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NPR's Car Talk Dumping RealMedia
olcrazypete writes: "Click and Clack are apparently fed up with Real Networks. They have switched to Windows Media Player format. 'Why? Because, for a long time, we've had tons of complaints about RealNetworks. And the one that ticks us off the most is the perceived trickery they use to sell their premium products. This is just our opinion, mind you, but it's shared by enough of our listeners, that we
finally decided to take action.' The whole story is here . My favorite line: 'It stinks so much that it even makes Microsoft look good by comparison. That's something, huh?'"
Peoples problem with Real Media is not the quality of the streaming media. It is the constant barrage of advertising and popups to get you to sign up for the premium service. Microsoft may no tdo this now but once they have the market cornered they will switch to a pay for play model i'm guessing. I'm surprised that Car talk is moving away from this kind of crap when so many others are moving toward. It seems like half the online newspapers that used to be free are now a charge or register type of thing.
I would like to salute the ashes of american flags, and all the fallen leaves filling up shopping bags.
I used to like Real. Even after the debacle with the spyware in their jukebox, I was willing to give them a second chance. But I learned my lesson somewhere around G2. I was installing their latest player on my wife's Windows box, and up pops a Gator installer!
:-P
Of course it also didn't help my opinion of them that they provided my state with Maria Cantwell.
#DeleteChrome
And it's the best show on NPR, bar none. They started offering this a month or two back, and the next week had a sample from their deluge of "thank you" letters.
Click and Clack probably haven't noticed this -- busy, as they always are, laughing at their own jokes.
"Whatever happened to fair use?"
-- Duff-Man
Actually, they're both pretty smart.
Tom Bio
Ray's Bio
Tom had scholarships to both MIT and Harvard, worked as an engineer, got an MBA, earned a PhD, taught for several years as a professor, taught international business abroad, started his own do-it-yourself auto repair shop (very hacker like), and has a successful auto repair show. Oh, and Ray, the "stupid" one, went to MIT too.
Also, if you listen to their show, every week they have a math problem for their listeners to solve. The show is great. They're both pretty funny and the show is surprisingly entertaining. Who said gearheads are stupid?
What do you mean my sig is repetitive? What do you mean my sig is repetitive? What do you mean....
One defense I will offer for our hardline business folks is that they've figured out how to keep the lights on. The fact of the matter is, we just announced that consumer revenue was 76% of our 2003q4 revenue, up from 70% the previous quarter. "Consumer revenue" is made up of subscriptions to our premium business, as opposed to systems revenue selling media servers. People assume that our business is still about media servers. So, they do get a little zealous about keeping the subscription business growing.
The thing that can't be repeated enough is that RealAudio is a supported format on Linux. Now, Linux users are forced to use jury-rigged solutions to listen to Car Talk. Very sad.
Rob Lanphier
Helix Troublemaker
RealNetworks
PS:
I wrote them a nasty letter. While I was doing so it occured to me...
If what they say is true why aren't they just using an MP3 stream? that works everywhere. Could it be this has something to do with their hosting company being a big Windows 2000 server farm?
http://www.corsis.com
Lets see, last time a big hosting company went all Windows, wasn't that Digex? I wonder what ever happened to them? hehe
Funny their demise didn't make nearly the splash that their switch to Windows did. Oh well.