The Infinite Dial

There was a funny article in the BBC News Magazine this week about a 13-year old boy who swapped his iPod for an old-school Sony (cassette) Walkman for one week. Scott Campbell learned all about what we used to call "shuffle" (randomly pressing and releasing the FF button,) that cassettes actually had to be flipped over, and, of course, the difference between what Sony called "portable" then and what we expect today.

My favorite quote:

My friends couldn't imagine their parents using this monstrous box, but there was interest in what the thing was and how it worked. In some classes in school they let me listen to music and one teacher recognised it and got nostalgic.

I had one of these exact models, and I fondly remember attaching it to my gym shorts (Jams!) while I mowed the lawn, and, much to the amusement of my neighbors, struggling to keep my shorts pulled up with a 5-lb weight clipped to the elastic. We look back on the Walkman as a chapter in history--clearly, now, it seems silly (as the 8-track did to me as a child). What interests me about technological change, though, is exactly when the tipping point on a particular technology actually happens, and what the signs are. When, exactly, did we realize carrying this brick around was absurd? For most, it was when something newer and smaller came out; for others, it was the change in format to CD. I still own and use three minidisc players for various reasons, so I can be as stubborn a Luddite as anyone. But there comes a point when it is obvious to all that a technology, format or device has passed its sell-by date. The key is being able to recognize the symptoms before this occurs, and shaping the change instead of being shaped by it.

All of which brings me to the wonderful, long list of comments to Larry's provocative post last week on phasing out AM and putting the best content on FM. It was certainly positive to see such a spirited defense of AM--a little passion in a time like this, to quote one of my favorite Raymond Carver stories, is a small, good thing. However, can you imagine a time when the scratchy, mono hiss of AM radio becomes a memory? To the engineers out there, AM is an essential technology for coverage, DX listening, etc., but IP is the new AM, and its coverage is limitless. When a brutal thunderstorm hits, a revolution happens in Iran, or a King of Pop dies, we are learning of these things from device-independent services like Twitter, which with its mobile phone accessibility already has a potential 85% reach.

If you think AM will be around forever, well--I respectfully disagree. But if you think it will one day join the telegraph, shortwave, Satellite Radio and HD as anachronisms, when do you think that will happen? And will you recognize the signs? How many of these signs are already around you?

Getting ahead of the change may take work, but the path is clear. Own as much of your content as you can, make that content great, and get that content on as many devices/services/formats as you can--let the listener choose how they want to consume your content. I've been a big believer and proponent of podcasting in this space for the past five years (here are a few articles to get you started) and am bullish on the creation of box-independent programming as the future of radio. Ownership of content is required to embrace downloadable and on-demand media, which means every station that simply turns their programming over to satellite, or a hard drive at corporate HQ, sells their future in this space to make this quarter's budget. This is already happening with once-exclusive properties like Major League Baseball, and other audio content isn't far behind.

One day, we'll see the next Scott Campbell holding up his father's clunky AM radio in this picture. Whether you see that day as the near future or a distant tomorrow says a lot about how ready you are to face that day.

Earlier today, Norway-based Opera released a preview version of Opera Unite, which incorporates innovative new technology into the latest version of their eponymous web browser software. After playing around with it a bit today I've come away quite impressed--especially by its potential as a interface to media.

Opera Unite basically connects browsers to browsers without using client-server technology. In other words, if I want to access media on one computer from another, as long as they are both running Opera Unite they are connected without any intermediary or third-party server. While these sorts of connections have been possible before, they haven't been built into the browser, and haven't been very easy to use. The promise of Opera Unite is that, one day very soon, my parents could fire up their browser and look at new pictures of their grandson on my machine without needing IT support or using yet another login at yet another third-party file/photo sharing site.

For the purposes of this space, the real paradigm shift lies with Opera Unite's media technology, which lets me play music from my home computer on my Macbook Pro using only a web browser--and also lets my friends do the same. OK, that's not revolutionary--but that isn't the end of the vision. Imagine, as Opera's Lawrence Eng has, that I could play a song on my browser, and all my friends could hear it at the same time while browsing the web. Then imagine that Opera Unite Jukebox, as Eng paints it, allows me to put 10 songs into a "queue," and 9 of my friends to do the same. What we've just created is a true, participatory radio station--the ultimate manifestation of bringing your CDs over to a friend's house and having a listening party. Throw in the ability to vote for/rank songs and comment, and you have the radio station of tomorrow.

The trick here for broadcasters of today is not to "beat" this--you can't beat personalized radio--it's to join this. The best way to join is to be one of those 9 friends. As I've written in this space before, social networking connects people with other people, not stations or brands. If you are a music station, the time is now to brand or re-brand your air talent as credible arbiters of musical taste. The fleeting, short-term rewards of the PPM jukebox aside, you cannot out-jukebox the Internet. It's time to find the voices in your community that are knowledgeable and influential on music and give them a platform--regardless of their "jock skills"--and reclaim radio's place as an important platform for music discovery. These voices don't necessarily have to be local--my first "arbiter of taste" was Rock Over London's Graham Dene--but they have to be real people with the freedom to take chances and open the mic again.

Today, when I want to learn about new electronic music, I ask my friend Mike. When I want to learn about new Indie rock, I connect with my friend Chris MacDonald at IndieFeed. These two have earned their place on my Opera Unite Jukebox because I trust them to steer me to the good stuff. Music broadcasters need to stop worrying about the short-term vagaries of PPM and start finding the folks like Mike and Chris in their market who can speak authoritatively about a genre and make informed recommendations to an audience the likes of which no algorithm or database has yet to touch. For music broadcasting to survive, it can't continue to "install formats." Radio has to fundamentally rethink how it connects with listeners, and how it can serve as the intermediary between listeners and advertisers. People will never connect with jukeboxes.

I'm headed back to New York from Canadian Music Week -- always a great convention -- after having been part of the panel on PPM this morning. Last year, the PPM session drew 10 people, somebody noted; this morning, with Montreal already currency and other markets ready to roll later this year, the room was full.

One of the striking things about the PPM panel is just how drama free it was, compared to any discussion of the subject in the U.S. To a person, anybody you ask will tell you that it's a function of Canadian radio's different relationship with ratings service BBM, a consortium of broadcasters, advertisers, and ad agencies.

Beyond that, there's less opportunity in Canada for some of PPM's hot-button issues to emerge. Urban radio is down to one major outlet -- Toronto's CFXJ (the Flow). Most of the markets to be measured are Country-friendly, more like Dallas and Atlanta than San Francisco or Philadelphia; (Toronto is, again, the exception.) Another diverse market, Vancouver, is more likely to look different in TV than radio ratings. And while most markets have gotten a lot more FMs recently, anything that doubles respondent mentions from three to six stations will still cover half of the major stations in many markets.

Okay, they've now come out with an iPod shuffle with a "Voice Over" feature that will announce songs for the user. Meaning that as radio tries to sound more like the iPod, the iPod is trying to sound more like radio.

I can already hear some program directors whose stations use song tags, particularly those at jockless stations, trying to replicate the sound of this feature. Just remember, though, that many people believe the iPod has a mind of its own. (Mine, for instance, has a dark sense of humor, as evidenced by the time it segued a song by an artist who had drowned into "Swept Away" by Diana Ross.)

So imagine the talent development session with iJock:

PD: So I've been meaning to talk to you about some of your content.

iJock: Such as?

PD: Well, I couldn't help notice that it's all "that was" and "this is."

iJock: Well, what else do you give me to talk about? Do you let me do any phones? Do you let me do any special features?

PD: No, we've all been told to stop doing those - to compete with you.

iJock: I never get any giveaways either. And you never promote me.

PD: That's ridiculous. There are three TV campaigns a year. There's "I'm a Mac and I'm a PC." You get a ton of attention!

iJock: No, the iPod gets that. When was the last time you did a campaign for Sean's iPod? Say, maybe you don't WANT people to know about me, because then they'd know you have more songs in here by the Bay City Rollers than the Beatles. No wonder only one person listens! And that's another thing; I'm getting tired of the same 1,000 songs over and over.

PD: You only hold 1,000 songs! That's more than twice what most radio stations play. And if you play the same ones over and over, that's your fault. Look, you're very lucky. This isn't exactly a great time for discretionary purchases, if you know what I mean. You work about 90 minutes a day, max, on SOME days...

iJock: It's not my fault that you don't work out more often. Look, I'm getting worn down by this crap. Next time you feel like listening to "S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y Night," I'm just going to have a low battery.

