Mobile Radio Simplified. Accessible. Relevant.

Well, yes it has been a while.

In case you missed it, there has been a recession going on, and yes, we have been especially hard hit. Bringing out a new business model that embraces a melding of old and new during times of extraordinary change and challenge is tough indeed. We, like many businesses scaled way back on our operation, looking toward a better day ahead.

We also changed our model from one based around an advertising share, to a service provider with benefits. This gives us a better, more predictable way of working with our partners. They understand their direct costs, and are better equipped and motivated to promote their cellecasts to offset them and extend their reach into mobile. We are taking our time building under this new model, and we look forward to a rebounding 4th quarter and 2011.

I want to give a shout out to Foneshow, our strongest, most direct competitor from the start. They were formidable, challenging, and they worked hard like we did to try to push the talk radio industry towards a better mobile future. I wish you all the best in new adventures Eric and Nick.

In Foneshow’s farewell message, they correctly cite the advancement of smartphones as next gen media devices as the big challenge to our model. I agree with them of course. We have felt it too. To reach those who have yet to get a smartphone with a way to get audio on demand, which is still a giant majority or people, poses the problem of reaching the least interested market segment around. So instead of expecting avalanches, we are looking for opportunities, of which there are still plenty.

Regarding smartphones, we have been flirting with integrating a webapp into CelleCast, and building up the mobile web on the webkit platform on the side. When we turn a corner on that, we’ll see how that does for us. We still have a great IP in this space and are happy to partner with others in a new way as the great shakeout of 2010 continues.

Life is full of surprises.

There are times when we think the business relationships we have set up years ago will remain intact and that everyone is comfortable in their role. Then the phone rings. “Although we have been glad to have you provide that service for us, in light of the recession and all, we decided to handle that in house from this point forward.” No matter how wrong headed these kinds of decisions might be, they are made anyway, and more and more specialists are forced to diversify. What should surprise us is that anyone is surprised anymore when things normally regarded as necessities are re-evaluated at every level.

For a minute, let us consider the vital services provided by the radio program director. First of all, rest assured that I love PD’s and my appreciation for what they contribute to radio has increased over the last 2 years. Nonetheless, the core of what they do for listeners is gradually being replaced by an increasing consumer awareness of a whole new set of media choice. Not just content choice, but delivery method choice and personalization.

The convenience of pre-packaged media with a carefully balanced mix of news, info and music is certainly here to stay, but the obvious fact that this is no longer the only option means the radio industry must decide whether to participate in a widening demographic, or a shrinking one. Sound familiar? This is what we have been saying since 2006, and others have been saying as well.

I am slated to write an industry article specifically on the radio personalization topic next week, so you will have to stay tuned for the helpful details. I still think we can all progress better together as an industry if we test new radio ideas out in an intelligent way. That should seem like an obvious point, but you might be surprised how many still need this hammered home.

The political season is in full swing. It is a season for hopes and dreams, dreams of a better future and the promise of innovation. No matter which candidate you support, it is likely you believe your favorite will deliver on the promise and their potential. The political tussle is a good example of how some of us are drawn to change, and new ideas and a different way of doing things while many are happy with the status quo, the safe way and the proven approach.

I believe the radio industry’s reaction to change is a great example of how these opposing points of view work in the real world. I’ve been involved in this industry for 20 years and the changes in the business have been dramatic. Over the last 5 years the need to move rapidly to new technology, new products, and new delivery methods has become essential and inevitable. Any external analysis of the radio industry shows a decline in audience and an increase in the number of alternatives to terrestrial radio. Industry pundits beat this drum daily, and yet the traditional broadcaster is moving slowly if at all into the realm of alternative delivery. In spite of the obvious need to change and the volume of evidence that time is of the essence many of the leaders in the industry are touting change but hanging on to the status quo. It is time to try new things or be replaced.

CelleCast is one of the truly compatible services giving terrestrial broadcasters a mobile, time shifting partner to expand listening and deepen the relationship between listener and program. Innovators like Dr Laura, Envision Radio, United Stations and Lou Dobbs, among others, are doing more than talking about the future, they’re doing something. Each has taken the first step by offering their programming via CelleCast on their listener’s terms, and on their schedule, and each will see the benefit of a more loyal and engaged audience as alternatives grow.

We’re watching the politicians and the industry executives with the same cynical eye, asking the question, “Are they serious change agents for the future, or the same old thing?” It is time to get off the sideline and take a chance on something new, something bold, and something fresh.

The biggest challenge of this post is that exposing the narcissism of this generation is kind of like describing to a fish the ocean in which it swims. So although some of my points may seem general and at times crotchety, try to bear with me as a reader here. I need to provoke you a bit to shake you into an awareness of the emotional matrix of these times.

