Back in July, I gushed in an article entitled I’ve fallen in love… with Pandora, noting the killer combination of attributes included the fact that it’s easy, powerful, addictive, and info rich:

This is huge because for something like music – a “product” that’s available in so many places and that will be deployed as background entertainment as I do my online media cultist activities – it has to be super easy and super quick. I’m looking for great music, quickly and easily, and Pandora delivers on that straight off. […]

Pandora confirms yet again that music and the web are made for one another. Music is more popular than ever, of course; it’s the industry that’s getting revolutionized as people are demanding and getting more of what they want when they want it.

I still believe all the things I wrote back in July… but I must admit I haven’t used Pandora in months. The reason? Sirius satellite radio. Maybe it’s unfair to compare a subscription service with a paid one (and of course they’re different in many ways) but I’ve been amazed with the number of ways in which satellite radio has filled multiple grooves and rivulets of my life.

Of course I listen a lot while driving, but the online component is of even greater impact to my life, probably because I’m online such a great percentage of my waking hours anyway!

It hasn’t been all sunshine and roses with Sirius either, I must admit. Back in March, I wrote a piece called Please don’t let the Sirius-XM Radio merger mess things up for us. While the merger hasn’t been a disaster, it’s affected my life in a small but significant way: I had become addicted to the Boombox station, replete with “break beats and electro rock.” I had never been a big electronic music person, but this station really had an impact on my listening habits.

With the new lineup coming out of the merger, Boombox was canceled. The Sirius website claims that the Alt Nation station is an acceptable alternative, but don’t believe the hype; it simply ain’t true. However, as a small note of redemption, the excellent Backspin (old school hip hop) station is being brought back from the dead.

So which is better, Pandora or Sirius-XM? Obviously it depends on your tastes and listening habits and budget. For online listening, both are great in different ways. Perhaps the best part about Satellite radio is that there’s great variety that I don’t have to program myself. But I might speculate that people who are a little bit younger than me will prefer the multiple programming and music recommendation options that a Pandora will give you… for free!

This stuff seems pretty obvious on the surface, but the reality is that many parts of the world are only just starting to align themselves under the new interwebs regime.

I’m reminded of this in reading a story in which ESPN and Major League Baseball have signed a deal to stream baseball games live during the season. With the number of sports nuts out there who would love to throw a game up on their monitor at work, this seems like it would be a no brainer. It seems silly to me that they will blackout games locally, but that plays more into the economics of sports than the web side of things, so I won’t get into it here.

I had sports and distribution deals on my mind already this week after learning that New York sports broadcaster Chris “Mad Dog” Russo has signed a deal with Sirius Satellite Radio to bring a new act, now solo, to a national audience. Russo and Mike Francesa have just ended a nearly twenty year run on WFAN radio’s Mike and the Mad Dog show.

As a New York native who has lived in California for nearly ten years now, I often longed to be able to stream, download, or somehow access WFAN in order to get a little slice of hometown sports talk action. Unfortunately to my knowledge this has never been available aside from a few thrown together and occasionally updated clips on WFAN’s website.

Again, this seems like no brainer territory to me: you have a nation full of displaced sports fans who would love to be able to access local sports content. With terrestrial radio facing enormous competition both from satellite and the Internet, shouldn’t it be in their interest to squeeze every potential penny from their offerings?

Maybe this is part of the reason why WFAN couldn’t hang onto Russo. In any event, I’m looking forward to hearing the Mad Dog on Sirius – which I can catch both in my car on the way to work or online anytime!