I was in the mood for a little Prog Rock over the weekend, so I dialed up Pandora to build a station around Yes. I did not list any songs on purpose, in order to keep it broad and see what the Pandoramator would come up with. Here was the first hour it gave me:

• Long Distance Runaround - Yes
• Spirit of Radio - Rush
• Welcome To The Machine - Pink Floyd
• The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway - Genesis
• Circus of Heaven - Yes
• In Your Eyes - Peter Gabriel (tried to skip, couldn't)
• Survival - Yes
• Sheep - Pink Floyd
• Strawberry Fields Forever - Beatles
• Turn It On Again - Genesis

So, a pretty good mix--I wanted to skip "In Your Eyes," but had used up the number of skips allowed by Pandora's license and had to suffer through. Still, it was mostly true to my (largely unstated) desire to hear a little prog rock. "Circus of Heaven" is not my favorite Yes song by any stretch, but Strawberry Fields actually sounded pretty cool in this mix.

On a lark, I tried the same exercise with Slacker Premium Radio (which, apples to oranges, does allow unlimited skipping of unwanted tracks,) once again only providing the group (Yes) and letting the computer do the rest. Here was Slacker's Prog Rock offering:

• It/Watcher of the Skies - Genesis
• Glad - Traffic
• Memory Lain, Hugh/Headloss - Caravan
• Sheep - Pink Floyd
• Question - Moody Blues
• From the Beginning - ELP
• Teacher - Jethro Tull
• Save Some Time For Thee - Family
• Script For A Jester's Tear - Marillion
• Owner of a Loney Heart - Yes

While the lone Yes track Slacker delivered was a bit of a clunker (or, at least, not quite the 'prog rock' I was hoping for,) I found this hour to be fascinating--some familiar songs from familiar artists (the ELP, Jethro Tull and Moody Blues tracks), some lost classics ("Glad"), a brilliantly welcome live version of "It/Watcher of the Skies" and a very, very deep track from Caravan. Certainly, 20 songs is too small a sample size, so I'll repeat this exercise a few times this week before drawing any broader conclusions. For slaking my questionable jones for Prog Rock yesterday, however, I found the Slacker hour a bit more interesting and varied, and certainly a bit more on point--albeit a good deal less familiar than the Pandora offering.

In fairness, I could have tweaked either playlist slightly by deleting songs, adding artists and so on to give the Pandora and Slacker algorithms a bit more of a clue to the mood I was in. Slacker guessed a bit more correctly what I wanted to hear, but with only one group as input, I'll chalk that up to a random walk for now. Still, the key to mass acceptance and adoption of services like Pandora and Slacker will be how they work "out of the box" with little, if any, input by mainstream listeners. With that criteria in mind, the Pandora offering was far and away more compelling, featuring more tracks by my core artist, more hit singles, and more familiarity in general.

So, that said, what has your experience been with both services? Let's have a face-off here in the comments! Post your sample hours (10 tracks) from each along with your "liner notes" and make your case! I can't wait to see what you come up with.

...is on your Mac, thanks to the user interface geniuses at Rogue Amoeba. I wrote earlier about Radioshift, which is the best online radio listening/timeshifting app I've seen to date, and now they've put a similar stamp on tuning in XM/Sirius streams online with their new app Pulsar. Highly recommended!

I have considerable appreciation for Jake Sigal, the inventor of the ION USB turntable, which has provided me with many happy hours of dubbing obscure vinyl to MP3. In the same way that articles written during Consumer Electronics Show/Macworld week often end with, "Never bet against Steve Jobs," I would take any of Sigal's new products seriously. But I am bemused by one of his planned product announcements for CES: the Abbee Commercial Free FM Radio, which, according to WWJ Detroit, "removes all of the commercials and DJ talk for hours of uninterrupted music."

On one hand, there's a backhanded compliment here. Like the MSN Radio stations of a few years ago that replicated the playlists of mainstream commercial stations, there's something flattering in the belief that your station's music mix would best all other options even out of context. That said, there are a lot of ways to get commercial-free music now. (And Sigal's other new launch for this week is a Wi-Fi Internet radio.) It also makes you wonder if Sigal has heard the post-PPM era's stripped-down radio stations. There may still be 12 minutes of commercials to remove every hour, but more and more stations are pre-removing the DJ talk for your convenience already.

Courtesy of Gizmodo, Blaupunkt and MiRoamer have partnered on what they are billing as the world's first Internet car radio. The only hitch is that it requires 3G GSM service, which is far from universal, but if you live in an area with good 3G coverage, the day is looming when you'll have your choice of thousands of Internet radio stations to listen to on your commute.

Of course, it goes without saying that your station could be one of those streams, but here are some additional things to think about:

1. Eliminate registrations, interstitials and any other kind of hoop or obstacle to a direct stream of your station. These will be rendered pretty useless on a device like this.
2. Make the URL to your stream pretty damn simple--like stream.wxyz.com. Less text to enter means I will be more likely to enter it, if I have to tune the thing myself.
3. Whether or not any of these show up in your town anytime soon, it is never too early to talk about the fact that "if you have an internet receiver in your car, be sure to tune it to stream.wxyz.com". Gives you something cool to talk about, and conditions your listeners to expect to hear your station online.
4. Of course, there is no real added benefit to consumers accessing your exact stream on this thing rather than your AM/FM broadcast--so here is a great place to talk about all of those side channels!

And let's all wait for the telecom networks to start metering our 3G bandwidth!

The current economic crisis is a scary one for the radio industry, and there is no doubt that not everyone is going to emerge unscathed. Certainly if you are managing or programming a radio station, you are getting comfortable with the term "do more with less," and you are grappling with just how much more you can squeeze out of your day.

Here's a tip, both to cost-effectively improve your station's capabilities, and to develop your own careers. Learn a new language. Not just any language, but HTML. PHP. XML. The language of the web. One of the great things about the Internet is that it is possible to build great looking, functional and effective web sites with your own hands for small investments of money--if you can invest the time. Your cluster's webmaster is a bottleneck to getting content out of the heads of your creative people and on to your station's website. You can drastically streamline that process by hitting the books and learning code.

I'm completely serious about this--HTML is the language of TODAY, not tomorrow. You might react to this, as many already have told me, that "I don't understand all that technical stuff," or "my web guy handles it." In 2008 that's like saying you don't need to learn how to drive, your horse-and-buggy works just fine. Learning the language of the web is de rigeur for stretching your resources and removing the barriers between the great content you have and getting that content to your listeners on the web.

You can't afford not to know. It's a whole lot easier to learn than a foreign language, so don't use that as an excuse, or make the fact that you don't have a "technical" job a crutch to avoid the challenge.

Want to learn more? Need some tips to get started? Pop me an email.

I was very pleased to see the inclusion of a wiki in Bonneville's new website for The Sound in Los Angeles. To find it, roll over "Be It" in the menu, and select Sound Wiki (or heck, just click here). The wiki runs on the MediaWiki platform, which is the same engine behind Wikipedia, so there is plenty of power under the hood. I love the idea of having a wiki on a radio station website, but before you commit to throwing one up on yours, you need to figure out what kinds of content your listeners will be motivated to create, and whether or not your listeners will perceive your wiki as the most logical place to do that.

If you are asking your listeners to build profiles and engage in the same sorts of social networking behaviors that they are already participating in on Facebook or MySpace--good luck. Those sites do this better than your station possibly can. But if you are looking to build listener-created content based upon your music or your local community, then you have a play. The key is to do it in a way that does not force listeners to replicate an existing behavior, but plays upon everyone's natural urge to tell stories.

Let's examine this in the context of The Sound. Most of the pages in their wiki are about the artists that are played on the station. However, the station has taken the liberty of "pre-populating" the artist wiki pages with content from Wikipedia. Let's set aside the appropriateness of simply recopying Wikipedia content aside for a moment. What a fully-fleshed out page of content like this says to the reader/listener is this: "read me." The art, heart and soul of a wiki, however, is a page that says "write me." "Write Me" is engaging and asks for a commitment from your audience that is instantly rewarded. Changing those pages and telling their stories is the "pro quo" they get for the "quid" of signing up to your station database to gain the privilege of making those edits.

In the case of a fully-formed page about David Bowie, the average listener is going to see this page and be intimidated by it--what more could they possibly add? The "super-fan" might be motivated to comment, but are just as likely to do so on Wikipedia, where these sorts of artist biography pages belong, and to write you nasty letters for ripping Wikipedia off in the first place. Encouraging content contribution on a wiki is as much about structure as it is subject matter. In the case of the former, the key is to provide enough boilerplate content in the form of a template to encourage your audience to easily change it (no one likes to tackle a blank page) but not so much as to be a deterrent to contribution.

