Author Archives: Steve Mays
Next generation radio
Jerry Del Colliano shares a few ideas on “next generation radio” he’ll be presenting to an interactive session for radio executives next month:
“My view is that terrestrial radio is now a destination entertainment medium for available listeners – older members of Gen X and the baby boomers.”
“…there is no need to produce 24/7 programming online. … But the radio station of the future may only provide three hours of programming a day – that’s right, a day – and deliver it on a cell phone or mobile device.
“Podcasting will be the new radio for Gen Y.”
“The successful content provider in the future will have to unlock the genius of Steve Jobs in understanding a generation they are not in – and Jobs, arguably, knows Gen Y better than they know themselves.”
“In the past, a radio station had to be on-air, all the time and doing the same format over and over again. But in the future, new media will require radio broadcasters who want to play in this arena to be many things for which it does not presently have skills.”
If you’re interested in where radio might be headed, I encourage you to read the full post. Companies that provide programming to radio stations — like our company– are sure to be affected by the same forces. Are we ready?
John McCain’s YouTube nightmare
“Six of the top 10 videos returned by a “John McCain” YouTube search Thursday pegged the 71-year-old as inconsistent, extreme, wooden or a combination of the three. (The one clearly favorable piece came from the McCain campaign and focused on his Navy service. Contrast that with a YouTube search of “Barack Obama.” It’s a swoon fest, with virtually all of the top entries featuring the Illinois senator at his eloquent, uplifting best.” — From LATimes.com
Damn. This McCain video has been viewed 1.5 million times. Pre-YouTube, his opponents could have assembled this video easy enough. And they could buy some TV time and air it. But YouTube just changes everything. How do you answer something like this? “They took my remarks out of context” is getting pretty lame. We’re entering (we’re IN?) an era when everything is recorded and everything shows up on YouTube.
Coppyblogger Twitter Writing Contest
Congratulations to Ron Gould, first place winner the Coppyblogger Twitter Writing Contest. His winning entry:
“Time travel works!” the note read. “However you can only travel to the past and one-way.” I recognized my own handwriting and felt a chill.
Second place honors went to Anthony Juliano:
“Tony was a snitch, so I wasn’t surprised when his torso turned up in the river. What did surprise me, though, was where they found his head.”
Thelonius Monk took third place for:
“When Gibson hit that homerun in the fall of eighty-eight, my old man had never been so happy. He hugged me for the first time. I was eleven.”
The challenge was to write a story in exactly 140 characters. I fear my humble submission was too… belittling? Too pissy? We’ll never know.
“To my immediate left, a hipster dwarf leaned into his urinal, cleverly achieving a haunting reverb for his “big” finish to Unchained Melody.”
Tim Conway (Carol Burnett Show)
New media can’t get here soon enough
Proto-blogger Dave Winer thinks the real problem revealed by Scott McClellan’s new tell-all book is that the press was complicit in beating the Iraq war drum:
“But corporate-owned media isn’t interested in helping us make decisions as a country, they’re only interested in ad revenue. That’s why it’s so important that we’re creating new media that isn’t so conflicted, and why the question of whether bloggers run ads or not is far from a trivial issue.”
When it comes to national media, there really are not that many outlets that need to be manipulated. Four TV networks; maybe that many cable news channels; a handful of newspapers with national reach. If you can juke them, you’ve got a lot of the country juked.
The sooner their influence is diminished, the better. There will no longer be even the illusion of “national media” and people will have to work (a little) at being informed. Sure, the willfully clueless will still head for blogs and news sites that confirm their view. But the rest of us will stop trusting (if we haven’t already) news organizations that are child’s play for political spin-miesters.
Mike Spooner: Creator of Worlds
Remember that kid that sat behind you grade school that was always drawing? Ever wonder what happened to him? Well, if he (or she) was as talented as Michael Spooner, he did okay.
Michael (we knew him as Mike back then) and I were classmates 45 years ago in Kennett, MO. Michael and I ran in different crowds but Kennett was a small place and everybody knew everybody.
In a previous post I mentioned that Michael stumbled across smays.com a few days ago and pinged me. He included some old snapshots and his resume, to let me know what he’s been up to.
He got into animation as a Layout Artist with Ralph Bakshi’s feature production of Tolkien’s, Lord of the Rings. He spent some years at Disney where he worked on –just to name a few– Goof Troop, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, The Emperor’s New Groove, Treasure Planet and Lilo and Stitch. He also assisted on early development design of Dreamworks’ Shrek. And he Co-Art Directed Warner Brothers first full-length animated feature, Quest for Camelot. If you have kids or an appreciation for animation, check out his bio. He was also kind enough to share a dozen or so examples of his work.
I called Michael up this morning and asked him to share some of his adventures and we wound up talking for an hour. I’ve cut the interview into three segments about about 20 minutes each.
Today, Michael owns Spoonerville Animation Design, an independent visual development studio, providing both traditional and CGI design concepts and lives in the western suburbs of Chicago with his writer-wife Beverly, and son Philip.
Michael is a visiting artist and lecturer, presenting in universities, art schools and animation studios throughout the United States.
Blogger’s High
E-Media Tidbits points us to an article in the May 2008 Scientific American, by Jennifer Wapner (Blogging: It’s Good for You):
“Blogging may make us feel better because it acts as a substitute or placebo for real satisfaction. Or, according to one neuroscientist cited by Wapner, our limbic (primitive) brain may have an innate need to communicate — akin to our drives for food or sex. Thus, as we blog, our bodies may release the feel-good neurotransmitter dopamine.”
I feel better already.
The Digital Cottage Industry
I’ve posted frequently about my friend Chuck, who –with his wife Cindy and a SWAT team of free-lance bloggers– have built a thriving business providing blogging, podcasting and related services to a growing list of clients.
"Cindy and I have been going over calendars and we just realized that we have 23 events scheduled to blog in the next 3 months. Yeeow. Just the hotel reservations, credentialing, registering, airline reservations, etc. are a task. We’ve also got 5 website projects underway just to add to the fun."
Can you make money blogging? For most, the answer is "not likely." For the few, the proud, the Marines… yes. Booyah!
The results business
Reply
Mark Ramsey points to a survey of marketing professionals that shows growing pressure on accountability:
“86% of marketers say pressure has increased on them to account for results; no one said that the pressure has decreased. Moreover, 68% of organizations are measuring the quantifiable contribution of marketing to the bottom line.
Message to radio: You’re no longer in the advertising business. You’re in the results business.
So which are you selling, advertising or results?”
I feel like I should have something to say about this… but I don’t know what it would be.