Opinion: Bringing Excitement Back to the Sirius Brand...

In his Fool's post today, Rick Munarriz suggests a killer iPhone app so that Sirius subscribers don't have to cludge together some strange web-browser based streaming solution. Or my own, now outdated post describing a technique to hack the Sirius stream to run on the crippled Windows mobile platform. But to really get Sirius back in to the game it has to not just be able to deliver it's great content streams over the Internet, it has to deliver the Internet itself. Just think, if you're kids can enjoy streaming video to their seatbacks, why not Internet access? If Jet Blue can provide messaging service on Beta Blue while in-flight, why can't Sirius be an Internet Service Provider? With all of those extra channels available after the merger, it seems fitting that some be allocated to more sophisticated purposes than 24 hours of non-stop Jimmy Buffet.

Don't get me wrong, if I'm in the mood for some Buffet, the convenience of flipping over to channel 31 and getting my dosage is handy, but video like CNN, ESPN, or my own Slingbox, and email access would be better use of the wider spectrum. Now that the merger is complete, where the heck is the marketing? There are 18 million people out there that think the service and the content are good enough to put their hard earned dollars toward monthly, but the only thing the greater community knows is that the merger took a long time, the company isn't profitable, and they have huge debt obligations and stock dilution to deal with well in to 2009.

It's definitely time to shake things up and bring excitement back to the brand. Tap in to the fan base for ideas, and maybe they'll even help Sirius out on the road to recovery by banding together and building some of those killer apps that will bring more subscribers and start tapping in to the established cable/satellite/telcos that are routing consumers on rates for content that they are not even remotely interested in. Where's the FCC demanding cable offer a la carte options anyway?