Sirius, XM merger may aid satellite radio future

The Justice Department this week finally issued approval for the merger of Sirius and XM, the two leading satellite radio companies. XM and Sirius announced their intent to merge more than a year ago, with promises of lower subscription costs, more programming choices and a better ability to foster innovation in the marketplace.

The companies approach the industry from different perspectives. XM focuses on programming that ranges from obscure genre channels to specialty offerings such as Bob Dylan's "Theme Time Radio Hour." Sirius has put most of its focus on the NFL and shock-jock Howard Stern. XM also has a research and development division in Florida dedicated to producing its superior hardware offerings.

While Sirius does have unique music channels such as Eminem's "Shade 45" and XM has rival shock jocks Opie and Anthony, a merged company promises to highlight each outfit's strengths in an assault against other mediums.

Part of the argument for the merger was that satellite radio companies don't compete against each other, but instead against terrestrial radio, the Internet and the iPod. The Department of Justice agreed.

In its findings, the department stated that while XM and Sirius do compete for new subscribers, little is done to get existing subscribers to switch between providers. Once customers purchase hardware for either Sirius or XM, they rarely switch between the services.

I have mixed feelings about the merger. Satellite radio is one of the greatest inventions of the past decade, and I recommend it to everyone I know. I think having two companies with different perspectives is more beneficial to the consumer than a la carte programming offered by a combined company.

That said, I don't think either company will survive without the merger - satellite radio is a fine luxury to have, but for casual listeners, it's hard to justify the $15 a month.

If you already have Sirius or XM in your car, you shouldn't notice changes just yet.

The merger still awaits approval from the Federal Communications Commission, which may come by the end of April. It's unlikely that the FCC would go against the Justice Department's recommendation.

Upon final approval, the merger wouldn't be complete until mid-2008, and it would take even longer to begin producing radios from a joint company.

Whether the merger will allow satellite radio to reach its growth targets remains to be seen. Persuading someone to purchase a $100 piece of hardware, pay an activation fee and fork over $15 a month isn't easy whether one company or two is doing it.

Justin Williams is a local blogger and the owner of Second Gear, a local Web and software development firm. He can be reached at justin@secondgearllc.com.

Originally published in The Evansville Courier & Press

Memes help keep Internet interesting

Part of the allure of the Internet is the way seemingly obscure photos, videos and Web pages gain momentum and begin to invade pop culture. Before the advent of sites such as YouTube and Flickr, these Internet memes clogged our e-mail inboxes. Now they're also on blogs, prime-time television and nightly newscasts.

Last year's most notable meme was Chris Crocker's infamous "Leave Britney Alone" video. Even today, people make references to the video.

Another began circulating last year based on actor Chuck Norris and fictitious claims about his abilities ("Chuck Norris' tears cure cancer. Too bad Chuck Norris has never cried."). Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee picked up on the phenomenon and released a campaign commercial that featured Norris himself.

Memes are created daily — some intentionally, others not. Companies try to create their own memes and viral videos in hopes of getting their name in front of millions of eyeballs with little financial investment. Others happen by accident.

One of the more popular memes over the past few months is the Lolcats phenomenon. Lolcat photos are spread over Weblogs and message boards and feature a photograph of a cat with a broken, misspelled phrase beneath it — such as a picture of a cat tucked inside a woman's purse, tagged with "Watz in ur wallet," an altered version of the Capital One catchphrase.

Many of the photos are hosted on the popular icanhascheezburger.com Web site, which also allows visitors to create their own Lolcat photos.

Similar to Lolcats is the FAIL meme. FAIL photos have a picture of a person or an animal in a compromising situation and tagged with one word: FAIL. Some of the more popular photos feature people captured in mid-tumble off a bicycle or a woman trying to snap a photo with the lens cover still on.

The FAIL blog is updated several times a week with new photos contributed by readers and offers its own apparel line.

By far the oddest of the recent Internet memes is the concept of "rolling," or having a person link to a supposedly legitimate Web site relevant to the discussion, but instead forwarding the person to a photo or video. The most popular version of rolling is "Rickrolling," where the link a user clicks redirects to a page that shows the music video for Rick Astley's 1980s hit, "Never Gonna Give You Up."

Why Astley's video was chosen to be the root of the meme is anyone's guess.

Justin Williams is a local blogger and the owner of Second Gear, a local Web and software development firm. He can be reached at justin@secondgearllc.com.

