Netscape has been dead for a very long time, but now it is official.

I started out using Netscape Navigator. Back in the day my local ISP Fuse used it as the default browser on their CD that was sent to new subscribers. I was hooked on it the minute I first used it. I have never given Internet Explorer the time of day since. I went from Netscape Navigator to the Mozilla Suite and then on to Firefox and Thunderbird. Netscape lost me to Firefox and a new logo and skin couldn’t change that.

As the article points out, the last two versions of Netscape were nothing more than re-themed versions of Firfox with some Netscape extensions installed by default.

If you are nostalgic about the old dog, you can download the theme and extensions for Firefox from here.

  If this rumor proves to be true you can forget this shit about HD Radio going away. I’m serious as hell here. Apple can single handedly save HD Radio from the dumper.

I was a little intrigued when I first heard that on some HD Radio models listeners would be able to tag a song that they hear on their HD and buy that sucker on the iTunes Music Store. As Apple really didn’t seem like they had much interest in the idea I really didn’t pay any attention to the news at all.

Now there is this from iLounge.com:

Apple plans a push for iTunes Tagging-ready, HD Radio-equipped boomboxes with iPod docks during the mid-January Macworld Expo event in San Francisco, California. Announced in September, iTunes Tagging is a new HD Radio feature designed to further boost iTunes sales by allowing listeners to “Tag” the currently playing song, automatically adding its information to a “Tagged” playlist on the connected iPod. When synced with a computer, the playlist appears in iTunes, making it easy to purchase tagged tracks from the iTunes Store.

There are entire companies that exist to do nothing more than make accessories for iPods. The iPod is an economic machine, and if Apple actually does this it is a game changer for the HD Radio Alliance.

With the sheer number of people out there with an iPod, if Apple and iBiquity can put their heads together and put out a selection of HD Radio devices that will fill the need that many iPod owners have for alarm clocks and boomboxes that will interface with their iPods this will be a game changing, life saving move for HD Radio.

I have to question why Apple would get involved with this as they have never given one freshly shaved rats ass about terrestrial radio, but look at the pending merger of XM and Sirius and you might find an answer. As slight as the threat might be to the iPod economy, Apple may want to position themselves to have some type of a response to a combined XsiriusM. HD Radio sucks dirty, sweaty balls but it beats a fat blank.

As an iPod owner as well as a Sirius and XM subscriber I would have liked to see Apple cut a deal like this with either Sirius or XM. Or both. I would imagine that either service alone has more listeners than there are HD Radios in the wild and the cool factor would be off the chart for a device like that.

I also think it puts to bed any hopes or dreams that anyone might have that Apple would soak up one of both of the services. I never bought in to that one but if Apple were even thinking about starting to think about a satellite radio buy they wouldn’t jump in to this as fast as they have.

I’m sure that the Apple haters will think that I am full of shit here, but as a long time Mac owner and lover I have learned over the Steve years to never count Apple out. Look at the iTV or whatever the hell they call it. Everyone has written it off as a dead product. Just wait until The Steve’s plan is on the table. The Apple TV will change the way that people rent movies. Apple will also change the fate of HD Radio.

Man, I just don’t care that Amazon is selling DRM free MP3’s. Honest to God, I don’t.

I fall in the camp of iPod owners that just won’t own anything else. Yes, I know that there are players that offer other features or more features but I am happy with what the iPod offers me. It does what it does simply and easily and doesn’t pile on a bunch of stuff that I just don’t care to have like AM/FM tuners or (I don’t have a Touch or an iPhone) streaming radio stations. I am one that likes the iTunes integration and how easy it is to select some music or podcasts and have the thing synced up for me. No worries, no hassles.

Amazon MP3’s work on the iPod and with iTunes. Great. Some Amazon songs are less than .99. Great. I just don’t care.

