Mobile Radio Simplified. Accessible. Relevant.

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 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.

There, I said it. It is on the minds of many a reader I am sure as well.

Not that 07 was a terrible year. I am not bitter, but am ready for a higher level of breakthrough and glad to have last year behind me. For me, it is equally liberating to put the last year to rest as it is to celebrate the entrance of the new year.

Forgetting that which is behind, I press toward the high mark of my calling as a new media pioneer.

Embracing today’s challenges just isn’t possible without a healthy dismissal of both the victories and challenges already behind us. If we dwell on our challenges, they can overwhelm our ability to overcome. If we dwell on our victories, we risk complacency, or worse, arrogance concerning the decisions we face every day.

In closing, let me say how excited I am to share great hope with each of you, our readers and co-workers.

Happy NEW Year.

The Christmas season has many traditions of course, not the least of which in business circles is the warm and heartfelt well wishing to clients, partners, vendors, co-workers, and even blog readers. In today’s world where face to face interaction grows more scarce each year, it is conveyed in emails, Christmas cards, newsletter headers, and as a key highlight in our phone conversations. Especially on the phone, there are times when you can tell how sensitive the other party is about whether to say Merry Christmas vs Happy Holidays, as well as whether it is said out of the obligation of tradition, or it overflows from our personal joy of the season.

Inherent within this happy tradition is a curious subtext. I can best describe it as a memory flash of the year’s value points. A repeated assessment of how we have arranged our priorities and treated those we are fostering relationship with. For me, whenever I wish another a very merry Christmas, my memory flash highlights a summary of all my interactions we have had together over the year. My mind multi-tasks between my relationship checklist and the engagement of the conversation itself.

If you are like me, here is how it might sound in your head. “Have I honored his/her expectations of the relationship this year?”, “Have I kept all my promises and been on time?”, “Have I conveyed appreciation in proportion to the degree I have been blessed by this person?”, “Does he/she fully appreciate the value of the vision I am casting to them?”, “How well have I imparted the value of my vision/passion to them, and how can I reinforce that in this conversation?”, “Is there any deficit of mercy or generosity between us in either direction?”

The epitome of this checklist can in many ways come down to this…
Is my Christmas well wishing an extention of the ‘peace on earth, goodwill to men’ message that should be part of what my life and character speaks on a daily basis, or is it just a seasonal tradition where time is set aside to be just a little more people oriented than is my natural state?

The philosophical answer is that both are true. The tradition forces the introspection and inspires us (at least those of us who give a flip) to endeavor for positive change all year round. And, our character is what enables our confidence and credibility when these greetings are passed between us every holiday season.

I love it all, and truly feel that although this year has been an amazing formidable challenge, that the sincere peace I feel right now is sufficient to keep me aligned and in good stead with all of you as well.

Be generous to one another with abundant love, and strive for mercy. That is ultimately how all this will be scored in the end.

Andrew

The driving force that keeps us going beyond the obvious benefits of profit is the idea that the new cell phone era brings both benefits and challenges that must be addressed for the betterment of all.

We are interested in not only making a tool, but making a positive difference in the national discourse.

http://www.thefeaturearchives.com/topic/Media/Walter_s_Wireless_World.html

Consider the issues brought up here and let us know what you think we need to be on track in building our product.

As a happy Broadvoice customer, I like to tell friends about the merits of the service and what not.
However, they just launched a new video phone service that I have to LOL at. Here is their pitch:

BroadVoice has announced an amazing offer that will provide each account a FREE** Ojo 900 video phone that can be used to make video calls or regular telephone calls. If you call another BroadVoice customer that has the video service the call will be in full motion video. If you call a regular telephone line it will be the normal high quality telephone call.

Ok, so in order to enjoy it, I have to find to:

1. Mount the phone somewhere it will point to my face
2. Figure out who else has the service or promote it
3. Pay additional monthly fees

I can use my webcam now and it will work with a bunch of different IM clients and services (based on who has what) the same way for free.

Admittedly, our bias here is that phones are for audio anyway, but nonetheless, I can’t see this making business sense apart from Broadvoice wanting to stake a claim on establishing a standard that will help them with PR and marketing. The service itself has a tiny addressable market.

This opening seems so bloggish, that I figured it might as well be put out early.. on the blog.

It also was somewhat of a therapeutic exercise.

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Adapting to the Future. Is it in You?

Some have thought me naïve to say the things I say. Yet, I believe that pioneering an ideal should not be confused with naiveté. Some then say that idealism does not account for today’s present business realities. I respond by saying that to lose pursuit of the ideal is to leave the future to the invention of others. This is where the dialog might end for many, as all too often, new ideas and innovations are dismissed because they are ahead of current mainstream imagination. Schopenhauer puts it strongly, declaring that new ideas are first ridiculed, then violently resisted, and finally accepted as self-evident. Therefore, for those who identify and promote the remarkable points of convergence between current reality and future possibility, and work to bring it into the mainstream, life requires a special kind of body armor.

Of course, that is a very fair question, and I wish I had a one word answer to simply recite. The fact is that we are in early beta at this point with our pilot programming partners: Ray Lucia, Taylor and Colleen, as well as Dave Graveline and his crew.

The process of being ready for primetime is a gradual one, but one we choose to keep out in the open, rather than bottled up in a secret lab. Right before the New Media Seminar in June, we were determined to put out our Sneak Preview so we could demo the product and make a strong case for forming first partnerships.

As in all things, when you want to do things right, it takes time. Sure we could just grab a bunch more podcast feeds and increase our content selection by 100x, but instead we are building new technology to be launched, used and marketed within an established industry. One where the mainstream lives and adapts slowly. In this model, we have a path that is playing for the long term win.

So.. have we launched yet? In a way, yes. You can enjoy your favorite radio shows now on CelleCast on demand. But before we make an official announcement, there are many kinks to work out and new features to build.

These features involve you, the readers of Fourth Speaker. We need your input along the way as we walk from Alpha to Beta and prepare for a big party in early October. Please give the service a try and offer us your unbridled feedback about what it would take to make the experience elegant and intuitive. We’ll get there together, I promise.