In this world that is changing so rapidly, it is becoming commonplace to see conference rooms full of people riding the wave of technological novelty, because the attraction levels are quite high to be in on the latest and greatest. As the turnover rate increases for what ‘the latest and greatest’ actually is(hence the new term, ‘that is so 2007′), the race to lead gets more intense. Interestingly, much of today’s thought leadership has come from a more nuanced style. It is a counter to the top-down models of the past, for which we are thankful (see clue train manifesto), but this doesn’t change the fact that novelty still accounts for 90% of what is going on. People latch on to be significant by being in the know. The new social media leadership is generally determined by how many friends you have on Facebook, and how much traffic you are getting on your blog. Again, nothing inherently wrong with that, especially in contrast with the command and control models of the past. The problem occurs instead when you combine a novelty fascinated culture with an untested model for selecting wise leadership. Writing and reading is just a component of leadership. Writing, friending, and other forms of online networking, at best, create fame principally within a sub-culture that is self-fascinated. The online fame of various high-profile geeks seeking to inherit the earth does not make them experts in other areas (and to their credit, most would be the first to say it). There is in reality a great big world out there populated by very wise people doing wonderful and amazing things offline, but rather than interviewing these people and honoring their work and sacrifice, the technorati of today prefers to blog their own reports, from their own perspective and go before their online peers where the news is welcomed on the scale of them having discovered the new world. If you don’t get anything else said here, beware of this new elitism.

Adding to this, the post-boomer generations have been told in every Disney movie since 1980 that the most important value you can possess is believing in yourself, followed closely with the notion that all expressions of belief have equal value. Face it, there is just no valid counterargument to the fact that this is likely the most self infatuated generation in US history. Not that my generation of the 70’s was much better, but now that most of us who have survived are parents now, we at least have learned what it means to lay self aside for the sake of those coming next. What worries me is that the next generation just might not get started in that path until a much later time. Read on…

So where is the ‘perk’ I refer to wryly in the headline? It is in the fact that today’s technology has enabled us to indulge in self in ways previously unheard of, by minimizing exposure to criticism, and enabling self-congratulatory environments. If you need to find a community of people who agree with you, it has never been easier. Confirmation bias is the term we use for it, defined as seeking out media, friendships and information that confirms our own prejudices, rather than being challenged by hearing ideas from those with different experiences and opinions (parents included!). Today, people just don’t have to hear anything unpleasant to their ears. If you believe global warming is man-made and has doomed us unless we all turn agrarian, there are those who will console you if you are rebutted, and posit reassuring statistics. Of course it works in both ways and in any direction, conviction, opinion and prejudice. Certainly confirmation bias is not new to this generation, but what is new is our ability to isolate ourselves from our conventional neighborhoods where we would otherwise have to process varying viewpoints.

So I hope to do more here than just give you a moment of pause, but instead to give you a chance to reflect and think about how the world of technology affects you, and how you value all the people in your life, as well as the people throughout history, on which your life is indeed built, no matter how non-tech they are. If you don’t buy my assessment, then be in bliss. The narcissist community is growing rapidly.

Interactive revenues.

What once was a great opportunity for radio, has now become an area of intense pressure for sales managers. Produce here or die. I kinda wish the opportunity side of the ideas had more time for exploration first, then perhaps the tools that can produce a long term benefit will be discovered. Short term thinking stemming from a need to stop the bleed only addresses the symptoms, not the cause.

This is relevant to us as we have indeed created a great advertising platform that works with the power of what radio is, while pioneering a new level of interactivity for radio spot advertising. The problem we face is the short attention span within the industry. The pressure for revenue now hinders the collaborative thinking that will create what is really needed… a permanent correction to the revenue graphs in the radio industry.

What kind of non-traditional ad channels are a good fit for radio? The ones that answer yes to the following:

• Is it measurable, and therefore no-risk?
• Is there a growing audience?
• Is it audio based and complementary to terrestrial radio?
• Is it highly targeted?
• Does it promote the producer as a pioneer in new media?

We are glad to say we hit a 100% yes on all of these factors and more.

Have your interactive managers give us a call to discuss how we can help turn the tide in your 08 forecasts.

We were very grateful to have the opportunity to appear on MSNBC’s Your Business yesterday morning. My 60 seconds of fame was in the ‘Elevator Pitch’ segment, where I had one minute to tell a two person panel about CelleCast, and what is seeks to accomplish. Please watch this quick clip to gain a visual context for the following.

As exhilarating as that was, I was put off, to say the least, at the way they chose to do the set up. Though not shown in the clip referenced above, they introduced my pitch by asking, “How would you like to get the Pussycat Dolls on your cell phone?” As you see in the video, two Pussycat Dolls dancers are waiting by the elevator as I get off. It’s all part of the Las Vegas on-location feel. However, I was extremely displeased by their association of our product with prurient, porn-related content.

CelleCast in actuality holds a higher content standard than the FCC in what we accept on our service. You can read our content decency standards here. We’ll hold true to this, even if it costs us the opportunity to license high profile content that fails to meet these standards. If we can’t elevate the dialog on the airwaves, then we fail in a bigger arena than business itself.

Andrew

$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?