Category Archives: Internet

The wireless Super Bowl

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“On the consumer side, the league sees big revenue potential in wireless. The league is moving content from its NFL Network cable channel and Sirius Satellite network to the Internet to bring more dimensions to stories. It’s the first year the Super Bowl is on satellite radio, and the league plans to make audio of the radio calls for the Pats and Eagles available for fans to download to their MP3 players for $10. And when someone calls their wireless phone, Eagles fans can hear defensive end Jevon Kearse tell them “This is Jevon Kearse. It’s time for you to pick up the phone.” [via RAIN]

BostonHerald.com

Three years blogging

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On Thursday, I will have been “…writing some of this down” for three years. More than 1,000 thoughts, notes, links, rants, reviews and random ravings. I couldn’t have imagined sticking with it this long and I can’t imagine ever stopping. I’ll be 57 next month so I could easily have another 25 years of blogging ahead.

I tell new bloggers that the first 48 hours will tell the tale. If you’re gonna get the bug, you’ll get it within those first couple of days. And if you’re not hooked by then, it’s probably not for you. M

Podcasting

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“In less than six months, more than 2,000 podcasters have sprung up. Eventually an iPod-like device will have a subscription capability built in so you won’t even need to be tethered to a computer. It’s not hard to imagine an iPod with WiFi capabilities that could become a radio with no geographic limits.”

— Dave Winer

The internet is the network no one owns.

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That jumped out of a post by Jeff Jarvis on Buzz Machine and –at first glance– it seems too obvious to mention. But the company I work for was started by a man who built and owned (owns) a radio network. He didn’t own the radio stations but he owned the network that provided them content (news, sports, ag). Others might have been able to produce the content but (back then) had no affordable way to deliver that content to the radio stations. When our founder put in a satellite uplink, we had an even greater advantage. Faster, cheaper, better quality.

We still have the satellite uplink and the downlinks and we work with more radio stations than ever. But more and more of our content is now “delivered” to our affiliated stations via the internet. Very close to not needing the satellite system at all. If we were starting the company today, it would almost certainly be web-based. And the podcast explosion is sure to add another interesting dimension.

Other nuggets from Jeff Jarvis’ post:

* The audience often knows the news before we report it.
* A blog is a little First Amendment machine (Jay Rosen)
* Google is a brand killer. People find what they want from any source and don’t credit or remember the source.

NFL podcasts

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The National Football League has a deal to make recordings of this year’s remaining playoff games available for portable audio players (iPods, etc). The recordings will be available for purchase at iTunes and other sites that sell audio over the Internet.

“Radio, as we’ve known it, is dead”

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Won’t someone please point me to a positive story about (what we’ve started calling) “terrestrial” radio? Mabye it’s just media dog-piling but everytime I click my mouse, someone is predicting (or declaring) the death of radio. Alyce Lomax (The Motley Fool) is pissed and sad at the passing of (Thursday) of Washington D.C. radio station WHFS.

“Radio, as we’ve known it, is dead. The news about HFS obviously struck a chord with me, but with satellite radio, Internet radio, and things like Apple’s iTunes (or even the iPod Shuffle!) revolutionizing music and giving listeners more options than ever before, chances are it won’t be missed.”

Okay, Alyce is entitled to her opinion. Now, where are those positive stories about radio?

FarmPolicy.com

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Keith Good solves the “not enough hours in the day to blog” problem by getting up at 4:00 a.m. I talked to him this morning (10 min) about his blog, FarmPolicy.com, which deals with U. S. agriculture policy. A really good example of the kind of citizen journalism (or publishing, if you prefer) that’s transforming and challenging mainstream media.

Nokia’s 6620

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Nokia’s snazzy new 6620 gives Internet radio its due. It boasts plenty of impressive video features, including a still camera that produces surprisingly good photos. But it’s the radio, available on a service through AT&T Wireless — now part of Cingular — that sets it apart. Why is the radio so important? Because it’s live. Viable live TV on handsets is at least a couple of years away. Radio works right now.

Clear Channel’s Internet plan

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“Radio analysts say Clear Channel, along with other broadcast radio stations, is being pushed online and toward new technologies by a fragmentation of its own market and by growing competition from satellite radio. Mix the power of Internet radio with those new delivery tools, and terrestrial radio begins to look increasingly fragile, unless it’s online too, some observers worry.” — CNET

Blog explosion.

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Jeff Jarvis summarizes some amazing stats on the growth of blogs, from the latest Pew Internet and American Life study:

* 7% of the 120 million U.S. adults who use the internet say they have created a blog or web-based diary. That represents more than 8 million people.

* 27% of internet users say they read blogs, a 58% jump from the 17% who told us they were blog readers in February. This means that by the end of 2004 32 million Americans were blog readers.

The same study reports only 38% of all internet users know what a blog is. The rest are not sure what the term blog means. That 62% is in daily contact with me.