Subject matter, however, is even more important. Your station cannot possibly "own" David Bowie on the Internet--you probably don't even "own" him in your market, in the grand scheme of things. The entries on Los Angeles music venues are perhaps more promising, but the average listener doesn't know or care about the history of its construction. They do, however, have stories to tell--seeing Black Sabbath for the first time, getting laid in the parking lot, getting arrested at the Night Ranger show (presumably for attending it), etc. Sharing those stories is a logical purpose for a radio station wiki, and a nobler cause than simply as repository for venue history. You don't need to replicate Wikipedia (or even remotely resemble it). Start modestly, as an online cork board for sticky notes about great concerts your listeners have seen or other truly personal remembrances of the various venues in your market. Eventually, your listeners will engage with you, with each other, and even with some well chosen, carefully placed sponsors that make sense and are relevant to the page or topic.

Having said that, a big BRAVO to Bonneville for designing a website that doesn't look like Yahoo, circa 1999. Good, clean designs are not "decorations," they are conduits to your content.

If you are in the business of New Media, you really should be at the New Media Expo next week in Las Vegas. This event has really grown into a fantastic conference (this is its first year in Vegas) and I will be speaking on the topic of the efficacy of podcast advertising--who is listening, who is buying, and what podcast content creators can do to get more of both. My talk is at the end of the day on Friday, of course, so once again my big bucket o' data will be the last barrier to cocktail progress for most of the attendees. With that in mind, I'll be concise!

Look me up there, or pop me a note on Twitter if you'd like to meet. With speakers ranging from Gary Vaynerchuk of the enormously popular Wine Library TV to the marketing VP behind Blendtec's "Will It Blend" (which prompted me to buy one!) it will be a fantastic conference with loads of ideas, networking and maybe a little of that Edison statistical magic at the craps table.

I'll also be speaking in September on the topic of podcasting at the NAB Radio show. I get lots of questions from broadcasters about podcasting, specifically who is making it work and how they are getting paid. Between now and then I'll be interviewing some of the industry leaders here in this space so you can read and see for yourself the power of downloadable media and how you can make it work for your station. More soon!

-Tom

As the debate over radio's performance rights plays out on Capitol Hill, part of the strategy of the music industry and its congressional advocates is not just trying to sell the fairness of an artist royalty, but also minimizing broadcasters' arguments that radio is still providing significant promotional support for their artists.

And yet, even in a new world where a few records are able to develop some sort of initial buzz without radio, the label strategy is still almost invariably been to take that story to radio, in hopes of making that record even bigger. Radio is what separated Snow Patrol from Moonbabies, Jim Noir, and more than a dozen artists that appeared on the same "Grey's Anatomy, Vol. 2" soundtrack. The non-radio stories generate a week or two of sales, then tend to flicker out unless radio support follows.

So it was instructive to take a look at this week's top selling songs at the iTunes Music Store. In recent years, iTunes has altered the industry's perception of what a hit song is, and has helped create a story for pop/rock records at Top 40 radio. Songs may be incubated in a number of places, but iTunes is where the non-radio stories are most readily apparent.

So let's take the top 15 singles on iTunes from the top. There are no songs selling entirely without airplay, and only a few where it could be said that sales spurred airplay instead of vice-versa:

1 - Coldplay, "Viva La Vida" - Like the handful of Lil Wayne tracks showing sales stories further down the chart, this one got immediate sales by dint of being the second available song from the album of the same name. But it also quickly picked up multi-format airplay and is overtaking first single "Violet Hill" (which quickly reversed on the sales charts once "Vida" became available to consumers and radio).

2 - Katy Perry, "I Kissed A Girl" -- Instant radio hit with sales that clearly responded;

3 - Metro Station, "Shake It" -- Finally went to another level at radio in recent weeks and responded accordingly in sales;

4 - Natasha Bedingfield, "Pocketful Of Sunshine" -- Already receiving some airplay, it was clearly helped by "American Idol," but the radio airplay that spurred has kept it strong after an "Idol" boost would have otherwise tapered off;

5 - Rihanna, "Take A Bow" - Radio hit that was held back from consumers until a month or so of accumulated airplay;

6 - Chris Brown, "Forever" - Initial sales for being a new superstar track, then tapered off until it became a real radio hit;

7 - Jesse McCartney, "Leavin'" -- Instant radio support reinforced by quick sales story;

8 - Leona Lewis, "Bleeding Love" - Radio, foreign and domestic, plus extensive support from TV, press, etc.;

9 - Madonna & Justin Timberlake, "4 Minutes" - Instant radio support on an artist that can't count on it anymore (then a sales story that probably kept it buoyed after the novelty of the superstar duet wore off);

10 - Lil' Wayne, "Lollipop" -- Instant R&B, then pop radio support, but quick sales as well. Hip-Hop's No. 1 artist can certainly put a song on the sales chart ahead of airplay, but the first radio single has had more of a sustained run than the other songs that have preceded "Tha Carter III";

11 - Pussycat Dolls, "When I Grow Up" -- Instant superstar act sales, with the help of some high-impact TV appearances, that preceded being worked to radio by a few days;

12 - Colby O'Donis, "What You Got" - A gradual slow build at radio (No. 13 this week) with sales that now parallel airplay (No. 12 iTunes);

13 - Danity Kane, "Damaged" - Started at radio, has had TV-driven spurts but becoming a real radio hit has sustained it at this level;

14 - Jordin Sparks, "No Air" - The initial headlines, you'll remember, were about how disappointing the album sales were for an American Idol. But "No Air" became a real hit with sustained airplay and sales. Having sustained airplay has clearly quashed any suggestion that she might be less successful than, say, Taylor Hicks (who she has now outsold by 100,000 albums with a third single just getting going at radio);

15 - 3 Doors Down, "It's Not My Time" - Had multi-format airplay right away although sales story is probably giving it the kind of credibility among those Top 40 PDs who have always needed a nudge on pop/rock.

The final count is 13 radio hits and two (Coldplay and PCD) that will likely become so -- no songs that have developed entirely without radio, and no songs where the label has decided not to pursue airplay. It's not a closed ecosystem: TV figures into the story for at least a third of these, but it usually played the role that MTV exposure did a decade ago, helping to further propel songs that were already on the radio.

It's been a while since radio could make any claims about being the only gatekeeper for new music, but however diminished its impact, (and however diminished the value of having a hit), radio still ultimately creates the consensus hits that do exist. You might still believe in an artist royalty, but you can't deny radio its contribution to the industry today.

I am starting to see some radio stations sign up for Twitter, the micro-blogging service that allows you to post very brief comments, updates, and the answer to the all-important question: what are you doing now? Twitter has seen rapid adoption precisely because it is so simple. Updates are limited to 160 characters, so terseness is mandatory--and updates are possible using the web, mobile phones, and even IM clients. The best way to describe it might be to think of Twitter as a way to send a text message to ALL of your friends, family and colleagues at once. The fact that you can do this with a regular SMS message from your phone makes Twitter ubiquitous, dead simple and just plain fun to use.

I've been a Twitter user for about a year now, and I am pleased to report that Edison will very soon have some significant data to report about Twitter, Facebook and other social networking tools. Mark Ramsey had a post on using Twitter a few weeks back ("Remedial Listener Outreach") where he advocated using Twitter as essentially another broadcast medium, with some suggestions on how to "blast" information out to those who care to follow. These suggestions are all fine, but miss the point of what makes tools like Twitter potentially transformative for your organization.

Over the past couple of years I have given a number of presentations to stations and conferences about the true power of blogging for radio stations, and many of the same observations are applicable to using Twitter. The power of Twitter is not as simply another broadcast medium--that is "Stage One" Twitter adoption, and frankly EMail works just as well if that is all you are going to use it for. Stage Two Twitter adoption comes about when you begin to follow other Twitterers. I use a handy piece of software for the Mac called Twitterific that constantly feeds the "tweets" of friends, colleagues, gurus, folks I respect and notable bloggers onto my desktop, giving me a real-time zeitgeist for the web. Most frequent Twitterers I know have huge follower--and following--lists, meaning they are not just "broadcasters," but engaging in conversations. If there is something important happening, I'll generally hear about it first on Twitter. In fact, I watched the Super Bowl yesterday with Twitterific on--it was like sitting in the world's biggest sports bar, with play-by-play from hundreds of people I enjoy reading--and communicating with.

Credibility is built on Twitter, then, not simply by "blasting updates," no matter how clever they may be. Twitter is a different dog. Frankly, I accord less trust to Twitterers who are simply broadcasters, because I wonder if they are really listening to the folks they are twittering to? Even those Twitters who I know genuinely involve themselves in conversations (through other means) can send the wrong message on Twitter very easily.

