Mobile Media Simplified. Accessible. Relevant.

(Vancouver, WA – May 8, 2008) - Andrew Deal, founder and CEO of CelleCast Inc. announced today the launch of its social media tools built to enhance the burgeoning user community. CelleCast Listener Central brings the popularity of sites such as MySpace and Facebook to a 490 million phones and the mobile, audio-on-demand environment. The CelleCast Listener Central page features a variety of social media tools including talkbacks, polls, playlists, top shows and user statistics and they’re available to anyone with a phone.

Powered by a robust user profile tool, CelleCast Listener Central displays the most popular shows and topics of the day, and lets users listen to Talkback comments to shows made by others, as well as their own. It provides a pulse for what’s popular on CelleCast, and gives people a chance to express themselves openly in light of their favorite programs and their opinions on various cultural issues.

“The caller download hotlink maxis ringtones | download free ringtones nokia | download free sprint ringtones | cell cingular free phone ringtones | ringtones for alltel cell phone | free sprint cell phone ringtones | tv ringtones | cell free phone ringtones wallpaper | listen mosquito ringtones | ringtones for cingular phone | digi caller ringtones | free verizon wireless ringtones | download free ringtones yahoo | free phone ringtones | cingular free phone ringtones | tv theme ringtones | free phone ringtones verizon wireless | crazy frog ringtones | cell free get phone ringtones | download free real ringtones for tmobile | impact of social media services on today’s culture is undeniable,” commented Deal. “With the CelleCast community, our approach centers around not only connecting users with similar ideologies, but allowing them to share media with those in their real social network – people in their phone address book. Other sites allow you to create networks stuffed with people you’ve never met. Our service enables sharing audio media with your existing contacts, and finding others who have similar tastes. And there are no obstacles to be a part of the action. All it takes is a phone.”

The difference between CelleCast and sites such as Facebook and MySpace is the telephony-based channel, with the user’s phone number rather than email as a hub. Talkback interactions made to programs on CelleCast are displayed on the user’s profile, and some make it to the community page itself where ideas and ideologies are shared freely.

This post is offered purely for the enjoyment of old media rediscovery by new media.

Now, go respect your elders who rocked.

We’re set to soft launch the social media side of CelleCast on Friday, April 18th. We could use your help in generating buzz. This is what we’d like for you to do, for the chance to win a pair of free movie tickets!

Go to http://cellecast.com. If you haven’t already registered, please do so and create a profile.

1. Make your profile complete, giving the CelleCast community a good taste of who you are with poll questions, an updated playlist and a photo. Please be sure to make it public.
2. Call the number 360-335-6000. Hit #, 1 for general program seek. Listen to a minimum of 5 shows for a minute or so each. Leave a talkback for one of the shows. Your talkback should be relevant to the show and topic, so it can be published on the program’s home page.
3. Give us some feedback! Complete the special poll questions starting with the word “SURVEY” (required), and post any comments about the experience, whether philosophical or technical, complimentary or critical(optional). Just post your comments here on the blog.

To qualify for the movie ticket drawing, each step above must be complete. Qualified entries will be in the running for a pair of Regal Cinema passes. 20 pairs are available. Winners will be notified via telephone or email on or around Friday, May 2nd.

When we announce the launch of our social media community to the world in early May, our goal is to have you in our system as an early adopter of the bridge we’re building between talk radio lovers and the social media world.

To be entered in the movie ticket drawing without going through the steps above, you may send a send us a postcard with your full name, mailing address, email and daytime phone number. Address your correspondence to: CelleCast Movie Ticket Drawing - 4209 NE 66th Ave - Vancouver, WA 98661

I’ve been telling friends and colleagues about CelleCast and the usual reaction is enthusiastic. Everyone seems to get it right away. What I find interesting is how some business people over think it. Initially I heard, “It won’t be high quality. But soon they were saying, “Then again it is talk which is exactly what phones are calibrated to do.” I also heard, “People won’t use their minutes to listen to shows that they can probably hear on the radio.” However it is clear we already pay to hear and watch shows on our terms and timeline. The next sentence is usually, “but I guess I am paying $9.95 a month for each DVR in my house, and that is on top of my other fees.”

