-year satellite radio growth has slowed to 6% in May and 9% in April, down from 26% in March.

So, is the sky falling for satellite radio? Not exactly. To be fair, we're not talking about a shrinking market, just a market that's not growing as quickly as first quarter projections would have had us believe. Still, this softening market could make hitting the numbers needed to be profitable -- something neither XM or SIRIUS has been able to do so far -- more difficult.


[via Forbes]
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posted by Jan Tincher at 6:00 PM