It goes without saying for Stage Two Twitter adoption for Radio that if someone "follows" you (to get your Twitter updates), you should follow them to get theirs. But just following along is not enough--you have to actually listen and respond. Then and only then can you enter Stage Three--and understand the transformative power of tools like Twitter. First, as I mention in my blogging talk, you have to ask yourself this question--are we ready to be transformed? Is our station ready to become a more transparent entity to our listeners? There is tremendous value in joining the conversation if, in fact, you make it a true conversation. Post Twitter updates about new releases, listen to the folks who respond back, and answer them back honestly and genuinely. If listeners Twitter you asking why you don't play a certain record, answer them back like a real person, not like a press release, and you may make a friend. You need a friend. If enough people Twitter you about a record, maybe play the record already! And tweet back that you listened, and that you actually did it.

In that sense, Twitter is like a request line--but a request line that everybody can listen in on, so you'd best not ignore it. If your station is ready to be transformed into a listener-centric organization, that is a fantastic thing. The power of Twitter is not just in broadcasting--and not even broadcasting AND listening--but in joining a conversation of peers and putting a human face on your station.

Hijinks Ensue.

I will be sending along a number of thoughts from spending a few days in the wonderful city of Barcelona where I was on two panels at the NAB Europe Radio Show.

The first is the marked general optimism and upbeat attitude as compared to the NAB Radio Show in Charlotte a few weeks ago. European Radio is not without its challenges, but it clearly is not suffering the general malaise that has gotten so much ink in the States.

Secondly, there was continued talk on the theme of American irrelevance when it comes to innovation in radio. It was mentioned on some panels, and several others talked about how they used to fly over to the states or listen to US online streams to learn what was new, and they don't feel they have to do so any longer. While American non-radio companies like Google, Pandora, Facebook, MySpace, and eBay all came up regularly, few are looking to America for radio-centric innovation. A surprising number of Europeans are now coming to me asking for help in cracking the US market for their products or services, something almost unthinkable in the past.

Finally, it's so exciting to see the response to all the changes in media be: "Gee we should do MORE research!" Obviously this is a self-serving perception, but important nonetheless. Europe is working to manage and control the Infinite Dial, instead of having it work upon them. They are making change, and indeed there is much that American broadcasters can learn from them.

I have been a TiVo user, and TiVo lover for over four years now. Like most TiVo users, watching television without TiVo has become a frustration -- often I am in a hotel room searching for the non-existent pause or rewind button while watching a ballgame or other show.

And, I just as often find myself searching for the same phantom buttons when listening to the radio. My mind wanders as the announcer reads the traffic report . . . and I want to back it up. I receive a call on my cell phone right in the middle of a funny morning-show bit and I just wish I could hit the pause button. I hear a fascinating story on Public Radio and I just so wish I could record it for later playback in my car.

Once you have consumed media in the TiVo way, it is just so hard to go back to traditional media usage.

Since over-the-air radio isn't going to get these functionalities anytime soon it is essential that we fill in the blanks as best as we can.

At minimum over-the-air radio broadcasters need to make podcasting much more robust; Public Radio has amazing offerings of their programming on their Web sites that really do allow me to listen later -- albeit not (yet) easily in my car. But as of today only a tiny fraction of commercial radio stations make their morning show or other non-music content easily available from their web sites.

Millions of television viewers are now trained to DVR functionality. Radio needs to program with this new kind of media consumer in mind.

The big story in the radio trades today was the move of News/Talk legend WIBC in Indianapolis from the AM to the FM dial. And while I certainly agree with Walt Sabo who says today: "The band has little to do with it" and that there are "very bad" stations on both bands, who are we really fooling?

I happen to love the content that is available on AM radio in New York. I love WFAN, WABC, WCBS, WINS, ESPN Radio, and I regularly listen to Radio Disney when my daughter is in the car (and I like that too). But I'm almost always listening through endless noise, hiss, and worse. I live 43 miles from the Empire State Building, but well within the New York radio metro. My listening is a true labor of love - very often there is more noise than what I'm 'listening' to - but I keep listening anyhow.

Who else but someone like me would put up with that? No wonder many people never visit the AM band at all. Maybe it's not that they don't like non-music radio - maybe it's just too painful from a sound quality standpoint.

Perhaps HD Radio will re-invent AM Radio by eliminating all the noise. And what a revolution that really could be. The first time I listened to a football broadcast on FM I found it revelatory. And just a few minutes ago I put "Mike & the Mad Dog" from WFAN on the stream, after attempting to listen to them on a brief drive in my car, and I was stunned by the sound quality from my little computer speakers.

The bottom line being - moving our best AM radio brands to the FM might actually be the single most powerful thing we could do to revitalize this medium. It could truly remind an entire generation that there's more out there than 'more music less talk.'

This morning's announcement from the HD Radio camp that CBS Radio, Clear Channel, Cumulus, Cox, Entercom and Greater Media are in the process of installing iTunes Tagging technology brought a swift response from Robert Unmacht of iN3 Partners, whose clients include Radio-Info.com.

Unmacht, who has weighed in on song tagging before here, is not the only person to suggest that radio is giving the iPod entirely too much currency, but his take is one of the most explicit.

"'Radio: helping to make Apple the standard in digital distribution,'" he writes.

"Odd that they hate satellite [radio] and support what will be a far bigger threat in 5-10 years.

"Apple has its eye on digital distribution in the broadband era: audio; video; film; records; information; books; radio.

"This move with HD is small in soooo many ways but it does help make Apple a standard, having HD buy into it now will make each future technology that much easier for Apple.

"Once it is a standard, how you get their products will not matter. One day you switch to the iPod in car receiver and radio as we knew it is gone."

Even taking a more benign view of the iPod/HD Radio interface, I'd still like the same effort to go into designing something else: the iPod-size combination HD radio/wireless Internet receiver. It's the one that lets you pick up any radio stream in the world, but because broadcasters have been pro-active in the design process, it's the one that helps you easily find any HD-2 channel, not just the ones in your market. Because while song-tagging technology might be nice to have, the Infinite Dial in my hand is the one that would go to the gym with me instead of the iPod.

Tomorrow is one of the most widely anticipated days in the lives of many a 12-35 12+ boy. Halo 3 hits the shelves, for those with enough foresight to pre-order it, anyway. Active rockers, Classic Rockers, Young Country even--this one is too big not to talk about. In PPM markets, you'll see the carnage firsthand when you get the weeklies. Since huge chunks of your male (and possibly female) audience are going to be camped in front of the tube for the foreseeable future, you may as well work with the Master Chief instead of against him. There's still plenty of time to put together a commercial-free Halo listening party to be the soundtrack to the destruction of the Covenant--or maybe the Top 20 ass-kicking songs of all time with live Halo 3 party drops. Don't underestimate this one, folks--this is as big a 'hit' as the ole' Long Tail is likely to see in some time.

Oh, and Larry--I am not feeling very well. I think I will be out sick tomorrow.

Because they do the right thing. Yesterday, I was mad at Apple for dropping the price on the iPhone by so much, so soon, after I sunk my early adopter cash into one just a couple of months ago. Today, Apple announced that they actually do feel my pain, and is giving me a hundred bucks back. Apple, I ain't mad at you no more.

Doing the right thing > Doing the cost-effective thing. Remember that!

With WiFi being a central feature of the new iPod Touch, Apple had an interesting choice to make--one with ramifications for everyone reading this. Some pundits speculated that this would finally bring open wifi radio to a portable device, akin to the Sansa Connect's integration with Yahoo Music. Of course, the Sansa is a closed-loop system--you can only listen to Yahoo Radio, and purchase songs via subscription to Yahoo Unlimited, but it still represents a start--turning the mp3 player from a sealed box into a portal.

Apple could have opened up the iPod to Internet radio--but they didn't. And why should they? With little money being made--yet--in internet radio, they had little incentive to hitch their wagon to one of the leading streaming players when they continue to sit on the biggest cash cow (in the true Boston Consulting Group usage of the term) in the music industry--the iTunes music store. So instead of listening to your station on an iPod, owners of the iPod Touch and the iPhone will be back on the iTunes music store, as usual, tightening Apple's grip on consumer music.

