Mobile Radio Simplified. Accessible. Relevant.

Quick note. The fun thing about traveling for CelleCast is talking to cab drivers (always fairly recent immigrants) about the concept of hearing news and entertainment from their home country while driving around town. I get 100% enthusiasm about it. Now it is just a matter of gathering the long tail of shows into our system.

When we started CelleCast in 2007 we knew right from the beginning that there were two essentials to making mobile phone radio work for the industry. Not that these two stood alone, but we felt, and have been thoroughly vindicated, that without these there isn’t a rats chance in a beauty contest of success in bringing a significant radio audience over to new mobile devices. Once I cover these two self-evident points for reference sake, I’ll get into how the train got derailed for all of us by those who ignored them.

Behold:

1. Universal Simplicity

Radio works because it is easy, and will remain ubiquitous until it gets complicated (hence, the unintended consequences with satellite and HD). You turn it on, you scan through stations, you find what you want to listen to, and make presets of your favorites so you can avoid commercials, etc. Not only is it second nature for you, you also expect it to be easy for everyone else around you. The universality of people who are comfortable with it makes the simplicity means something. Even complex things are made simple on an individual basis with acclimation and repetition, but the list of things in media life that everyone ‘gets’ is still limited to the things that have been around a while. Without this, the media is not sharable. There is no community without sharing. Hearing radio over a mobile phone is sharable only to a very small niche community when an iPhone app is required. Hearing it only when an sms text message is received also creates limitations that violates the Universal Simplicity standard. This is something radio people get that cloistered new media geeks tend to dismiss.

2. On Demand, Personalized Delivery

This is an essential because frankly there is no reason for anyone (producers and listeners alike) to break from the status quo unless, in addition to the simplicity standard above, other compelling benefits cannot be ignored. What new media brings to the table for radio going mobile is portability and personalization. These are the same qualities mobile breakthroughs also bring to apps and the mobile web, BTW. When listeners can truly just push a button and hear a personalized playlist of programs auto-queued to play only the most recent unheard episodes, then the listener is in control in a similar manner that they are also getting accustomed to with DVR’s for TV.

Falling Short

Now, hopefully you are aware of the essential value of each of the above as pre-requisites toward a wonderful revolution in mobile radio. So why are we not much closer to seeing this transformation toward personalized radio come to pass? If you think it is the technology, you would be incorrect. I submit to you that it is actually the misstep of technology misapplied. Other ‘features’ (aka shiny objects) were regarded more highly than the core essentials of simplicity and personalization. Because too few have sought to hold to these as standards, what has suffered unfairly is the perceived viability of mobile radio personalization itself. Now, I am tired of that. Not just as a believer/innovator seeking to equip the industry for positive change, but also personally after seeing inferior tools dressed up with confusing rhetoric misguide people. Because of this, the promise of radio personalization has been broken, and the reality of it, postponed.

Cases in point: Foneshow.com and lexy.com. I am not in the habit of calling out competitors like this, and I have been able to resist the temptation up to this point. What breaks my silence now is the dread that the ideas behind what all three of us and others have been promising would be passed by due to poor representation. To see these venture funded companies, who have clearly undermined both the simplicity and on-demand standards they falsely claimed to champion, fade in listenership while claiming to represent mobile radio on-demand, is a tragedy to me. To be funded and not to have transformed the industry is an abject failure. I’ll give them credit for getting funded while we have yet to be in that club, but from my perspective today, I’m glad the failed examples are clearing out to make space. As long as the credibility of personalized radio can avoid too much damage now, we’ll be able to make our case while waiting for the right investor to emerge.

How have they violated the core essentials? To put it simply, they claim too much control over the experience, destroying simplicity. (I’ll give lexy more credit for putting their call-in number back on their pages, but for a while it was gone.) The approach they and others have taken is that the user would be enamored with text messaging to the point of accepting it as a gateway to access the audio. When we saw that as the core of Foneshow’s model in 2007, we didn’t even want to list them as a competitor on a product level. If you are making demands of the listener where they don’t get the audio without waiting for a text, then how is that on-demand? Who is making the demands? Imagine if your AM radio was similarly anal. You turn on the power and before any sound comes out, you have to enter your mobile phone number and wait for a screen to come up where you have to tap on a blue 10 digit number. Would you consider that consumer friendly or even good engineering?

One deal-breaking major fallout from this approach is that the content they are aggregating and delivering comes from radio shows that have no decent way to easily promote their content via the call-in based medium. We give each program partner a unique direct dial access number and program page. They can link to us from their site and get more SEO value. They can promote their cellecast number on the air and get direct call ins to THEIR show with ZERO barriers. Now, this is not a competitive pitch here although it sounds like it. To me, it is just bottom line common sense to make it easy for your partners to promote themselves in the context of universal simplicity in personalized mobile radio.

