Big News!!

Apple announces the new iPod Nano will include an FM tuner. This is what radio has been waiting for. OK, radio heads...we got what everyone wanted.

Now what?

Now We're Talkin' Digital Strategy

If you are old enough to remember the LP, there's a good chance you fondly remember that buying a new album was more than just listening to the music; there was also the cool album jacket to read over and look at. You poured over the liner notes, the lyrics (if they were included), and of course the album art. Remember the album art craze? People actually took those album covers and turned them into wall hangings. Seems like decades ago-hey wait a minute...it was!! The album jacket was, in many cases, also the place to find out about the bands fan club--as close to social networking as we had in those days.

Starting with the cassette, and then the CD, and now digital media much of that experience has been lost. Of course there is no shortage of information about our favorite bands--a simple Google or Wikipedia search sees to that. It's not quite the same and the extra steps somehow don't replicate the experience of the album jacket.

As artists try to connect with fans a new trend may be emerging that screams of success--don't buy a single; don't buy an album; buy a APP. That's right, artists/labels are now developing their own apps that not only deliver the music but video, games, and yes, possibly the modern equivalent of liner notes and lyrics. Right now these apps are popping up for the Apple iPhone, but can Blackberry and others be far behind?

Very smart. Why sell a song or two when you can sell an experience? Why limit fan interaction to just music when it can be so much more than that? Why why why? The list goes on and on...

Hmmmm, sounds like what I have been talking about for years--radio is (should be) more than just the music (PPM be damned!) and more than just a single audio stream and more than simply a glossy "one-sheet" website. Now we're talking digital strategy folks!!

Read on for the full wired.com story

The Album Is Dead, Long Live the App

By Eliot Van Buskirk
August 4, 2009 |

The iTunes music store sells single songs at approximately the same price, with artist presented in more or less the same way.

Apple’s app store, however, is still somewhat like the wild west (at least as far as music goes), where the rules are being made up in real time. Artists and labels can sell music alongside other digital offerings through the app store at any price from zero to $999.99.

As we suggested last summer, this creates an opportunity for artists and labels to distribute a new type of product, especially because the app store concept is spreading to other mobile phone platforms.

On Monday, six of the 20 most recently submitted music apps to appear in the App Store featured a single artist: Jason Carver, Jessica Harp, Jimmy Cliff, John Butler Trio, Kadence, or The Cribs. Each showcases music videos, photos, news, photo-jumble games, concert listings, and/or community features that let fans share photos with each other. And all of them were made with iLike’s iPhone app toolkit — as was Ingrid Michaelson’s app, pictured to the right.

Since iLike launched the service in May, about 250 of the over 300,000 artists with access to iLike’s dashboard feature have launched customized iPhone apps through the system.

“We’re encouraged by the positive response our create-your-own-app platform has generated, and this is only the beginning,” said iLike CEO Ali Partovi. (The company also announced a new version of its Local Concerts app on Tuesday, with concert listings based on your music library, push notification for shows, maps to venues, and concert information sharing.)

These artist-specific apps, which labels also develop in-house, place a constantly-updating tattoo on fans’ phones. It’s like having a music subscription, but in the sense of a fan club, rather than in the sense of subscribing to music in general as one would with Rhapsody.

Many of iLike’s music apps are free and promotional. Other apps contain full songs, and cost money.

Dave Dederer, former singer and guitarist for the Presidents of the United States of America and current Melodeo business development vice president, released one of the first of these, which charged $3 for four albums plus exclusive material. His company sells another $3 app containing streaming versions of top 100 hip hop songs in the iTunes store (iTunes link).

The app store broke the rules for selling music through iTunes, and the ramifications of that are beginning to be felt. Now that iLike has allowed app creation to scale across hundreds of thousands of bands, and other mobile platforms are emulating Apple’s modular app concept, the artist-specific app could — in addition to being the new MySpace page — become a formidable music format in its own right.

If that happens, the idea of buying a bundle of music won’t die with the album — it will survive with the app.

How Long Will This Last?

Funny or stupid?

I saw a Vietnamese restaurant yesterday. Not only was its name iPho, which would be bad enough by itself, but its "o" was replaced with an Apple. Yeah.

Any points docked for lack of imagination are immediately returned for ballsiness. I wish you good luck against Apple's inevitable legal bombardment. [Photo Credit BeerNotBombs, because I forgot to take a pic.]

Source
Feed Title: Gizmodo, The Gadget Blog
Feed URL: http://gizmodo.com/index.xml

Backstage at Apple's App Store

After more than 30 million Apple App Store downloads there's some pretty interesting data about the apps that people buy vs. those which are free, the kind of apps they download (sports, games, etc), and how ad supported apps are working in the real word. Among other things, I found the statistics about usage once an app is downloaded enlightening--although not too surprising.

