Quote of the Day...

"The Internet radio industry is in the first inning and currently represents less than 5% of most radio station revenue.  However, this is one slice of the advertising pie that is growing."  Robert J. Maccini, CEO of Ando Media, LLC

QUOTE OF THE DAY:

"Today's economy is a 'scissors economy'...meaning that everyone is a middleman and can be cut out...if you can't explain your value, you get snipped out. You will thrive if you offer value." - Todd Buchholz

Quote of the Day: DOCTOROW's LAW

"If someone takes something that belongs to you, and puts a lock on it that you don't have a key for, that lock isn't in your best interests."
        - Cory Doctorow

Quote of the Day...

"One overpowering trait distinguishes exceptional people from the masses who live and die without making their mark in the world . . . without accomplishing significant achievements. That trait is the drive to learn, to grow, to identify new and more effective ways of engaging in their personal and business endeavors. Those who are determined to escape the bounds of gravity will find that God has created a profound blueprint for success."  
  -  Mark Stevens: God Is A Salesman

Feeding Off of Twitter's Exponential Growth

Some Mind-Numbing Stats from COMPETE:

• Unique Visitors to twitter.com increased to 19.4 Million in April, surpassing the New York Times for the first time.
• Oprah's first tweet on April 17th delivered the highest Daily Reach ever to the site, with nearly 2% of all Americans online visiting Twitter

Sure, we all know Twitter is growing exponentially, and has no real business model, but one fact often overlooked is that many other sites also rely on it. According to the latest numbers from Compete, fast movers in April included tweetmeme.com (up 338% to 1.68 Million Unique Visitors), tweetdeck.com (up 69% to 915,000 UVs), twittergadget.com (up 56% to 100,000 UVs), twitpic.com (up 37% to 3.33 Million UVs), and bit.ly (up 53% to 1.81 Million UVs).

Quote of the Day

"Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler"
  - Albert Einstein

RAIN: Internet Radio Summit 2009

After 2 weeks of playing catch up and another reminder of why I don't like to be away from the office for an extended period of time, I finally scratched off a few "To-Do's" on my list and sat down to reflect on my recent travels as several friends and colleagues have asked me for a recap...So, below is a quick summary of my trip to the NAB Show in Las Vegas on the way back from Seattle two weeks ago. My main focus was to attend the RAIN Internet Radio Summit as a guest panelist, but I also made time to walk the show floor for a half day and had a few ad hoc meetings...so needless to say it was a super busy - but VERY productive week!

From my perspective, there appeared to be a lot of buzz overall and lots of new enthusiasm and optimism about the Internet Radio category in general, especially with the latest numbers just released (i.e. 42M U.S. listeners = 17% of the population, up from 33M in 2008). Speaking of research, there were 3 very excellent presentations given by Edison, Ando Media and Jacobs Media (btw - The Infinite Dial PDF slides can be downloaded for free HERE). The latest research clearly shows strong growth and consumer interest with 69M Americans reportedly listening to Internet Radio as of last month (mostly on PC's and at work), but the reality is that even taking into account the poor economy, there just have NOT been any home runs yet on the device side and very few retail placements.

At the end of my DEVICES panel, I asked the audience why mass consumers aren't out buying more tabletop or desktop Internet Radios if awareness and usage is so high and the 2 answers I remember being belted out were: "prices are still too high" and that "they're too complex to set up and use." I would agree with both of those answers as potential barriers to adoption and growth, but another reason might be that the 'early adopters' are simply using their iPhones and Blackberrys with unlimited data plans to simply stream it for free. However, that's just a subset of the overall population and I firmly believe that many people still prefer a dedicated device when listening to music at home...and that there's a huge under served market for average consumers who don't have a data plan and just want to use their free Wi-Fi connection at home or at work...(Time will tell if 2009 is the year Internet Radio truly grows legs, but I'm obviously biased as part of the Product Development team for Acoustic Research's Infinite Radio.) From my perspective, the Summit sponsors and audience seemed to be predominantly Radio-centric, (which was no surprise since it was an NAB event) but there was no denying a huge presence from the advertising side of the house....(a necessary evil that no one can deny because someone has to make a profit in order to help finance thousands of free broadcasts and effectively subsidize the ridiculous royalty rates...)

The event organizer, Kurt Hanson, seems to be one the industry's biggest evangelists lobbying for the proliferation and success of Internet Radio and from my view, is trying to organically build a lobbying group similar to what the Internet Media Device Alliance (IMDA) is trying to do. In my opinion, it would be great for the entire industry if the IMDA and and Kurt could get together and join forces to jointly promote the space for all stakeholders!

SOCIAL: The unofficial gathering the night before at the Gordon Biersch Brewery Restaurant was surprisingly NOT super packed, as most people probably hadn't arrived in town or checked in yet, and so it was a great chance to mingle with other attendees and panelists...in an informal setting. The super talented singer/guitarist Gaby Moreno was the featured performer both days and she was incredibly original and totally awesome!!

As you can see in the photo, it was pretty much standing room only at the Summit and the closing cocktail party by the pool was a blast with the live band and cool weather, etc....One final note: As well attended as it was, there definitely seemed to be a lack of PRESS and content providers (i.e. rights holders) in the room.

I highly recommend attending this event next year and want to thank Kurt, Paul and Jennifer for the wonderful opportunity to be a part of it...
If you're interested, I posted some more photos HERE...

iPhoners Love Facebook & Weather

I'm not surprised to see Facebook the most popular app, but I found it interesting that iPhoners are SO interested in weather...http://htxt.it/QMsy

Primates on Social Networks

Interesting ECONOMIST article on Facebook behavior...Cameron Marlow, the "in-house sociologist" at Facebook, found that the average number of "friends" in a Facebook network is 120, consistent with Dr Dunbar's hypothesis, and that women tend to have somewhat more friends than men.

Quote of the Day

Great article about simplicity in product design (thanks Stu!)

"...The whole point of human-centered design is to tame complexity, to turn what would appear to be a complicated tool into one that fits the task, that is understandable, usable, enjoyable..."
   - Don Norman

Teen Music Behavior

Interesting new research results released by NPD on Teen music behavior...although I think it’s pretty hard to get teens to honestly admit they steal music in a survey….We all know CD purchasing is declining (down 27% for 13-17 year olds), but surprisingly, digital downloads are also down 13%.  “Another unexpected move was the 6 percent falloff in the number of tracks downloaded from peer-to-peer music sites and the 28 percent decline in the number of CDs borrowed from friends to rip or burn.”

 

So what’s the deal?  Is this trend just a result of all the free alternatives or is Gen-Y just so connected, that streaming has replaced the need to download and “playback” local content?  Personally, I think music has become such a commodity that an entire generation has forgotten what it feels like to take the shrink wrap off of a new CD or read liner notes…Cherry picking singles is the norm now and the act of buying music is simply foreign…I feel sorry for those still in the business trying to sell recorded music as their primary revenue source.  Those days are over and monetizing music (for any age group) has never been harder.

Favorite Quote of the Day

"We're not trying to steal their (Apple's) share of the pie, we're trying to bake a new pie."
 - Eric Garland paraphrasing someone from Amazon with respect to their online music store

Hack of the Day

Chinese hackers attack iTunes; selling $200 gift cards for $2.60
http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/128263

Quote of the Day

"A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government."  - Thomas Jefferson

Buy the Physical & Get the Digital....

I'm wondering if the struggling brick-n-mortar Book market can take a play from an innovative segment of the music industry and add real value and offer "convenience" to increase sales.. .
http://hellotxt.com/nv1wz3