The bottom line problem here is that the biggest barrier for mobile phone radio is already the mainstream perception that it is too complicated to bother with. It doesn’t help that many of the companies trying to solve the perception problem are actually contributing to it. They just make it harder for those of us trying to help.

In the next installment, I will deal with some of the many promising possibilities for on-demand, personalized mobile radio. The standards above are not constraining, but in the long run, the key to radio liberalization and audio-based social media.

Something surprising is about to occur, but I say it is right on schedule. Apple’s iPhone is going down a few pegs in the intrigue market and the app craze will quickly wash into a memory similar to playing pogs and listening to Sugar Ray.

Why will the app craze dissipate? Because the same thing has happened on your desktop already. Installed apps, for a variety of obvious practical reasons, have given way to web apps. Web apps are accessible from any computer. They don’t care what version your OS is. The installation step gives way to a much easier registration step. The configuration and data status information is 100% portable. Think of your email. Where would you be if you could not access it from the web? That’s right, stuck to one PC. How 2004 is that?

Now, with the recent emergence of Android and Palm Pre as competing smartphones to the iPhone, what do all touch smartphone users have in common? The webkit safari browser.. that’s what. iPhone web apps already have had a few advantages over their native app counterparts, but now that the safari browser will be the common denominator among all phones, the scales are going to tip dramatically. Web apps as a sub project will give way to the mobile web app being the core business model. Look how this new real estate application is built around this concept.

Also, in case you are skeptical about all this, Verizon, who has been the odd carrier out in the non-blackberry smartphone world is about to enter in with bang. Droid phones are due out before Christmas with the new Android 2.0 OS. They are also slated to carry the Palm Pre by January. You would not believe the amount of iPhone users who are ready to switch to a new phone only because of how much they hate AT&T.

What this means for radio, is new opportunity that maybe, just maybe, they might not pass by this time. Radio’s long-held media advantage of wider and simpler accessibility is being challenged again and again, but this time and through 2010, the shift will be felt more dramatically. We have been telling radio leaders to partner with us to head off the challenge and bring in new tools to lead in opportunity. Start adapting now, without abandoning your core. We share your ‘accessibility first’ principle, so let’s get moving. The future still marches on.

We are ready to help now by developing your mobile website assets simply by repurposing what you have now on your current website. We can work with your webmasters and engineers in a seamless manner to get a winning strategy working. There are lots of new possibilities for audio as well with a combination of web based, telephony based and mobile streaming tools for mobile phones.

We leave you with a quick video about how the fast and versatile Safari browser works at different speeds for the iPhone, Palm Pre and T-Mobile G1.

We are proud to announce the addition of “Advice Line” to the CelleCast lineup along with the recently highly publicized “Be Still and Know” audio meditation exercise.

The Foundation of Human Understanding was established by Roy Masters as a religious organization dedicated to assisting anyone interested in perfecting their spiritual natures through the principles of Judeo Christianity. For over 44 years, the FHU has reached millions of listeners with radio programs such as “Advice Line,” currently carried on over 130 stations in the U.S. and rebroadcast worldwide via the internet.

Now with CelleCast, Advice Line is now interactive for all who wish to participate.

from their website.. how they are promoting their cellecast

Be Still and Know is a new kind of program for CelleCast, in that it is not a series of ongoing radio episodes, but rather a single audio exercise in 2 parts where listeners are encouraged to return multiple times a day to meditate regularly. This makes a persons cell phone a great personal development tool in an unprecedented way.

We made a few adjustments to how we deliver programs with less than 4 episodes. We took out the prompts that alert the user to the episode date since that is not relevant.

We also hope to see listeners using the talkback and cellegram features on CelleCast to declare personal progress and to spread the word to others in need.

Advice Line with Roy Masters

I am inspired to throw in a quick note today after watching this video on Mark Ramsey’s blog about what agencies think about radio today.

A couple of the points I especially liked were the references to windshield brands and the effective opportunities ahead as radio goes interactive. We have been looking at developing local advertising at this stage and proving this concept as valuable. National initiatives for large scale deployment have been a tough road, but we think we can get more marketing interest thrrough local tests like this.

More information to come. Contact me to discuss what we can do now for your brand in a local market.

It is likely you have never called your House or Senate representatives before. One reason I believe you haven’t is you feel the call will likely be wasted on an intern answering who just looks for a category to drop your message into. Who knows if your opinion really even gets recorded at all?