Last year (2007) I bought 189 songs from iTunes Music Store. It was quick, painless and just flat worked. I wanted to try the Amazon store but one of the things that I was after was album only on Amazon and iTMS had individual tracks for sale. Strike one against Amazon. When I went to check out I then found out that I would have to install another application to do the downloads. That was it. I don’t need an auto start application to get my music. iTunes handles the entire deal for me and if I cared about the cheaper price I likely wouldn’t have been buying music online in the first place.

The iPod and iTunes are an entire economy, a way of musical life if you will. You are either in or you are out. The bad news for Amazon, Wal-Mart and anyone else in the MP3 business is the sheer volume of iPods that have been sold. When Apple does it so well, so easily the fight is up hill in the mud. Some people like me even resent the fact that the record labels will provide DRM free tracks to the likes of Amazon or Wal-Mart but not Apple. It is another topic entirely but the whole pissing match makes me want to only buy indie music from eMusic.com just to cram it in the ass of the labels.

Good on you Amazon! You sell those DRM free tracks to anyone that will buy them. Me? No thanks. I am happy doing it the way that works best for me and that is through iTunes. IMHO, the iTunes Music Store is only a value added service for the iPod. Apple makes some money from music sales, but it wouldn’t be a business at all without the iPod while I think that the iPod would survive without the iTMS.

–This post is a few days late. I thought I put it up and didn’t. Sorry–

All I can say is it’s about damn time. Just got a Google Alert for this story in the Washington Times announcing proposed legislation that would end the terrestrial radio exemption from performance royalties. It’s about fucking time. I’ll admit, before I subscribed to Sirius and XM I really didn’t care about the issue at all. Now I do and I am happy to see bipartisan sponsorship of bills in both the House and Senate to set this thing right.

The National Association of Broadcasters naturally came out in opposition to this legislation and I am sure that they are determined to kill this deal, but there were some interesting quotes.

First up is this little gem;

“After decades of Ebenezer Scrooge-like exploitation of countless artists, the RIAA and the foreign-owned record labels are singing a new holiday jingle to offset their failing business model,” NAB Executive Vice President Dennis Wharton said in a statement.

“NAB will aggressively oppose this brazen attempt to force America’s hometown radio stations to subsidize companies that have profited enormously through the free promotion provided by radio airplay,” he said. 

“Scrooge like” and “hometown radio”. Right. Clear Channel just whacked 20 or so people this past Friday in the Cincinnati market. Scrooge like? The week before Christmas? One of the DJ’s let go had 30 years, another had 12. Unknown numbers of off air employees were let go as well.

“Merry fucking Christmas, you’re all fired!”

On the hometown radio front Clear Channel leads the way in multi-casting. That’s the art of broadcasting content from one location to many stations across the country. Local my fat hairy ass.

While this legislation is out there please keep in mind that there is currently also a bill that would make the exemption from royalties law. One of these bills will pass and become law. Which one will it be? Well, money talks and bullshit walks in our democracy so my money is on the exemption. We’ll see.

Q. Why Mel, what would you do if the FCC rejects the Sirius/XM merger.
A. I’ll sue.

Forget about the merger. If I were an FCC commissioner that comment right there would be enough to make me vote no on the merger. You want to sue? FINE! Sue.

Stoooopid Mel. Stoooopid.

OK, I feel like that Congressman that spends years and years running as the “family values” candidate and then get’s caught up in the hooker scandal. You try and try to tell people to do as you say, not as you do but it just doesn’t work. That’s me today.

One of my all time favorite radio stations went Internet only some years ago. I LOVED this little station out of Oxford, Ohio and actually felt a loss when they went away. Then they came back. On the Internet. Then they went away again. Then they came back. Again. Anyone at all familiar with the story knows that I am talking about WOXY.com.

I listen to them both through their website, but more often than not I use the radio feature in iTunes as both the main WOXY stream and their Vintage stream are included in the iTunes radio list.

Well, WOXY.com came back to the airwaves in Cincinnati in an odd kind of way a few weeks ago.