There is one exception--an integration with Starbucks that allows iPod users surfing the WiFi in a Starbucks store to automagically click a button and buy the song currently playing in the coffee shop. Earth's largest music store joining forces with Earth's largest retailer (in terms of number of locations--take that, Subway!). One of the most magical elements of the Apple brand is its ability to always look like the underdog--but with this move, they are Goliath, not David. I'm with Rick Rubin on this one--music is a commodity now, plain and simple. And Apple is Archer Daniels Midland--Supermarket to the World. If you are a music station, it is more important than EVER to have begun executing a web strategy to build community around music and music discovery, which still play vital transactional roles in the great music machine. Radio used to be the sole arbiters of musical taste over the air, but has ceded that role to the Internet, as our most recent research has shown. But "the Internet" doesn't have to be someone else's web site--it could (and should) be yours. Cede nothing.

So Universal Music Group has announced that it will sell non-copy-protected downloads--but not on iTunes Music Store.

Earlier, UMG had gotten a lot of publicity for not renewing its deal with ITMS. According to reports, it will continue to sell there, but test non-protected MP3 downloads elsewhere. As noted when the deal first broke, I've bought a lot of UMG music on-line over the last few years and would hate to lose the exhaustiveness of their catalog.

That said, I do resent the copy protections of iTMS, more on theory than anything else--I haven't yet had occasion to burn any song I own more than five times. I also don't like that every now and then, iTunes decides not to transfer songs that I've long paid for to my iPod as a way of forcing me to update my software.

But I like the one-stop convenience of iTMS. Thus far, I haven't shopped much for digital music elsewhere, only because I rarely feel like I will find anything different. And if, as with EMI, the unprotected files are an excuse for a price bump, I'd rather pay 99 cents for the protected file.

Here at Edison, we have been early and heavy users of 37 Signals products for over two years now--we use Basecamp to manage internal projects (and as our secure client portal) and I use Highrise for contacts and conversation tracking. I have always personally used a third product, Backpack, as a kind of mobile temporary scratch pad--I will send my week's travel info/confirmation numbers to it and I can easily access it on my phone whenever I need it. I hadn't used some of Backpack's other wiki-like features, though, since moving things around and reorganizing information was such a pain. Pain no more! Backpack's recent update is so good, and makes this great online organization/collection tool so much more usable, that I pass it along here for all of our friends and colleagues. The calendar is great, mobile phone access is near-perfect, and it is the best way I know to keep all of the detritus I might need to look at on the road--todo lists, meeting notes, old emails--handy and accessible from my laptop or iPhone no matter where I am. Now that I can move snippets of data from page to page easily, it just became my traveling office full-time. I know there are some consultants and other heavy road warriors reading this--check it out and thank me later!

I have been playing with my iPhone pretty steadily for the past few days. The interface is magic--after using it for a while, when I go back to my Macbook I want to flick the screen with my finger and make pages scroll faster. I get aggravated that I cant just "pinch" my laptop screen to make photos bigger. And I can't stop checking the weather (but that says more about me than the iPhone).

One small point about the iPhone, however, bears mentioning in this space. While there have been phones that allowed you to listen to music files in the past, it will be the iPhone that cements the idea of phone-as-music device into the minds of the average consumer, who previously imagined that listening to music over that lone crackly speaker can't be an enjoyable experience. Now, however, the thought of using your phone as your primary music player is not so jet-packy.

All this means is that instead of lamenting the fact that iPods don't have FM tuners, we should be focusing instead on creating killer Internet experiences that stand alone, and not as mere replications of our on-air programming. There is more than one way to get on the iPhone, and the fact that the device relies on web-based applications (and not on a software development kit) means that it is easier, not harder, to stake your claim on that little screen.

Okay, maybe Universal Music Group's reported refusal to sign a new contract with the iTunes Music Store is just contractual brinkmanship. But just in case it isn't, I went through the "Purchased Music" playlist on my iTunes today, wondering how many of my current songs wouldn't be there if Universal's labels were not represented.

The answer, as it turns out, was about 20%--perhaps more allowing for a song here or there on a '60s or '70s label that might have eventually been absorbed by UMG. Without UMG's songs represented, I wouldn't own:

* "Sinner Man" by the Enemys--one of the garage bands that was led to Three Dog Night;

* "Part Of the Union" by the Strawbs--a '70s version of a pro-labor folk-song that can be called one of the strangest U.K. hits ever, even in a field that includes Crazy Frog and the Bob the Builder theme;

* "Midnight Flower", an obscure '70s R&B semi-hit by the Four Tops--more or less "Lady Marmalade" from the guy's point of view;

* "Be Without You/Stay With Me" by Mary J. Blige, her Grammy medley that added an obscure (but beloved) '60s R&B diva hit to her better-known song.

As you can tell from the rough obscurity level, most of these can easily be called discretionary purchases. Some are songs I would have lived without. Some are songs I would have eventually dubbed from my own vinyl. UMG has always had an excellent and comprehensive reissue program (hardly limited to a few for which I've written liner notes) and it would be sad for both sides if this was really a split.

However it may do long term, and my colleague Tom Webster certainly has some strong feelings about it, the change from Tropical to an Adult Modern format at WUBA (Radio 104.5) Philadelphia will go down as the first format change prompted by PPM ratings. Even if Philly's one Spanish-language FM was flat, not diminished in the way its Clear Channel Urban sisters WUSL and WDAS were, the first PPM quarterly made a bigger, more tempting target out of stations with AC and Adult Rock functionality.

The new Radio 104.5 has elements of both. It's along the lines of recent Clear Channel launches like KJMY Salt Lake City and WDVI (the Drive) Rochester, N.Y.--stations that straddle the line between Modern AC, Modern Rock, and Triple-A. That, not surprisingly, was the turf occupied by WPLY (Y100) during its most successful period in the mid-to-late '90s, and while triple-A WXPN has moved in that direction, the hole for a female-friendly Rock station had never been exactly filled.

Here's WUBA at 8:20 this morning:

Green Day, "American Idiot"
Red Hot Chili Peppers, "Aeroplane"
Evanescence, "Call Me When You're Sober"
Bob Marley & Wailers, "Three Little Birds"
Barenaked Ladies, "Brian Wilson"
Midnight Oil, "Beds Are Burning"
Modest Mouse, "Float On"
R.E.M., "What's The Frequency, Kenneth?"
Semisonic, "Closing Time"
Killers, "Mr. Brightside"
Republica, "Ready To Go"
Foo Fighters, "All My Life"

The Infinite Dial 2007: Radio's Digital Platforms, the latest study by Edison Media Research and Arbitron, is a follow-up to last year's Infinite Dial study -- in it, we further explore the digital audio platforms (online radio, satellite radio, HD Radio, and podcasting among others) that expand the radio market, their impact on AM/FM radio, and implications for advertisers and media planners. To view the report, click here.

Last week, the UK's most recent RAJAR data was released, and the results were extremely encouraging for British broadcasters. The headline stat, of course, was that more people than ever are listening to the radio in the UK--a record 45 million persons, or about 90% of the population. The primary reason for this growth has been broadcasters' platform-neutral approach to radio. By getting their product squeezed through every possible distribution channel, they have taken the decidedly 'Web 2.0' (and 1.0) approach of building audience first, and cracking the revenue model later. As a result, not only is the reach of terrestrial radio at an all-time high, but the use of other digital platforms to listen to radio is also rising dramatically. For example, almost 8 percent of the 15+ population has listened to radio on their mobile phone. This stat is currently almost unattainable here in the States, where our mobile phones rarely even have a tuner. Of course, getting tuners into mobile phones in the UK was as much a product of intense lobbying by the BBC as it was consumer demand--but, there you go. Maybe our lack of phone-tuners is just lack of effort after all.

Internet radio usage is also continuing to rise (as it is here, and we will soon have some fresh data on that score) and 39% of UK adults have listened to radio over their TV sets. The number that HD fans and foes alike have found solace in is the fact that 16% of UK adults own a DAB receiver. I'll come back to that point in a moment, but the big takeaway here is that by encouraging--and not stifling--the use of radio on other platforms, UK broadcasters are growing their industry. While useless debates rage on here with AFTRA and Harry Fox, broadcasters in the UK have done everything in their power to foster the development of Internet Radio, Podcasting and other digital platforms. Broadcasters have made it easier for UK listeners to consume time-shifted radio content, and listeners have responded by doing so--in record numbers. Here is where "The Paradox of Choice" has not stifled consumption, but clearly encouraged it.

There are some obvious conclusions here. One, certainly, is to fix that AFTRA thing already. Listening to Internet radio in the states is painful--we can't continue to preach about fixing what is "between the records" when what goes on in that space on our streams is...unspeakable. Another would be for high-level radio execs to start talking aggressively to Microsoft. Unlike the iPod and its typical (for Apple) closed-loop environment, the Zune has (gasp!) a pretty good FM tuner. Now Microsoft is working on a Zune phone to compete with the iPhone, and as long as it doesn't match the iPhone's hideous retail price, I wouldn't bet against it (and I am the only, stubborn Mac user in the company.) Broadcasters need to lobby hard to be sure there is at minimum an FM tuner and preferably an HD receiver built into the Zune Phone.