To that end I suggest a whole new way of getting your voice heard.. not only by your representative, but by anyone else who you care to share it with. CelleCast Talkbacks create a permanent, subject sortable audio petition opportunity with each and every call. Since our listeners are already on the phone enjoying their own personalized radio playlist of news, talk and information, the ease of contributing is as familiar as pressing 3.

We believe we are at the beginning of a new movement of citizen empowerment in this country, and that this tool will help put passionate audio petitioning and citizen journalism into the palm of everyone’s hand.

Where will your Talkback’s go?
- To your Twitter status. (which can then forward to your Facebook status and FriendFeed)
- To your CelleCast profile page.
- To the CelleCast program page. (pending moderation)
- To government officials for particular petition programs coming soon on CelleCast.

We have more information on how to set up your CelleCast account with Twitter for audio tweets, with an additional section taking it a step further and becoming a field reporter. Check it out and enjoy.

So give your fingers a break and give your soul some real venting release with a Talkback today.

## End of Pitch ##

Smart strategies for how to not only survive in this controversial recession but thrive are the focus of more and more people these days. When things are going relatively well in an industry, there is a natural resistance to trying anything new. This is self-evident. Why do things differently when we are profitable? When things get tougher, especially ahead of the curve in an economic downturn like they have for radio in 2008, the pressure grows. In radio’s case, against the advice of just about every radio consultant I have talked to, the industry got even more resistant to innovation as profit margins shrank and radio stocks lost 85% of their value. The reasoning was that all remaining resources had to be spent on core operations.

Now that the recession is fully upon us, and there is no bailout in sight for radio, it is coming down to a simple choice: Innovate or Die. This blog has been focused on the premise that radio must innovate by going mobile since its inception (of course CelleCast has a stake in this). Our message has been respectful, and will remain so, but now that the heat of circumstance is turned up so high, it is not enough for radio executives to simply act like they are listening, and it is not enough to just engage in a few initiatives that repackage the exact same product. The gauntlet to innovate WELL lies before us, and there is no excuse for having delegated this burden to the ‘digital guy’ or following the path of least resistance.

The good news is that the recession and even a good portion of the supplemental uncertainty that accompanies President Obama’s redefinition of the economy opens the door for innovation that didn’t even make sense a year ago. I wouldn’t say this if there was no historical precedent. When we look back at the great depression, we find that a host of enduring innovations emerged. Of course many also failed. What I want to do in this article is point out a few characteristics where we see a sweet intersection of opportunity between the recession, radio and new mobile media trends. Draw your own conclusions, and reach out to those that can help you adopt recession friendly innovations.

First of all, during a recession, you have to position yourself as the ‘value leader’. We see many companies already doing this. A recent frozen pizza commercial compares their product to delivered pizza as equivalent in quality for a fraction of the cost. It is not just a pricing war tactic, it is an appeal to the consumer to rethink the value equation in their pizza habits in a world where everyone is re-examining their overall buying habits. Brands that succeed during this time have to become part of this re-evaluation process today’s consumer is undertaking. Radio, since it already free, has to create value for its audience in terms other than cost. For talk radio specifically, value is found in helping people find new ways for their voice to be heard politically, socially, etc. Having them take turns calling in for a chance to get past a call screener to be on the air is not a good value proposition. Of course there are other ways to establish the value position for radio, the key is that in this space you need to stand out as a value leader, not just be one of many responding to the need. Look at what Ed Shultz is doing is doing in this space for new advertisers as an example.

Secondly, you have to stand out as a relevant voice who understands current trends, how to set trends, and how the recession is forcing people to re-evaluate their adoption of new trends. This recession in particular intersects a particular set of new media trends relevant to radio, namely: Portability; Personalization; User generated content (UGC); Shareable content; Social Media; 3G Mobile Services; Advanced interaction; On-demand time-shifting; and Free telephony. I believe the recession is already starting to affect the trend equation here in two key ways:

1. Watch for gadget hype to sharply decline. People will prefer to find ways for their existing gadgets to do the job. (yes, their cell phones and VoIP lines, and web browsers)
2. The value of time. Frivolity is already becoming less a result of happenstance, and more a product of deliberate choice. It would be easier of course to just say that people have less time to waste, but that isn’t exactly true. It is more polarized. Some people have less, some people have more (like while unemployed), but everyone has less time tolerance for waste in being pitched to. I think the new radio winners will be ones that position themselves as the best in content and ad targeting, giving the consumer higher control in what is heard.
3. Commonality of Access. Recessions, as evidenced by the reports in online relationship sites registration spikes, have an effect on our value of connectedness. Families generally pull together, and social circles of higher trust are the ones we shift back into. I believe this will cause people who can’t convince their high trust friends and family to get on Facebook to connect in new ways that are more accessible. This applies to direct social media tools as well as to broadcast, etc.

