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.

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.

As phones get smarter, they are inevitably going to overcome the propensity toward being proprietary in what they deliver. In short, standards are better.

So if you have a blackberry and want to access the best variety in personalized radio on demand on your phone, it is better to choose a service that also works well on iPhones, Android, razr’s and everything else. Why? Services that are accessible to all are more like real radio in that they are more promotable by the radio industry, which leads to better support, format compliance and more.

Now, the way mobile application providers like us achieve this is to make our mobile apps web based. This makes it easy for you to obtain access to the shows over a familiar interface, whether you have an icon to click on, or whether you just type CELLECAST.COM into your phones browser and bookmark it.

Once you do this, you will be able to access and interact with over 50 programs in our network via direct dial, build a playlist, monitor what is fresh to you, and track your usage.

Give it a shot and let us know how it behaves in your Blackberry. We have ben hearing good things so far!