But there is a deeper point to be made here--and this goes back to the 16% penetration of DAB in the UK. DAB receivers are overwhelmingly home units--not installed in vehicles--and the UK model is actually proving successful by reaching people who want compelling audio content in their homes. The UK model is certainly different, with a separate tier of options removed entirely from the AM/FM band. But while many pundits in our business are just waiting for in-car WiFi to kill radio and its 'captive audience' for good, UK broadcasters have come up with a product that is compelling in the most competitive environment of all--the living room.

How have they been able to do this? Simple--necessity is the mother of invention. Broadcasters have thus far had it easy here in the US, with our wide urban streets, plentiful parking garages, suburban sprawl and monstrous ex-urban commutes. No such luck in the UK. Because UK broadcasters must succeed out of the car, they do. Now, so do we.

Here is what Southwest Airlines has to do with all of this. When Reagan deregulated the airline industry, most commercial carriers didn't even blink--they just kept plugging away with the suddenly irrelevant hub-and-spoke system, and failed to grasp what their new mission must be. Southwest, on the other hand, came into the business fresh, able to clear away the cruft of the old system, and find new, more profitable ways to ferry listeners from point to point that eliminated the decaying architecture of the hub-and-spoke system. The airlines hub-and-spoke system is, essentially, our AM/FM-based architecture. Regardless of whether or not the FCC accelerates or reverses consolidation, radio has already been deregulated. Though a handful of broadcasters here in my hometown of RDU have been granted "exclusive" spectrum licenses, sitting here at Starbucks as I type this I can listen to anything in the world I want to, and I do.

What the industry desperately needs is a Southwest Airlines to come in with a radically different model--to amalgamate saleable numbers of passionate listeners, no matter what the platform, using the AM/FM band as a promotional tool. Because the current crop of broadcasters are tied to their own hub-and-spoke system of quarterly books, an increasingly ill-prepared sales function and a failure to understand that radio station websites should be at the other end of the funnel, we are stuck maintaining hundreds of gates at DFW when our listeners can (and do) go anywhere they want, and grab any content they want, with little to no friction.

It's time for a Southwest to come into radio and change the rules.

Streaming music provider Pandora has started to insert audio ads into some streams to test their acceptance and viability. Web 2.0 hawks like Mashable have noted that lots of folks are complaining, but, of course, no one would write in welcoming the addition of spots, would they? Still, there is a lot of passion for Pandora out there (I myself have been a paid user since day one--here is the station I made around my favorite song of all-time) and it is encouraging to see so many people who are passionate about what is essentially a jukebox, albeit a spanky-smart one. Pandora says that only a small percentage of users hear the ads, and that even then they will only hear one ad per day. People are complaining about this??? It is easy to get caught up in the fickle, manic rage of the blogosphere; one would hope that these folks would realize that even (gasp) two ads per day is a more than fair tradeoff for the free lunch of great music Pandora has delivered to their doorstep.

Underlying this kerfuffle, however, is a more weighty issue for broadcasters. Sustaining Internet audio services without audio ads has, to date, proven untenable (and I gave it the old college try as far back as 1999.) So, what is the future of Internet-delivered music radio? As long as I can minimize the player, or stick the iPhone in my pocket, I am not seeing banner ads, Google AdWords, or any other kind of visual advertising. Why else would Google buy dMarc? The Internet has changed our tolerance for spotloads--with so many alternate choices so easily reached, our attention spans for advertising grow shorter and shorter. You can't make money without more listeners, and the more listeners you have (until bandwidth is actually free) the faster you go out of business.

So, what is the answer? Dunno, but I do know that Radio is not the only one with this problem. The radio industry needs to reach out more to Madison Ave., and to media buyers and agencies (instead of ignoring them when they tell us they want PPM.) As more and more 18-34 year-olds (in particular) drop off "the grid" of conventional advertising, agencies need to reach them every bit as much as we do--and every time someone listens to Pandora, or subscribes to XM or Sirius, that isn't just another one of a thousand paper cuts to Radio's cume and TSL-- it's another valuable consumer unreachable by media buyers and advertisers. It's a big problem--one that requires the resources of a gigantic industry...like Radio.

So, no terrestrial broadcaster should gloat or say "see, I told you so" when Pandora has to start running audio ads. Instead, let's help Pandora solve their problem--it's your problem, too.

I spent the day walking the floors of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. It is an amazing experience that anyone in any related industry should do sometime

Several thoughts:

1) forgetting the radio angle for a moment, the commitment of the major players to this show is mind-boggling. Panasonic must have 100,000 square feet of show space, all of which was as fully realized as a ride at Disneyland. Microsoft has equal presence. Just amazing.

2) HD Radio has two nicely prepared booths, one in the automotive area and one in the general area.

3) XM has an enormous presence, including a big win on giving away the most bags for carrying your stuff. Their logo is everywhere. And on the point, has anyone noticed how much the XM and HD logos like alike? Take a quick look at each:

4) the best part of CES is at the Sands Convention Center, where the smaller start-ups take small booths to show what they've invented. This is the most optimistic place on earth, where dreamers with incredible passion will talk to you one-on-one. Some incredible technologies with enormous potential disruptive impact on radio were on display there....and I will review them in my next post.

Despite the long tail, in no way is the 'hit' a thing of the past. In fact, as I wrote about earlier this year, society and our culture are simply disaggregating--and re-aggregating--around new norms. Here's one--you want a hit? This will be a 'hit':

If you have ever tried to use one of those FM transmitters to get your iPod or Satellite Radio signal to your radio, you know that the reception (especially in large, urban areas) can be problematic. Well, worry no more! From Mac OS X Hints, How to receive a clearer iPod FM transmitter signal:

Remove your car's antenna. You will now be able to pick any radio station to broadcast the iTrip through, without worry of competing signals. I have driven from Ventura, through Los Angeles, and all the way to San Deigo without having to change the iTrip's station once.

Here's an introduction to perhaps the most important company you may have never heard of: Radio meet Clearwire .

Clearwire is the company that will bring WiMax to the masses. Founded and run by Cell Phone pioneer Craig McCaw, they have the spectrum and the financing to truly make a national WiMax network that works.

WiMax offers the prospect of broadband Internet connectivity everywhere. And of course, this will eventually extend to cars.

Considering how many people already access Internet audio despite it being tied to the computer, imagine what WiMax might bring to bear. Imagine the new devices that will come along.

As has been noted many times, including in this blog, in-car listening has seemed to be the primary lifeline for 'terrestrial' radio. While Arbitron consistently shows in-home and at-work TSL dropping, in-car listening has been stable-to-up.

Most of this increase, or at least 'lack of decrease', can be attributed to the ever-increasing amount of time Americans are spending in their cars.

Now, however, the competition for in-car radio Time Spent Listening is coming - and burgeoning.

Of course Satellite, with all its profile, has been the most discussed challenge. Much has been written about WiMax...and if and when that comes the true revolution will begin.

But even in the shorter term, the car has become a battle zone.

An astonishing number of cars roll off the lines today with built-in DVD systems to keep the kids occupied in the back seat.

The GPS systems are rapidly moving from novelty to standard equipment, and all of them plan to replace the 'old-fashioned' radio traffic report.

And car companies are jumping over themselves to make integration with the iPod easier, through Bluetooth or other solutions.

Can radio successfully compete in this environment? Of course. It will still be the leader for a long time to come...but today's radio companies must start to see themselves as being in the 'in-car' entertainment and information' biz, not just the AM/FM biz.

There is a lot of focus on the HD Radio lately, and as an industry we certainly need to put the pedal to the medal on this and other digital initiatives to remain relevant and fight declining mindshare, particularly in younger demos. One refreshing byproduct of the HD push is that the industry is flexing its muscle a bit to drive hardware, technology and distribution in a way we haven't seen in years. Mark Ramsey has written that people don't just buy "a radio," but a lot of people bought satellite radios, so it is possible to drive early adopters to purchase single-purpose devices if they are sufficiently cool, and have a compelling feature set (and content, of course.)

So, what would make me buy a new radio? What would really make me excited again about listening to AM/FM? New channels are a part of it, but there are other things I would like to see in the 'radio of the future.'

Starcom MediaVest Group and CNET Networks recently published the results of a large study of 13-34-year-olds, who are responsible for $600 billion each year in consumer spending (and at least half of whom have essentially been given up on by radio.) One of the key findings to me was the identification of the 15-20% or so of these youth who serve as "brand sirens" - advocates, arbiters of taste and influencers of their peers.

