Mobile Radio Simplified. Accessible. Relevant.

Kinda fun to see Mike Huckabee and Rush Limbaugh bantering about whether they can reach each other to make sure they are not at enmity. Who says Rush was dissed by Huck? How clever is it to not reply to Huck’s email?

It is amusing to me that no matter how good the geeks like us behind the scenes get at making communication easier, more open and more accessible, there is an unmentioned need in society still,a nd in politics in particular, to claim that getting in touch was just not possible.

You can’t blame the communications industry, or the media industry, or the administrative offices when the goal is to be the wounded party waiting for the phone to ring. The technology still does not exist that will actually make you answer the call. The just isn’t a market for that I am afraid.

With all the talk about how high tech the candidates are, here is the truth about the pathetic showing in keeping their podcasts up and running:

The three candidates that have “official” podcasts are all Democratic.

John Edwards
http://johnedwards.com/podcast.xml
- no dates given, but not updated since the summer

Barack Obama
http://obama.senate.gov/podcast/index.xml
- not updated since April

Hillary Clinton
http://clinton.senate.gov/news/audio/hrc.xml - updated in December — podcasts from Senate floor

The other candidates are not directly represented. Either they have a podcast being done by a supporter, as is the case with Ron Paul, or they have no presence in the podsphere apart from interviews, etc by podcasters or broadcasters who also podcast.

We are going to set up an interactive candidate round-up on CelleCast very soon, using alternate sources since the candidates themselves have little to show.

The wisdom displayed by Seth Godin in his recent post goes beyond the mere pointing out how the media world is changing. I have seen too many posts along those lines and can create them myself practically in my sleep. Yes, the rate of change is remarkable and many established media structures will not survive the revolution as on-demand tools like CelleCast, Slingbox, and others emerge into mainstream usage.

What is more interesting to me, and something we are very keen about here is the fact that being new is also no guarantor of success. Consumers are not flocking anywhere in particular, but are responding well to companies that truly empower them with not only their technology, but also their personalized attention and concern. Look at how OnStar treats their subscribers. Beyond their radio commercials, their marketing centers around their excellence.

Thanks again Seth for bringing the right things to bear, namely the concept of permission marketing. Readers will have delve further into the post and beyond to capture what that means. To close, I will just quote Seth’s blog closer.

The new monopoly of the future is permission. Permission to talk to your customers directly about new stuff. Permission to teach, permission to ask, permission to learn. If you have that monopoly, you profit over and over and over again.
…

The power is certainly moving. It’s moving from five oligopolistic status quo gatekeepers that controlled money and promotion and retail to a much messier, faster-moving, more interesting amalgamation of database keepers, musicians and fans. Today, there’s a chance to co-op parts of that system. Tomorrow, that chance will be gone.

I love history. And as we dig deeper and deeper into the roots of the services we see trending into great viability in the 21st century, we are finding comforting references to the use telephones from its early days as an entertainment device.

The Electrophone pre-dates radio itself. It never caught on in the US for various reasons, primarily because the infrastructure for radio in the 1920’s emerged and eclipsed telephony as the best way to broadcast news and entertainment.

Even though we have scarcely seen the application of telephones as mass media devices in 80+ years, the trends are coming back around to where it all makes sense — again.

Enjoy the article and remember… there is nothing new under the sun, just new ways to combine the things we know and learn about.

Greetings from the lecture circuit.

Well not exactly. I have had a chance to go on the road in the NorthWest this last week however and present our business via a 10+ minute pitch a couple times. It was more than a great exercise. It has lead to getting more believers on board from the investment and scientific community.

In yesterdays presentation at the Micro Nano Conference, I had a chance to develop my thoughts out loud regarding how our mid term strategy will include more embedded phone apps in the next generation MID’s coming out in the next two years. It is very reassuring and inspiring to all that we are not just shooting at a short term opportunity, but are positioning ourselves as the new radio dial for listeners for emerging (WiMax empowered) technologies as well. Our core tenant that we leave no one behind will remain. The phone you have now is the only interface you will need in order to use CelleCast. Other ways to use CelleCast will have an active subscriber base ready to go.

