Slashdot Mirror
AOL and XM Joining Forces for Online Radio
Josh writes "BetaNews is reporting that AOL and XM are joining forces to make available 20 XM music channels plus 130 of its own available to anyone on the internet for free starting this summer. AOL members will have free broadband access to 70 XM channels, although apparently there are plans for a $5/month option for non-subscribers. The deal means AOL Music specials will make it onto XM's channels, and XM promos will be heard across AOL Music's properties."
I would gladly pay a monthly fee for hearing music that I can't choose, and maybe advertisements every now and then! It's like radio, but it costs money and bandwidth!
So does XM, http://listen.xmradio.com/. I'm listening right now.
The real advantage to this, of course, is that XM increases it's potential customer base. Customers who will use the XM via AOL option will fall in love with a couple channels and end up getting units and paying the $12.99/mo. Of course, I'm all for this... I'm a shareholder (tm).
for years, techies laughed at users of AOL and said it wasn't the "real" internet. AOL didn't work with normal browsers, wouldn't allow one to have access to normal things, etc.
There is a HUGE market for that now. Imagine an environment where spam is mostly non-existent because the network is isolated and only approved hosts can send email. Imagine an environment where sites didn't do mischevious things to your system. There's a market out there right now almost screaming to get the very thing for which AOL used to be criticized. There are millions of people out there that don't want 15,124,617,179,945,562 different search results for what they're after (esp when only 5 of them will be what they actually want, the first being on page 20 or so, and the rest will be trash), and they don't care to have to deal with all the other junk out there.
A couple nights ago I was looking for something online, and my wife and our roommate were in the room goofing off. After having to wade through pages of squatter-crap and such that had all the dumb tags that improve search engine results, I yelled "what have you people done to my beloved internet? It was a wonderful place until you all started getting on too!" I was only half-kidding. I never used AOL (I owned an ISP back in 95, and after that went to broadband for personal use) but I would count myself as someone that would sign up for a trusted environment.
So far competition has been very good for satellite radio. Sirius dropped commericals from music channels, and XM followed them. Sirius put its music on the net for free, and XM also put theirs online for free (for some subscribers).
Add me to the list of people who want to see competition.