A few key facts quoted by this study:

• 82 percent talk about brands with their friends


• 87 percent love sharing info about brands


• 85 percent love brands that keep their promises


• More than half wish they could find brands to stick with


• 70 percent send emails to friends about products and services


• 77 percent post reviews and product feedback online

So, not so fickle, not so cynical about brands, and not necessarily marketing-proof. Instead, for brands that keep their promises and deliver the goods, today's youth are more than happy to spread the word for you. You can't force this, you can't buy this and you can't stop the train from running you over if you deserve it. You can, however, put the tools in the hands of your listeners to be "sirens" for your brand. Just be aware that the siren call both works to your advantage and works to your detriment-silencing one voice invalidates the other. You can't put lipstick on a pig (well, you can, but it will get you arrested in Georgia.)

So, what does this have to do with HD Radio? I submit that the manufacturers of HD Radio technology should be worrying less about "fidelity" (check out a MySpace page--any page--think there is anyone there worrying about "fidelity?") and building us a really cool new radio that enables true two-way communication and sharing. We keep waiting for ubiquitous mobile wi-fi to run us over with thousands of internet radio channels delivered to our vehicles, when we should be the ones driving this change.

We can't beat Internet radio for choice, and we can't beat Podcasting for convenience and niche content. But the radio industry has one advantage for driving new mobile radio technology--it is still a pretty honkin' big industry. Frodo's Home Brewing Podcast might not be able to influence radio technology, but we have already seen that the radio industry can influence change with OEM manufacturers, retailers and the auto industry. The future generations of radio (HD or not) should embrace Wi-Fi and open up the band to as many choices as possible--but save the really cool stuff for terrestrial broadcasters.

My 'dream' radio for the terrestrial radio industry would let me have access to streams from Pandora or Live365, and also go out and get podcasts I am interested in. But it would only let me listen to those things--not interact with them. Instead, the really cool "tell-a-friend" and "post to my blog" and "thumbs up/thumbs down" buttons would only work with HD broadcasts--allowing instant feedback to the station and instant sharing. Now, maybe my dad isn't going to use the "post to MySpace" button so much, but who hasn't wanted to push a "thumbs down" button when OMC "How Bizarre" comes on? That would be addictive. That would be cool. That would be the future radio worth buying.

Wanna make me buy an HD? Make it as sexy as this little number from Bang & Olufsen:

I have happily owned B&O products for over 20 years, because, like Apple, they understand that while features="want", design="sheer, unmitigated lust."

I actually think I need another radio now...

Of course, this little number costs $850.00. While we often have the conversation about the need for HD receiver prices to come down as one of (but certainly not the primary) components of increasing demand, B&O could make a $500 can opener and you'd still want it. Especially to open those 28 oz cans of Beluga.

The New York Times Sunday Crossword Puzzle this week includes a fascinating clue and answer.

40 Across: The clue is "Satellite Counterpart" and the answer is..."AMFM".

Really says a lot about satellite radio's status. And AM/FM's too.

It has been almost a year since I wrote about the importance of radio station blogging, and radio has still been extremely tentative about dipping its collective toe into this vital form of communication (and its complement,consumer generated media.) For many stations, their reticence to enter the blogosphere is not only understandable, it might even be prudent. Rest assured, however, that blogging is not going away, and it has profoundly changed the landscape of "customer service," public relations and even altered the very soul of some companies (Microsoft being the most obvious example).

So, here we are in 2006, and you are thinking about it, or would at least like to know more. Where should you look? Well, we put our heads together on that very issue, and have assembled a fantastic panel at this year's NAB Radio Show in Dallas. The panel is entitled "Opening The Kimono: Harnessing the Power of Blogging" and it will definitely be lively, informative--and just might provide the impetus for you to think about your station in an entirely new (and potentially profitable) way.

The title of the panel does not refer to a mid-panel wardrobe malfunction, or anything more suggestive than "social networking." Instead, "Opening the Kimono" is all about making the crucial, first decision about launching a blog: how transparent do you want to be? Blogging requires a willingness to let the listener peek behind Oz's curtain (to mix metaphors) in a way that you might not be comfortable with (yet). Salting your blog with canned marketing messages and press releases is a fast path to irrelevance--only a truly open and honest two-way discussion has any chance of building relationships (and creating traffic). Opening that kimono might be difficult, but we have assembled an excellent group of guides.

Leading off the panel is the Founder/CEO of Weblogs, Inc and current GM of AOL's Netscape site, Jason Calacanis. If you want insight on monetizing your blog, harnessing the power of consumer generated content and how AOL is tackling some of the same issues you are, Jason is the goto-guy. He will also be speaking at the Jacobs Media Summit on "The Future of Media," so if you come away from that talk with questions on how to make some of his ideas tangible and concrete with your station's website, you will want to stick around for this panel.

Also speaking will be Anil Dash, who is a Vice President at Six Apart, the leading company in the business blogging space and developer of the software behind many of the blogs and websites you probably already visit everyday. Six Apart's hosted TypePad service is used by thousands of popular blogs, and their flagship software product, Movable Type, has powered this site and the main Edison Media Research site for two years. Anil has been an "A-List" blogger for many years, has some radio in his background, and is one of the most engaging speakers on technology and trends you are likely to hear at the NAB this year.

Bryan Jay Miller, the General Manager of Internet-only WOXY will also join us. WOXY is just beginning to dip their toe into blogging, but they already have an extremely active message board community that should be the envy of any broadcast radio station. Bryan has built an impressive brand on the Internet--without the benefit of broadcast airwaves--and has done it thanks in part to fearlessly engaging with their audience and valuing their online feedback. Bryan's insight into community-building online (and where to take it next) will prove invaluable to this discussion.

Finally, if there is one thing that I would like you to remember about this panel, it is that this will not be a panel to only send your "tech guy" to. This is a panel for everyone concerned about building a brand on the Internet and monetizing your content. The issues behind deciding when, how and if to blog are big issues--50,000 footers--and should involve PD's, GM's GSM's AND Webmasters. I hope to see you all. As always, we welcome your comments here, or just pop me a note if you have any questions.

Except, Skype, Gizmo, JaJah and more everyday are turning telephony--and soon, mobile telephony--into a non-profit business. With rumors of an iChat-to-Skype service for Mac users, built-in support for Gizmo on the Nokia 770, and Sony's new Mylo, who needs a phone? Radio professionals worry (rightly so) about increased competition from internet-delivered services once Wi-Fi becomes ubiquitous (and available in the car). They aren't the only ones worrying, however.

Take today's Alltel-XM deal, enabling Alltel users to listen to 20 commercial-free channels of satellite radio on their phone. This isn't just a "value-add" for Alltel customers, nor is it a sweetheart deal for XM. Rather, it's the nation's number five carrier trying to drive revenue through additional services in the face of ever-increasing downward pressure on call rates. Once we get that in-car WiFi we are all being promised, we may still need Verizon and Cingular for broadband access, but I won't be buying 900 minutes a month anymore, that's for sure. And I might not even need a "phone" as we currently know it. Now, I am not trumpeting the death of the cell phone here--that would be idiotic, and this isn't that kind of blog.

But it is a great time for terrestrial radio to talk to the telecoms about their broadband audio entertainment strategy. XM and Sirius have ZERO advantage over terrestrial radio once they are moved from dedicated satellite radio device to a mobile broadband appliance, so (hopefully) we will see a good scrap in this space. In that case, the customer might just win.

There is a tiny, yet staggering story in today's USA Today. Sprint and Major League Baseball have reached an agreement to make audio of radio broadcasts available to Sprint's PCS Vision Phones or Power VisionSM phones.

While few people yet have such phones, this could prove to be a major driver to acquistion.

But more importantly, such an announcement means the forecasted 'convergence' of audio into some kind of combination portable MP3/internet/WiFi/FM device is coming, or here.

As this blog has argued many times, on an Infinite Dial brands are what will matter most, and Major League Baseball is as powerful a brand as exists within the audio spectrum.

And the answer is...er....I'll get back to you. While you are waiting, here are a few quick instructions and a short Infinite Dial quiz:

1. Visit this site. Spend a pleasant hour or so watching some Radiohead videos.

2. Refresh your memory about Napster V1
Now, the quiz--

1. How much bandwidth did you consume?


2. Who paid for it?


3. Whose property were those videos?


4. Who, if anyone, is breaking the law: The blogger, YouTube, the original uploader, or you?


5. Is there such a thing as a free lunch?

I got 2 out of 5 wrong, and I wrote the quiz. But YouTube, like Napster before it, will certainly do at least one thing--it will upset the applecart and lead to progress. Just yesterday I saw a research presentation from Circle 1 that revealed that today's net-savvy kids expect that they will have to pay for content on the Internet in the future, a belief that no doubt stems from the widespread adoption of MMORPG's (Massively-Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games), which generally have monthly subscription fees. Just as Napster enabled the iTMS and..well..Napster, so too will YouTube give rise to something else, and someone will have to pay for it.