The WOXY.com folks signed up with Cincinnati NPR station WVXU to simulcast their Internet stream on their HD 2 channel. I was floored when I heard it. I listened to WOXY at least a couple of hours most days and STILL to this very day miss them being on the air. Even with a subscription to both Sirius and XM I miss not hearing WOXY when I can’t be near an Internet connection. I was torn between REALLY wanting to listen to WOXY and my hatred of HD Radio.

Well, my issue was compounded a few weeks ago. I found an HD table top radio on Craigslist for $15. The guy said that it was nearly new and that he simply lived too far away from Cincinnati to pick up the HD broadcasts. I asked him why only $15 and he said that he had been trying to sell it in various places and couldn’t. He then listed on Craigslist for $30 and nobody bit. Then $15. That’s where I came in. I agreed, but when I got out to Milford (about 20 or so miles from my home) to do the deal the guy GAVE IT TO ME! Told me that I spent more in gas to get there than the radio was worth. He would not take my money. Handed over the box and receipt for the radio and wished me well.

I was floored, but I really wanted to check out WOXY on HD so I peddled home as fast as I could to try the thing out. Damn it, what a let down. I live in Northern Kentucky but close enough to Cincinnati to still smell the place. I live on top of one of the largest hills in all of Northern Kentucky and can SEE the transmitters on the hill over in Cincinnati for many radio stations. Not all, but MANY. I couldn’t pick up the freakin WVXU signal. Seems living on the far side of one of the highest hills in all of Northern Kentucky isn’t good enough for HD Radio.

Now I could (and I just might) add and outdoor antenna. Mounted to my DirecTV pole is the dish for D*TV as well as an external antenna for both Sirius and XM. I could very easily add an HD external and pick up the signal for about $100. Why should I have to? I don’t have the FM or AM antennas for my home theater system hooked up but I can get any station that I want to on that. Why not the same for HD? Because HD Radio SUCKS! That’s why.

HD Radio is a bigger joke than even I thought it was.

The Copyright Royalty Board feels that the free pass that terrestrial radio gets on performance royalties needs to end. I happen to agree.

Internet radio stations, Sirius, XM, Muzak, Dish Network (Sirius), DirecTV (XM) and cable providers ALL pay royalties to air music. Every bar, restaurant and diner that you go in to that plays music pays royalties. Every store that you shop in that plays music pays royalties for that music. As it should be.

AM and FM radio stations don’t. Under an arcane law from like the 50’s terrestrial radio stations are exempt from these royalties because of the “promotional value” these stations provide for music.

NAB (The National Association of Broadcasters) is opposed to the idea of terrestrial radio stations paying royalties to the record industry. Naturally, they want to protect the BILLIONS of dollars in profits that their members make every year on the music that they play and kill this “tax”. Tax? That’s what they call it. Like the Federal Government would be collecting this money.

It’s the greatest free pass that this country has ever given to a single industry. Take the product of another company and use it as you will. Collect all of the money that you possibly can and keep it. Don’t send any of it to the creator of the product that you present to the people. And they do. Radio companies in this country make BILLIONS of dollars EVERY year.

One of the other big talking points for NAB is that this “tax” money will be sent to the foreign owned record labels and it is just a money grab by the greedy music industry. Yeah, bingo dickhead. That’s exactly what it is but what does that have to do with ANYTHING? It is their product and in the name of “promotion” your members should get that product for free?

There are like 14,000 radio stations in this country. I don’t know what their listener total would be. I do know that there are over 1,500,000 Internet radio stations from around the world available to listeners in this country. Sirius and XM combined have about 16,000,000 subscribers. Dish and D*TV combined have about 35,000,000 subscribers all with access to a wide variety of music channels. There has to be well over 100,000,000 cable subscribers that have access to Music Choice with a wide variety of music channels. Where do you think that most people hear music?

What does this have to do with killing HD Radio? Well, HD Radio stations will not remain ad free forever. Commercial radio stations are only in business to sell ads and the ad free period will end for HD Radio at some point in the near future.

