i had the good fortune of getting a freebee upgrade from hertz this week...six days with a sirius satellite radio. i've often been curious about satellite radio - seemed like a cool technology, and i've migrated away from radio in the past ten years or so as commercials got out of control, and i got a little tired of hearing the same creed song every hour. so the idea of cd quality, commercial free music has been intriguing.
i must say - now i'm even more intrigued. six days, and i maybe heard a repeat once (after all, repetition is what makes you like songs). I hovered around the "alternative nation" station which is a good mix of new and old (old as in the wonderstuff "radio ass kiss") and never really heard a song i didn't like. there are still DJs, but they don't say much - just informational bits about the songs themselves. there are talk stations, and kids stations, neither of which i spent much time on.
the technology itself seemed pretty stable - it seemed to work as well in thunderstorms as it did in clear weather, and the addition of having the artist and song title on the screen in front of you for every song is a huge plus.
what i really wanted was a way to "bookmark" the songs i liked, and be able to access them from the web or my phone for next time i felt like buying some music. that would be especially cool in an iPod form factor if it weren't in the car.
i'm not going to rush out and buy a satellite radio, but i'll definitely equip my next new car with one if it's a factory option, which i think is the only way that sirius and their major competition XM are going to get the traction they need. i don't need to tell them that, it's all over their annual reports.
also, i definitely recommend adding this to a rental car...when you're in a new city, no more fumbling with the radio as you pull out of the awkwardly designed airport exit.
good-bye mancow - at least until there is a "mancow nation" station on satellite radio, which won't be in my package!
Posted by Steve at July 27, 2003 09:41 PM