Digg Dugg?

Well, we got on the front page of Digg today which is great! [Update: The post got "buried" (Deleted from public view) presumably because they thought it was too blatantly promotional...] There are a few comments that indicate that people don't fully understand the Sirocco yet, but many do. There were some comments that the Apple Airport Express can do what the Sirocco does. Well, you can stream audio to it, but you can only do that from iTunes, and it only does stereo. There is a 3rd Party software app called airfoil that allows you to stream to an Airport Express from any application, but it costs $25 which would make the Airport Express + Airfoil package $155, which is more expensive than Sirocco and it is cobbled together from different suppliers and has a complicated installation process.

There were also comments from people talking about the Squeezebox from Slim Devices. Now, don't get me wrong, I think the Squeezebox is an excellent product, the problem is that it will always be behind the DRM eight-ball (can't play iTunes protected content) and is quite expensive (mainly because of the display, I think.) There is also the issue of trying to keep up with different playback systems and applications. People just aren't very 'loyal' with their music players. Different audio file extensions (.WMA, .MP3 etc) are associated with different applications on the typical PC. This means that files get imported into different music libraries, unless you are very diligent about where those files go and you update the library constantly. Also websites are constantly changing the way they deliver audio: one week its podcasts, next week its downloadable MP3s from the archive, the next it is some flash or java player that runs in the browser so you can tag clips... it will never end...

I still think we're on the right track with the Sirocco: focus on getting the audio off the PC into another room when you want to listen that way, and let the PC continue to be the UI/Control center of the overall experience. As people have found with PDAs & tablets, it is incredibly hard to beat a big screen, full size keyboard and a mouse for efficient interaction with a PC...

--LL