You know, if we didn't have real radios and were forced to listen to, say, give or take what Sirius Radio offers online, the "invention" of a standard radio would be an awfully well received advance. I recently bagged a Tivoli Audio Model One radio for the holidays, and it's a pretty nice device.

Let's compare (but not in any well-done, well-charted way). For Internet radio, I have to have my machine up and running, give up 100 megs of RAM (just ballparking it), already have a net connection (if it's not a permanent cxn that's already established, I'm dialing, etc), and if my net cxn's not ph4t enough, I'm feeling the bandwidth hit with all that I'm trying to do. All this *and* I'm paying $12 a month for the radio + net fees, etc.

With my new table radio, if the radio's plugged in, I flip a switch and turn it on. Instant, free, zero bandwidth "wifi".

I believe there are some real advantages to "legacy" radio that people don't quite yet appreciate. Though you have only limited control over the info (which station out of 30-40, say), the content's already processed for you. That has pros and cons, but to think I'm one click away from relatively trustworthy news, for example, is a pretty big plus.

Anyhow, just to say I enjoy my radio. And it gets great FM reception (AM impressive, but not much better than my cars).