Reading about the proposed satellite radio merger, beyond the noise around monopolies and pricey talk show hosts, I am very interested in the real cause of their troubles: Internet-based alternatives like iTunes and (my personal favorite) Pandora.
A sample quote from one of these stories:
“Basically, XM and Sirius aggregate various musical genres. The iPod also does that, and regulators need to consider that.”
Why would anyone pay for satellite radio when they can get the equivalent service for free, through the Internet? Sound quality isn’t a real concern: plenty of users are happy with MP3 compression. Neither is the value of having great music in your car: iPod docks are increasingly common in cars.
So that leaves the celebrities like Howard Stern. When he moved to satellite radio, Howard spent a long time comparing the entertainment value of his radio show to the daily cost of a subscription , and apparently people agreed (ah me, if only the NPR wonks were so compelling).
But what is Howard, really? A prototype blogger in an older medium. So if I could translate (really good) blogs into audio, I’d have that final piece of the satellite offering. Some people are end running this concept with podcasts, but I think the concept introduces an interesting startup opportunity: a free service that converted RSS feeds to audio (podcasts) via text-to-speech software. Run ads alongside it, merge it with iTunes, Pandora, Sonos, whatever, and you’d potentially have a valuable offering. I’m not sure if there are any software applications that can effectively mimic the nuances of human speech without massive processing, but perhaps there are economies of scale.
So, that’s my possibly bad startup idea of the week:
- Build a company that translates RSS feeds to podcasts.
- Market it to bloggers (“Insta-podcast!”).
- …and to Internet music and podcast aggregator applications (“just enter an RSS feed and get a podcast!”)
- Run audio ads in-stream.
- Watch satellite radio sue funny commentators for concept infringement.
- Sell to Google.
- Acquire manservant, associated lifestyle.
I like the way you think:)