XM vs Podcasts

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"...one of the strongest motives that lead men to art and science is escape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness, from the fetters of one's own ever-shifting desires. A finely tempered nature longs to escape from the personal life into the world of objective perception and thought." - Albert Einstein

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Sunday, December 21, 2008

XM vs Podcasts

Anyone who knows me knows I selected my car and phone for very specific interrelated purposes. I was trying to explain this a few times to people and I think the whole thing was just over their head.

One of the reasons I got my car was because the entertainment system offered the stereo Bluetooth profile, in additional to the headset profile, so I can pump high quality audio from my phone. On my phone, I got one of the many phones that now offer the stereo Bluetooth profile. My phone also has an application that lets me 'subscribe' to mp3 audio RSS feeds. Like the feed I offer on this site, but it has embedded the link to an MP3. This is called 'Podcasting". The end result of this whole thing Ladies and Gentlemen is that I am able to listen to podcasts during my commute with almost no technical or labor overhead. The last point is important to me. It needs to be automated for me. I just want to get in my car, turn on the stereo, and listen to the podcast(s). It pretty much works like that although I still have to enter a url of the RSS feed into the phone initially... but I can envision that changing over time too.

I will say that this is not run of the mill technology and most people do not even know they can do this or even are aware of all the great content available via Podcasts. Heck, I did not even get on the podcast bandwagon until recently. My friend Tom Alvarez has been telling me about "Cranky Geeks" podcast for at least 6 years now.

Why is this important to me? Because I am sick and tired of the drivel on talk radio or on radio in general. I do like audio books (on CD or MP3) but they are expensive and you have to spend time to find them and buy them.

So lets get back to the reason for this lab note. XM vs Podcasts. Not once, not twice, but three times I tried to explain how I listen to podcasts on my way to work when the other party asked me if I ever tried XM (or Sirius)! IS THIS THAT DIFFICULT TO UNDERSTAND! Broadcast is going away. You can stream any ip content, in high bandwidth, anywhere today! There are some caveats to this, but in general I will let that statement stand.

damon at 10:01 PM | (0) Comments | Add a comment | Permalink

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