But until that omelet, YouTube is breaking some eggs, no doubt about it.

A new study from Brix Networks shows that the quality of VoIP telephony has degraded by 5% over the past. I know I made a VoIP call just the other day and the quality was unbearably bad, though a subsequent call later in the day showed improvement.

If this degradation is real (and common sense tells me it is), there are implications for radio stations and other media channels who seek to stream their content online (as opposed to simply making it downloadable). The Internet we all know and love was never designed to carry the load it currently does, and despite near-ubiquitous broadband and increasingly common WiFi connections, all Internet traffic goes through a finite series of tubes.

As ridiculous as Sen. Edwards' description was, he was kinda sorta right about the “tubes” in that bandwidth is not infinite. As consumers increasingly make their phone calls online, and now with YouTube and other video sharing sites mucking it up even more, radio stations should be careful about their stream's audio quality. I have an extremely fast connection at home, and streams at 128 kbps often choke and sputter if I listen to them for more than 15 minutes or so.

I am eager to hear GCap's new higher quality audio streaming in the UK, which promises CD quality audio delivered over the Internet via a multicast solution. While sound quality may not be a problem now, GCap's rethink of their streaming architecture may prove prescient, indeed.

...is only limited by our imagination. Services like this one make it painfully clear that Vonage is not a telecommunications company, Vonage is a marketing company--just like Coca-Cola. Except Coke's formula is still a secret.

Now, if they could just do something about my mobile phone bill...

I recently finished reading Wired editor Chris Anderson's new book,“The Long Tail : Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More” (Chris Anderson), which sprung from his original, highly influential Wired column of the same name (and also from his widely-read blog.) There has been, of late, considerable reaction to his latest offering on The Rise and Fall of the Hit.

I'm not sure I agree with Anderson that the hit is dead, and I am not alone. Valleywag pointedly offers up a link to Gnarls Barkley's “Crazy” for its readers to use as a soundtrack to the article, and Mark Ramsey notes that lots of folks went to see that Pirate movie. The comment that makes the most sense to me, however, comes from KFOG's Jeff Schmidt, who notes on his blog the following:

The Long Tail isn’t so much about the DEATH of HITS - but about their marginalization within the larger totality - about the rise of OTHER.

The old scarcity model for content has changed, and now it is entirely possible to tap into markets heretofore constrained by geography. The fact that DL Byron can build a business like Clip-n-Seal almost entirely through the power of blogging is testament to the power and veracity of Anderson's perceptions about the long tail. Being right about the tail part, however, doesn't make him right about the head. As Jeff correctly notes, OTHER is big, and viable. But we still gravitate towards hits--we still need hits.

There is no better evidence of this than Technorati founder David Sifry's fascinating regular posts on the state of the blogosphere. My favorite: February, 2006, a brief, yet important analysis of the number of blogs in the “magic middle,” a lucrative chunk of the Long Tail. Devotees of Anderson's theory will (correctly) point out the number of blogs in the long tail of the graph at right--the blogs along the far right side have millions of readers, though no single blog has more than a few dozen. Check out, however, the left side--tell me there aren't some hits in there!

The fact is, that even in this age of blogs there are hits, and big ones, too. Most people, in fact, will have read about Anderson's Long Tail theories on one of several big hitters in the blogosphere or in mass media. While the New York Times, CNN and the Washington Post were the top three most linked-to news and media sites in February (from the Technorati chart at left), a few blogs also snuck in there as bonafide “hits” at the fat end of the tail (Boing Boing, Daily Kos, Engadget and PostSecret). One thing I think this shows is that the age of the “hit” is far from over.

What is happening, however, is another stage in the continual cycle of disaggregation and reaggregation espoused by folks like Francis Fukuyama in “The Great Disruption: Human Nature and the Reconstitution of Social Order”. Society (and, its great mirror, the media) continually disaggregate from old norms, values and cultural benchmarks, but society doesn't disintegrate. Instead, it reaggregates around new norms. Is the “hit” dead? Well, maybe the blockbuster movie ain't what it used to be, but I would call MySpace and Grand Theft Auto hits, wouldn't you?

...Customized Satellite Radio Playlists. Apparently, according to Orbitcast, GM has filed a patent for this handy gadget:

A system and method for customized music delivery to a vehicle including determining a playlist, storing the playlist on a server, selecting content corresponding to the playlist, transmitting the content to the vehicle by satellite, and storing the content in a telematics unit.

Marc Fisher of the Washington Post recently picked up on our most recent Internet and Multimedia Study and blogged about it in his Raw Fisher column a couple of weeks ago. Among Marc's comments:

What does it all mean? Advertising-supported media are in a bit of a panic, because it's clear that Americans are eagerly taking advantage of any technology that allows time-shifting and the ability to skip ads. So we'll see ever more advertising insinuating itself into the content that we've decided to watch without ads. And the popular culture will become ever more atomized and disparate, which is both good (more opportunities for high quality fare to find an audience) and bad (it will become much harder to create and maintain a civil society with shared values and knowledge.)

Yesterday I used dating as a metaphor for building an online database, and consequently, a relationship with your listeners. There is another aspect to relationship building online that bears a second look. Relationships are built over time. On the Internet, this manifests itself in the form of a series of transactions--value exchanges--between you and your customers.

Before joining Edison, I worked with a behavioral marketing agency that specialized in crafting compelling messages based upon customer profile information. Our customers consisted solely of companies in the life sciences or in financial services. Why? Because our system would only work if we had a rich mine of customer data, and we quickly learned that people will only provide that data if they believe that, in exchange, they can improve their health or their finances. Those are certainly the only two online services that I would ever provide things like my spouse's name, or even my SSN, because those services improve the quality of my family's financial and physical health. Even with projects like pharmaceutical compliance programs, however, we also learned that you couldn't ask for the order all at once--and you couldn't ask for anything personal unless there was a customer-centric justification for it.

We never asked for too much information at any one time, and each request was directly related to a value exchange that was meaningful to our client's customers. When your broker asks for your age, it is because they need it to plan your retirement portfolio, and you need them to do it right. You don't hesitate for a second. Why would I ever even give a radio station my age, however? I might check a box to indicate I was 18 or older, or something along those lines, if I felt that was a reasonable request to win a prize. But just because your station would like to know how old its listeners are doesn't mean we have to tell you! Radio stations have to be cognizant of the shared experience of the Internet--when I sign up for something on 90% of the sites I frequent, I need only give my email address and sometimes my name--that is it. When I give up my email address, I understand that I might be marketed to, but I give it in exchange for what I perceive to be the value of the site or service. Few Web 2.0 services today ask for my address--because there is no justification for it.

That is why I hate to see radio stations with VIP/Listener Clubs like this one. It is doubtful I would ever give much past my name and email address to a radio station on the first date, and even after a long relationship I would never give them my Social Security Number! Again, "working a database" is a horrible term for relationship building. I might let a radio station get to first base with me, but you will have to buy me a lot of dinners to get further. And I will never, ever let you get past third--believe that.

As usual, the folks within the ESPN section of the Disney company are bringing a new technology that was once hard to use to the public. Following on the heels of the ESPN Mobile Phone is the ESPN's Podcenter.

ESPN Radio has moved into Podcasting in a big way. There are dozens and dozens of podcasts available on pretty much any sports topic. There is re-purposed audio from ESPNRadio and from television shows like "Pardon the Interruption." There is coverage of more obscure sports that don't get as much coverage on radio and television. There are daily Poker and Extreme Sports podcasts. There are some podcasts behind their "insider" wall with information for fantasy sports players.

For now, the Podcasts are advertiser supported with spots at the beginning and end of the casts. The postings are easily played over the computer or downloaded to the desktop or iTunes.

With ESPN's Podcenter one truly sees a new future for radio in full expression. One can listen to the live stream of ESPN radio programming at any time over their site or of course over any of their hundreds of mostly AM Radio affiliates. Or, one can take any of the best content from ESPN Radio and get it on-demand through the Podcenter, or one can also find "just for Pod" programming from this same content provider too. Under all circumstances, it is advertiser supported.

ESPN is showing yet again that it is not the platform that matters, it is the content and the brand. The analogies are clear for all audio content providers.