Author Archives: Steve Mays

Typepad-to-WordPress migration

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The Typepad-to-WordPress migration is underway. My friend Phil managed
to get most of the 4,000+ posts ported over with images and links
intact. I’ll have to re-post photos from the last six months but that
won’t take long.

You shouldn’t expect any visible dramatic changes. Most of the good stuff is under the hood. I’ve picked a rather spartan theme and expect to do a bit of experimentation in that regard. Sort of like coming home to discover your wife has repainted the living room. Every day.

Posting here will continue to be light until we point smays.com to the new home.

Car radio now known as vehicle’s “entertainment center”

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Jerry Del Colliano on what lies ahead for your car’s “radio” …

“In nine to 12 months, Ford’s Sync will enable Internet capabilities on a smartphone and allow the Internet’s most popular radio station – Pandora — to play throughout the car’s sound system. Want Live 365 — you’ve got it.

It’s not just Ford, the other surviving automakers will also be adding the most anticipated consumer audio feature of all time — Internet streaming. Delphi and Autonet Mobile are calling for companies to create Internet connectivity devices as standard equipment for new cars.”

We’re gonna need more buttons on that dial.

More at CNET. “We’ll be able to link you to your Internet in the car. If you brought an iPhone into the vehicle, you could interact with that through voice. You could then read your e-mail by voice,” said Joe Berry, Ford business and product development director for Sync, referring to a future version of Sync.”

Eight ideas for life after radio

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Jerry Del Colliano offers 8 ideas for life after radio. Number 5 is particularly relevant for our company, which has half a dozen news websites:

It’s not news websites — that’s no business model. It will be blogs — special information on something that attracts a valued audience. But instead of monetizing it by selling ads (something I think has peaked even when the recession ends), sell a subscription. That’s right, I am nuts. I believe people will pay a reasonable fee for that which they crave — remember I said crave not like. In the past, if you are an expert on gardening, you would have done a radio show, TV or newspaper column. Now, you’ll do a blog. And if it has passionate followers and you price it right, you’ll make money and build revenue with your audience. Keep in mind I’m projecting this trend — it’s coming because it has to come. The Internet is a delivery system not the content.”

I should point out that we do not make any money from our websites. We are still very much in the radio network business (on the news side of our company). We sell 30 second commercials on affiliated radio stations. We have a few blogs and some Twitter accounts but –with a couple of exceptions– it’s more dabble than business. Exciting days ahead.

PS: My friend Jeff points us to a job opening at Chicago Public Radio. Under Experience/Skill Required:

Our ideal candidate will have five plus of relevant experience in radio or TV programming, broadcast media marketing or online community management.  Strong knowledge of online communities, blogs, user generated content is required.  Demonstrated team building and leadership skills.  Clear written, verbal communication skills, with solid group presentation skills.  The ability to merge organizational mission vision with strong creativity and tactical execution.  Strong project management skills with an acute attention to detail.  Should have a working knowledge of content management systems (CMS).”

Choosing what we don’t want to see

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“For the first time in our lives we were being exposed to more information than we could consume. In the age of newspapers we had to choose what we wanted to see. But in 2004 we had to choose what we didn’t want to see. This had a devastating effect on the traditional forms of information. In the past, you could get people’s attention simply by making something. People wanted more choices, so you simply had to give them another choice. But in 2004 this changed. People started to have enough, and now you actually had to make something better. It was not enough that it was different.”

From Thomas Baekdal’s Where Is Everyone? A brief tour of the history of information.

11,000 channel “radio”

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“The VTech IS9181 is a Wi-Fi music streaming device, designed to make accessing the near-infinte variety of Internet radio as easy as traditional radio.”

“The IS9181 connects to any wireless network (802.11 b & g) and lets you access more than 11,000 free Internet radio stations worldwide. It also lets you access audio files (MP3, WMA, AAC, WAV, Real) stored on you Wi-Fi-enabled computer (PC or Mac). The IS9181 also offers localized weather (based on zip code).” (via Podcasting News)

My first thought was, “If I’m running a radio station, it better be one of the 11,000.” My next thought was, “It better be one of the ‘best’ of the 11,000.”