Brandon Matthews over at Sat Waves has released exclusive photos of the new XM SkyDock!

The Skydock was not suppose to be released until October 11th but it looks like Best Buy has gotten the product early and they're now on sale. They also have the new XM Onyx and the Sirius Stratus 6.

More exclusive photos at Sat Waves

Google grows, AOL slows, and Yahoo maintains a wide lead in monthly unique e-mail users over its competitors. Microsoft's Windows Live Hotmail ranked second, followed by Google's Gmail and AOL's e-mail service.

Google’s free e-mail service, Google Mail—or Gmail, as it is commonly known—surpassed AOL as the No. 3 most visited e-mail Website in the month of July, according to research firm comScore. Gmail, first released in April 2004, logged 37 million unique monthly users in July, compared with AOL’s 36.4 million.

Google’s AOL leapfrog represents a 46 percent increase in growth from the same period last year, when Gmail logged 25.3 million visits. Yahoo Mail, growing 22 percent from the same time last year, bested all competitors, more than doubling Gmail users with 106.1 million unique monthly visitors.

Compared with July 2008, AOL’s e-mail service slid 19 percent to 36.4 million unique monthly users in July 2009, down from 45.1 million during the same period last year, another troubling sign for the beleaguered Internet service company. Microsoft’s Windows Live Hotmail grew to 47.1 million monthly users, up 3 percent from the 45.8 million comScore tracked in July 2008. Windows Live Hotmail is currently the second most-used e-mail service in the United States.

Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster — an Apple optimist — took a lot of heat when he predicted two years ago that Apple (AAPL) would sell 45 million iPhones in 2009. Unfortunately for him, the deal he expected Apple to strike in China still hasn't materialized, and he's since cut his 2009 expectations back to 25 million.

Now comes Bernstein Research's Toni Sacconaghi — usually considered an Apple pessimist — with a report that has Apple selling at least 50 million iPhones by 2011, up from the 20 million he's modeling for this year.

How does Sacconaghi expect Apple to get from 20 million to 50 million?

In three steps:

By growing with the market: +10 million. Sacconaghi projects the smartphone market to grow by 27% in 2010 and again in 2011. By simply holding its current market share, Apple could add 10.3 million iPhones to its annual sell-through by 2011.

By broadening its distribution network: +19 million. In most countries, Apple has only one carrier. By making deals with additional carriers, it could nearly double its 2009 sales. Verizon alone could add 11 million sales in the U.S. by 2011.

By striking a deal in China: +3 million. Sacconaghi expects Apple to be selling iPhones through China Unicom before the end of the year. If Apple were to also cut a deal with China Mobile before 2011, all bets are off.

Google is expected to outpace Baidu, Inc. in the Chinese market, if the latter failed to enhance efforts in five aspects, according to an overseas report on August 17, 2009.

China's search engine market size amounted to CNY 1.365 billion in the first quarter of 2009, leaping 46% year on year but dropping 11% quarter on quarter, according to a research report by Analysys International, an Internet-based provider of business information about technology, media, and telecommunications.

Baidu Inc. (Nasdaq: BIDU), revamped the image and service of its search engine marketing business in the quarter, took a 59% market share, ranking the first place in the industry.

Its archrival, Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating) captured more than 30% of the market for the first time. It enriched its product portfolio in January-March, launching a music search service in China.

In the second quarter of 2009, Baidu took a 61.6% share the Chinese search engine market and Google snatched a 29.1% market share.

Source: www.sina.com.cn (August 18, 2009)

Found at TM

By Brandon Matthews

In a recent filing, Sirius XM Radio (SIRI) through its attorneys, have presented their case against the WCS proposals to the new head of the FCC, Chairman Genachowski. There are two separate issues before the commission. The first deals with a 10 year delay in fast tracking Sirius XM repeater licensing (IB Dkt. No. 95-91). The second argument made by Sirius XM relates to interference caused by nearby devices which operate in the adjacent band of satellite radio (WC Dkt. No. 07-293).

In layman’s terms, consider how often you have placed your cell phone on your dash or in your center console. Just before your phone rings, there is interference through your radio broadcast that comes across as a series of radio muting hums and clicks. It is this type of interference that is the key issue.