Thridly, you have to be agile. Even on a company cultural level, statements like, “We’ll take that under advisement in our next meeting”, and then not getting back to the person will become less of a forgivable act. Or saying, “I am about 150 emails behind right now”, like I heard from a prominent digital radio executive, is not going to produce a pass from the shareholders. The opportunities in innovation are indeed going to be exploited with or without your participation and investment. New entrepreneurs ready to meet the needs of the public can go directly to them with podcasting, webcasting and cellecasting, but how much better will it be for radio if the industry is in the lead instead of remaining branded as innovation-resistant?

Finally, and this is a very specific value intersection of talk radio during a recession, you have to find ways to lead in rallying people politically. Whatever your politics are, there is no denying the fact that people on all sides feel less informed about the substance of today’s debated topics, and more caught up in personality wars in the media environment. In one sense people are empowered to opine in written form all over the web, and now they can post video on YouTube and elsewhere. But what is radio doing to collect contemporaneous audio commentary from the people? What is radio doing to give people access to raw audio (like Rush’s CPAC speech) that is at the center of today’s dramatic news cycle? What is radio doing to provide audio content elements for the Twitter timeline? It is not that radio shows need to polarize people into partisan entrenchments. The rallying can actually be around letting ideas be shared and aired out so we can come into a place of real national unity, government transparency, scientific debate, and long awaited accountability. There is a new market for this that radio can meet, and we look forward to partnering with it.

We leave you with a CNBC video link on innovation that features Mel Karmizan. The people in this video series have much greater wisdom to offer than I can provide here, but I hope you gained from my specific ideas on how radio can emerge as a winner during these challenging times.

For the scores of people looking not just for worked up Youtube video of the Limbaugh address to the CPAC on Saturday, it is now available in audio form for you to download to your iPod here (1,2,3) as a podcast and more conveniently, available to anyone on CelleCast. All you have to do is dial 415-707-3003 and listen instantly. The cellecast of the 90 minute address is put into a format designed to be heard over the phone for a special reason. Namely, so that all who hear it can simply press 3 during the speech to weigh in on the issues put forward. What will happen to national politics when you give everyone a microphone and a way to share it with friends?

We believe that it is not enough to simply listen, fume and write back in a comment form. Talking Back forces people to articulate more substantively on why they believe what they believe and it, fostering a more constructive and civil forum to actually solve the problems America faces.

I personally believe that way less people will comment on this story via voice because 90% of the twitter posts so far show people are either totally in the tank for Rush, or think he is totally evil. Politicians of course have to run from him because they basically operate in the theater of fear of loss. The people however can use this event to advance the dialog and transcend demagoguery. I challenge you all therefore to hear it and contribute a thoughtful reply on the subjects brought forward.

Lets talk!

Is recovery really only possible through unprecedented spending levels?

Is Rush Limbaugh really just a bigot… or worse, a racist?

Is the timing really of such a critical nature that it is right to suspend the normal congressional deliberative process?

What exactly is the compassion contrast between a liberal and conservative world-view?

Make your case! The nation wants to hear your response.

Moderated responses will show here.
The unfiltered responses will show on our audio tweet twitter timeline or on each subscribers individual twitter status.

Good to see this line up from eMarketer on a pretty thorough variety of sources in which people that know the internet use to get informed.

31% use talk radio and 6% use mobile media.

That may seem like a small share, but nothing even gets 70%! This is the year where it all turns toward mobile. We believe the best interfaces will be the most intuitive, personal and portable. The iPhone is bearing that out, but they are just the beginning. We’ll be building radio apps for Android and the iPhone and more as the year progresses.

The shift is not just technologically based, but cultural as well. 2009 is going to be a very political year, with new voices striving to be heard and more people seeking narrow channels of on demand media to participate in. We are about to see convergence not just around what is possible, but what is practical for a people striving to survive as well as lead in this trying time in our history.

MocoNews reported today on ESPN’s release that shows the explosion of traffic to their mobile sites since last year. I imagine this will double again in 2009 when people can go right from mobile college team sites over to a live or delayed audio stream of the games. If DVR adoption is more than a passing fad (of course it is) then any investor would be dim-witted to pass up an opportunity to be part of this shift.

College football increase mobile traffic to ESPN: ESPN (NYSE: DIS) said today that traffic to college football content on ESPN’s mobile web exploded during the college football regular season, with 59.9 million visits and 639 million page views, representing 185 percent growth compared to last year.