As I am doing this, Dave was cited wonderfully by NTS Aircheck for his meticulous work in a new Bridge Ratings Study. More confirmation that we are tracking and building with the right trends.

» Wi-Fi Internet Radio Will Hurt Satellite: That’s the opinion of Bridge Ratings President/CEO Dave Van Dyke, based on results of a two-month study by the L.A.-based researcher to determine how market penetration of wireless Internet could affect listening to traditional radio by those already listening to Internet streams. “Satellite radio will be negatively affected by in-car Internet radio more so than traditional radio,” says Van Dyke. “We found that satellite radio subscribers’ passion was largely diminished when in-car Internet radio was added to the mix.” Additional details from the study, including the potential impact of Wi-Fi Internet radio on broadcast radio revenues, are available HERE.

There are a lot of great things to specifically cite from the study, but I will limit it to this:

ABI Research forecasts that the total number of Wi-Fi-enabled consumer electronics devices will grow from just 40 mln shipped in 2006 to nearly 249 mln in 2011.

Mobile WiMAX customers will grow at an annual compounded rate of 64% between 2009 and 2012, when telecoms embrace WiMAX as a fixed wireless broadband service, according to Pyramid Research.

We will be there, bringing radio on demand to your car, and working to make radio a standard component in tomorrows MID’s.

The good people over at about.com, specifically Brett Larson, gives us this view into the needed transition we all.. I mean all will be taking within the next couple of years:

This is the kind of package we think will make our users really enjoy mobile radio.

http://www.daydeal.com/product.php?productid=16074

Tell us what you think about this product. We are not selling it here. For now, the profile alone is enough to get us excited.

Review coming as soon as it arrives. For now you can read this review first. If you own one, let us know your own story here.

Getting geared up to write an article for a leading radio magazine. We believe phones and soon-to-come mobile internet devices (MID’s) are the future of radio… otherwise, we would not have this blog.

I am planning to step back a bit to make this article a lead in to help the whole industry advance at a place of relevancy. As tempting as it has been to try to get them all excited about the new social media tools I have been playing with lately, relevancy and accessibility are our mantras. What will really bring AM radio into the new new media is bringing familiar tools, and a familiar interface into the hands of baby boomers.

Anyway, that is enough for now.. any more and it will be an open ramble…

This post is just to remind everyone that we have not forgotten one of the big points of the fourth speaker is to share thoughts and do reviews on the various ways people succeed and fail in making their cell phones and other mobile devices produce good audio.

Getting the best audio solution is quite a challenge for many, but alas, too many suffer in silence.

I look forward to your comments and questions to get this discussion going.

$273 Million Premium SMS Revenue is a Third of Mobile Content Revenue

According to the new Telephia Premium SMS Report, Premium SMS revenues totaled more than $273 million, making up 32 percent of mobile content revenue in Q1 2007. This report includes content purchased via premium SMS from off-portal storefronts as well as premium text messaging services, like voting/sweepstakes and chat.

Download purchases paid for via premium SMS (at off-portal storefronts) totaled nearly $215 million, accounting for 79 percent of premium SMS revenue. These off-portal storefront purchases include content such as ringtones and horoscopes. Voting/sweepstakes entries generated more than $35 million. While voting/sweepstakes entries generated only 13 percent of total revenues for premium SMS transactions, they represented 47 percent of premium SMS volume, equaling more than 34 million transactions.

Kanishka Agarwal, vice president of mobile media, Telephia, said “Premium text messaging continues to be an additional way to reach consumers directly… (with) a healthy slice of the mobile content market, accounting for an off-portal share of 32 percent… marketers are experimenting beyond the standard rate SMS voting pioneered by American Idol and tapping into premium SMS with voting/sweepstakes campaigns. NBC’s Deal or No Deal has translated into a premium SMS hit, generating nearly half of the volume and revenue of voting/sweepstakes entries in the first quarter of 2007.”

*Represents unclassified premium SMS short codes

How does SMS fit in with the development of the celecast USP?