Testing that has been conducted by Sirius XM Radio has proven that certain devices that operate over a predetermined amount of power can actually cause interference if the person in a nearby vehicle receives a phone call. In heavy traffic situations, the interference at issue can cause muting of the Sirius XM service in such a way that the service would suffer tremendously. To put it into perspective, imagine if your computer “bugged out” every time a nearby phone rang.

18:41 SEC investigating naked short selling of SIRI? http://bit.ly/tJ9aY #
17:31 Hemispherx BioPharma (HEB) surges over 18% today. FDA approval coming on Monday? Sink or swim coming next week. I can feel it. #
17:17 Apple & Sirius XM Lawsuit send shares of SIRI plummeting? http://bit.ly/hkpaR #

This Sirius XM iPhone Application shows a demo of the new Sirius XM Radio iPhone Application. The Sirius XM Radio iPhone application allows subscribers to stream Sirius XM Radio content to the iPhone as well as buy music from the iTunes music store.

The Sirius XM iPhone App has been downloaded more than a half-million times as of Sunday night, according to an internal company memo obtained by Orbitcast.

"That is one of the fastest download rates by any App," writes Scott Greenstein, President and Chief Content Officer of Sirius XM Radio Inc. in the email to employees today.
Four days after initially going live, the App remains as the top free music App as well as the No. 2 most downloaded free App overall. And, according to the company memo, this popularity has resulted in exactly 513,319 downloads as of late Sunday.

Read the full internal email below...

From: Employee Bulletin
Sent: Monday, June 22, 2009 1:03 PM
To: Sirius Consultants; Sirius Employees; Sirius On-Air Talent; XM Radio Global
Subject: Message from Scott Greenstein / SIRIUS XM App

To All Employees:

I would like to share with you the tremendous response to the launch of our SIRIUS XM App for iPhone and iPod touch. Only four days (96 hours) after going live, our App rocketed to become the No. 1 Top Free Music App downloaded from the iTunes' App Store. It is also the No. 2 Top Free App download. The actual number of downloads of our App had reached 513,319 as of late Sunday. That is one of the fastest download rates by any App.

Customers who purchase a Sirius-equipped "Certified Pre-Loved" Volkswagen vehicle will now be getting a 3-month trial offer of the "Sirius Everything" package.

It's all part of a continuing effort to access potential subscribers purchasing pre-owned vehicles. XM currently has a deal with Acura, Honda and GM. Now this efforts has been extended to Volkswagen - the biggest European car maker.
"Volkswagen is consistently looking for new ways to position our 'Certified Pre-Loved' program as industry leading," stated Chris Hoehner, General Manager VW Fleet & CPO. "We feel this program helps enhance our value proposition and continues to strengthen our pursuit to provide the best possible customer experience."

"The launch of this certified pre-owned program strengthens our shared commitment to give drivers the very best audio experience possible," said Steve Cook, Group Vice President and General Manager, Sirius XM Radio. "Volkswagen's award-winning 'Certified Pre-Loved' program is part of our expanded offering of the best audio entertainment in certified pre-owned vehicles."

Volkswagen has offered Sirius beginning with its 2007 model year vehicles. Sirius is currently standard on the GTI, GLI, Eos, New Beetle, New Beetle convertible, Passat, Passat wagon and Touareg. Sirius is also standard on select Tiguan, Jetta and Rabbit packages.

Found at Orbitcast

Investors in Sirius XM have been waiting for good news from the analysts, and it appears that at least some firms have faith that satellite radio will prosper in the weeks and months ahead. Barrington Research has upgraded SIRI to Outperform with a $0.70 price target.

In a note issued today, Barrington highlights that the woes of the merger process and credit market took their toll on the equity, but that things are beginning to change, and that perhaps brighter days are ahead for satellite radio investors.

Barrington believes that investors should consider several core fundamental issues:

A favorable swing in EBITDA of more than $500 million into positive territory this year should be followed by substantial, additional annual gains.
Added revenue sources, especially a royalty recovery fee with broad application, should boost revenues.
Cost cuts have been achieved across a broad swath of line items, with more to come.
Top line opportunities have been a focus as well, despite the challenge imposed by a merger agreement that included no increase to the base subscription rate for three years.
Sirius XM has added charges for the previously complimentary Internet service and it increased its price for additional subscriptions under the family plan.