Originally published in The Evansville Courier & Press

RSS is easy way to feed Web content to desktop

I estimate that I read, on average, 300 Web sites a day. I am a fan of information overload. I peruse several newspapers and fill in the in-betweens with weblogs. I track all these sites in under an hour, thanks to a technology called RSS.

RSS, or Really Simple Syndication, is an Internet standard that allows users to subscribe to the content of a Web page and have it automatically retrieved and displayed.

RSS makes Web surfing a passive experience. Rather than visiting the home page of each site I read, I subscribe to the site's RSS feed and the new content is delivered to my desktop.

RSS has yet to reach beyond the geek crowd for a number of reasons. Until recently, subscribing to feeds was difficult. Now most major browsers have some sort of built-in support for RSS, but it leaves much to be desired.

Towards the end of 2007, NewsGator, a company that specializes in the RSS field, began offering its suite of desktop and mobile RSS software for free. NewsGator offers dedicated clients for Windows, Mac OS X and the Smartphone that update subscribed feeds periodically and display the new content for the user to sift through.

I've been a fan of NewsGator's Mac OS X client, NetNewsWire, for several years and have recently begun using FeedDemon, its Windows client, as well as the Blackberry and iPhone applications.

Switching between each NewsGator application is seamless because of the synchronization platform NewsGator incorporates in its software. Each time I read an item or subscribe to an RSS feed, that information is stored at NewsGator and synchronized with my other devices that are using any of the NewsGator applications.

Having access to my RSS feeds from my iPhone while, for instance, waiting at a restaurant is a great time killer.

NewsGator began offering its services for free as a way to expand its reach more rapidly. By giving away the client software and getting on as many desktops as possible, it will help sell its enterprise server solutions.

Integrating RSS into corporate intranets as a way to get information to thousands of employees is the next step in online communication. NewsGator wants to ensure that it is at the front of the line when that time comes.

NewsGator isn't the only company jumping on the RSS bandwagon. Google's Reader client is a Web-based RSS client that has many of the same features as NewsGator but also integrates nicely with Google's other services.

Given a choice between a Web-based application and an application that is Windows or Mac OS X native, I will almost always go for native, because it offers a better, more integrated experience.

Justin Williams is a local blogger and the owner of Second Gear, a local Web and software development firm. He can be reached at justin@secondgearllc.com.

Originally published in The Evansville Courier & Press.

Price cut is just a start in repairing Vista image

Microsoft has announced price cuts for versions of its Windows Vista operating system. They are planned to go into effect with the release of Service Pack 1 later this month and will be applied to Vista Premium ($129 instead of $159) and Vista Ultimate ($219 instead of $299).

The cuts are the latest attempt by Microsoft to improve sales of the much-maligned OS. After many delays, Vista shipped in January 2007 to subpar reviews and a plague of compatibility problems.

One user uploaded a video to YouTube showing him putting Vista into a paper shredder after he was unable to install it on his new PC.

"It is the only machine I can successfully load it into," he said.

A year later, local computer shops are offering to downgrade new computers from Vista to Microsoft's previous offering, Windows XP. While downgrading a new machine from Vista to XP is unwise, I can understand the sentiment.

If Microsoft wants to repair Vista's image, a price cut is only the start. The entire Vista product line is confusing. Microsoft needs to consolidate to a single version. Currently, there are four versions of Vista with varying features and prices.

Computers are complicated enough without having to approach purchasing an operating system as if selecting an options package on a car. A single version of Vista with every feature enabled would cut down on the confusion and put all users on a level playing field.

Microsoft also needs to ensure that Service Pack 1 is a solid release, resolving many of the major complaints users have had with Vista's poor networking support, confusing user account management and slow performance.

More important than trying to repair the relationship users have with Vista, Microsoft needs to ensure that Windows 7, the next version of Windows, is a home run.

Hiring an all-star team to focus on improving the user experience of Windows going forward should be the priority. Ensuring that anyone can use the new operating system out of the box without having to consult a manual is key.

Microsoft also should remove all traces of legacy support in Windows 7. Vista has the ability to run software that was developed for Windows 95 and DOS.

There's no reason someone should expect software they purchased 13 years ago to work on a new machine. Rather than trying to embrace the past, put those resources toward improving the user's experience going forward.

If the next version of Windows is as big of a dud out of the gate as Vista, you can guarantee that Apple's market share will continue to rise and Microsoft will have something other than Google to worry about.

Justin Williams, a local blogger and the owner of Second Gear, a local Web and software development firm. He can be reached at justin@secondgearllc.com.

Originally published in the Evansville Courier & Press