Let’s say that  radio companies have to start paying royalties on the music that they play. Even if it is a flat percentage of all revenue like other outlets are going to be charged, HD Radio streams would do nothing more than serve to drive up royalty payments for NAB members. The overwhelming majority of terrestrial listeners ARE NOT listening to HD Radio. Ads on HD Radio will be dirt cheap for a very long time. The HD streams may not be able to cover royalty on music from ad revenues.

Do you think that Clear Channel will continue to pump money in to HD Radio equipment, expanding services and coverage if the payoff in the end is an INCREASE in copyright royalties and nothing more? I don’t.

Want to make HD Radio go away? Contact your Congressman and tell them that you fully support the record labels and that you think that terrestrial radio stations SHOULD pay royalties for the music that they play.

1. It’s fair to the other music outlets that don’t get a free pass.
2. It’s fair to the labels.
3. It’s fair to the artists.
4. It’s probably the one sure, quick way to pull the plug on HD Radio.

Apparently not. I know that the guy with the totally anti-HD Radio blog posted a link to the compete.com charts but I much prefer using Google Trends. Google being the largest search engine their Trends site is a pretty accurate view of what is hot and what is not in terms of what people are actually searching for.

Here is the Google Trends chart for Sirius, XM, HD Radio and Slacker:

Yep, nobody gives a good fat damn about (NBC Universal, Hulu.com or) HD Radio.

Slacker is a "slacker" as well.

That is a bit of a shock given the hype and excitement that existed not so long ago. I guess missing their target for releasing their portable by 4 months and counting had a bigger impact than they thought it would.

Mr. Zucker has sounded off.

You just knew it was about money. You know, NBC wanting to raise prices and Jobs telling them to go screw. It is a very well known fact that most of the time these relationships between the content provider and Apple always come to blows over what Steve won’t let them charge.

The content provider wanting to raise prices and Jobs holding the line. You can argue the point that it is the right of the content provider to set the price for their product, but I agree with Jobs when he says that .99 is the limit.

Well, according to Jeff Zucker, chief asshat of NBC Universal in an interview with Variety he pulled the NBC U content over money;

“We wanted to take one show, it didn’t matter which one it was, and experiment and sell it for $2.99,” he said. “We made that offer for months and they said no.”

How much is one episode of a TV show from the 3rd rated broadcast network worth? Jobs hit the nail on the head when he stated that TV shows on iTunes were over priced. If .99 will get me a song on iTunes then .99 should get me a low resolution TV show as well. At $3 a pop over the course of an entire TV season you could buy the DVD box set of Heroes and get a lot more content.

Executives from FOX have said the exact same thing. That they should be the one to set the price for their content, not Apple. Psst, hey dipshits; the consumer will set the price for your content. If you raise it above the point that consumers will spend you won’t sell any content.

The proof already exists. iTunes has sold well over 3 billion songs on iTunes yet sales of TV shows lag well behind that pace in the low 10’s of millions. Why is that? Could it be that people (just like me) think that $1.99 for a TV show episode is too much? Me thinks that it is. You couldn’t convince these clowns of that. To them their 3rd and 4th rated network shows are worth MORE. Right.

Here’s another priceless quote from Mr. Asshat;

“Apple sold millions of dollars worth of hardware off the back of our content and made a lot of money,” Zucker said. “They did not want to share in what they were making off the hardware or allow us to adjust pricing.”

They didn’t want to share in revenue from hardware sales? And Zucker thinks that there is something wrong with that? Apple sold $15,000,000 worth of NBC programming, but sold BILLIONS of dollars worth of hardware. I suppose that Mr. Asshat thinks that NBC deserves a cut every time Vizio or Sony sell a TV or every time Tivo sells a box. Or how about a percentage of the fee that I pay DirecTV every month.

A little over 7 million episodes sold should be worth what? A kick to the curb? Oh wait, that’s exactly what they got.

Fox and NBC think that they have a better model and have started Hulu.com to serve up the content from their 3rd and 4th rated networks. Good on them. On their own site they will be able to do whatever it is that they like with their content. My bet is that just like when the shows air on TV most people will be watching something on another website (network).