Sometimes change is scary and the reaction is to over think and over analyze a situation. Some people will do that until the opportunity passes them by, but thankfully there are some innovators like the folks at the Dr. Laura Show and Paul Shaffer’s show and Dave Graveline and the growing list of CelleCast programmers who know a good thing when it hits them upside the head.

Amidst all the challenges of this time, no matter what happens, I am grateful I have had a chance to travel pretty well in my life. There are my favorite places. It took me a while to make this, BTW, so please read it.

1. Chennai (Madras), India
2. New York City, NY, USA
3. Lihue, HI, USA
4. Bangalore, India
5. Laguna Beach, CA, USA
6. San Diego, CA, USA
7. San Remo, Italy
8. Portland, OR, USA
9. London, England
10. Paris, France
11. Kochi, India
12. Poipu, HI, USA
13. Big Bear Lake, CA, USA
14. Mumbai (Bombay), India
15. Seattle, WA, USA
16. Vail, CO, USA
17. Perth, Australia

• Create your own travel map or travel blog
• Visit TripAdvisor.com

I had the honor to be on a panel at the Convergence Conference this week where the stated goal was to get down to the nitty gritty on ‘Revitalizing Stodgy Old Media’. Of course with any panel, there are many points to be made and moderator questions can create an unexpected context where the core issue loses some of it’s focus.

Mark Ramsey did a great job keeping things interesting, but surprised me a bit by defining the context of the session to identifying problems and solutions on the radio station and group level. No problem. We had a few minutes at the beginning to address the ’stodginess’ premise. I made the point that there is a droned narrative about radio’s backwards views on media that I don’t agree with at all. It is an unfair characterization, and as Mark also clarified, stodgy might just be another way of saying that radio is established and careful not to sacrifice it’s soul at the alter of ‘new’.

This brings me to the larger point I had hoped to bring across on the panel had we not moved on from the attitudinal to the practical. The point is that in my experience, new media types have issues of their own to deal with if we truly want to see convergence happen as it should to the benefit of all. New media has at times an unpleasant arrogance to it. There I said it. The idea that something new is categorically more valuable than something established makes as much sense as electing Barack Obama on the mere oratory of change alone. New media types expect to grow virally and replicate with impunity, but then come around to radio to exploit their mass reach.

Coming from the new media side, we have enjoyed much more success in convergence as we have sought to compliment radio and became students of the radio culture and mission. Not only has this been rewarding for me personally, but will reward us greatly as our partnerships continue to expand.

We’re pleased to announce to the world today that The Dr. Laura Program has partnered with CelleCast to make it available on any phone, any time, anywhere.

This major initiative by the program and its producer, Take on the Day, LLC makes it the first top 10 talk radio program to be available on demand via any mobile phone or land line in the U.S. It signals a significant trend for talk radio, heading in the direction of making popular syndicated shows available through mobile channels.

Beginning March 3rd, the full three hours of the Dr. Laura program can be accessed close to live simply by dialing a phone number. The cellecast of the program also allows listeners to pause, rewind, fast forward, and interact with the program and advertisers. A preview is now available by calling (253) 269-7000. Check out the Dr. Laura cellecast page at http://cellecast.com/drlaura

The full version of today’s press release of this momentous occasion for talk radio is available here.

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

We are about to launch a new program at CelleCast.com that is focussed on creating an audio forum regarding the news of the day on the presidential primaries and beyond. It has 2-3 news roundups of the day from various public podcasts (fully attributed) and relies on UGC feedback from our users to make everyones voice be heard.

We could really use your feedback now on this as a beta user of the updated features of our talkback tool. Please visit the Presidential Cellect 08 page now and call in to the number and post a talkback. Make sure you are registered first so your profile page link will work.

We are building the final touches now to make the users public profile live to tie it all together into this. We realize that in order to have user generated content, you also have to have at least the right basics of a social networking site as well. That is no problem for us, but will be added gradually into CelleCast. Custom fields will be added over the weekend to make this profile page work nicely.

Please post your ideas here on the blog for ways to improve the user experience.

Thanks.

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.