Some things to think about as radio forges forward with its digital plans.

iPhone AppStore Secrets - Pinch Media

View more presentations from pinchmedia. (tags: pinch media)

Radio Inspired By The App Store?

You might have noticed the Apple iPhone app store is it's own thriving community. And growing every day. Already chock full of apps--now at 15,000 according to Apple. As they say, "there's an app for everything." All under Apples roof and control.

It's all about the content--NOT the hardware--even though the hardware is beautiful. It's all about giving you more reasons to use it, want it, and evangelize it. Oh, and spending money making it do exactly what you want it to do.

In radio's case, millions and millions and millions of people have our hardware only to experience a diminishing level of stickiness (compelling content) especially on music stations outside of morning drive...sans Ryan Seacrest, John Tesh, Tom Kent and some talented locals who remain in place.

The only thing, in my view, that will keep music stations vibrant in the years ahead is interesting and entertaining content around the songs. Strangely, dead roll segues also play a role, depending on the format. [our content must also be platform agnostic, another reason the rethink how we do it]

While staff reductions are a reality, [a reality that is not going to change any time soon] the time is now to start trying ideas that are not dependent on traditional radio DJ's. Certainly, a statement that will not be popular with jocks looking for work or even those who are still working. These ideas are not going to come from the accountants who are insisting on the cuts, but the creative minds that still populate radio stations across the country.

In a strange way, this very tough time in radio business may be the best thing to happen to radio--forcing us to do it different.

Google and T-Mobile Debut the G1

Google seems intent on challenging every sector of the media, mobile, and on-line spaces. Today along with their partner T-Mobile they released the G1 Mobile device.
Check out a promotional video here.

Among many other things this "phone" will be capable of streaming*, both video and audio. As the T-Mobile site explains the G1 is open source using the new Android platform. This directly from the T-Mobile:

Are you a developer?

The T-Mobile G1 features Android, an open-source platform for mobile phones that allows you to create applications for the T-Mobile G1™.

If you are a developer and have an idea of your own, find out how to make it a reality.

So far, it sounds like a pretty good challenger but it's not perfect. Engadget highlights a significant shortcoming--no mini plug for a pair of headphones, but a proprietary exitUSB jack that will require a special pair of headphones or an adapter that won't be available at launch.

Check out Engadget's coverage here.

You also might be interested that the G1, what some are calling the anti-iPhone, will also have a pre-loaded music store from Amazon.

Engadget: Amazon just announced that its MP3 music store will be pre-loaded as an application on the T-Mobile G1. Users will be able to search, download, buy and play music from Amazon MP3 -- that's a selection of 6 million DRM-free MP3 songs from all four major labels and many independents. The pre-loaded Amazon MP3 application provides G1 owners with a phone-optimised view of the Amazon MP3 store -- WiFi is required to download music, but searching, browsing, and listening to samples can be done over 3G "the T-Mobile network." Tracks cost around $0.89 with most albums priced between $5.99 and $9.99. How you like them Apples, Apple.

Search, apps, content and devices...Google here, there and everywhere. It will be interesting to see how it all works out. Let the Apple vs. Blackberry vs. Google death match begin.

What Store Would You Go To?

Here's a Riddle:

You want to buy an item...you got to the mall and there are two stores about 100 steps apart...both stores are selling the same item for the same price...the only difference between the stores is the one has a line 50 people deep and the other has no line at all. What store would you go to?

If we were talking about anything other than an Apple 3G iPhone the answer would be simple. But since we are talking about Apple and iPhones don't count on too many people going to the AT&T store.

Read on for a story of unbelievable brand loyalty to Apple, the iPhone, and the Apple stores that sells them. Can you think of anything else that evokes this kind of passion.

Blog post from Engage in PR

Brand Loyalty Can Be Blind

I’m preparing for a long drive from Boston to Austin with the dog starting this Friday and want to make sure that I’m properly stocked up, which meant a trip to the mall yesterday to purchase a FM adapter for my iPhone. I figured that the best place to purchase said product would be at the friendly Apple store at the CambridgeSide Galleria in the People’s Republic (funny only to folks from the area, sorry). Obviously I’m aware of the iPhone mania happening right now, but figured it had been more than a day so things would go smoothly.

There was a line about 50 people deep at the Apple store and according to the folks inside it had been like that since opening on Saturday. Each person was waiting up to three hours or more to get the iPhone 3G. Fortunately for me they had created a separate line for those folks and those of us with iPhone classic, a Mac or, shudder, an iPod, could go right in and do what we needed to do. Ten minutes later I’m walking out of the store still giggling to myself at the people in line, but also understanding it a bit as an iPhone user and lover of 2.0.

Here is the rub folks…100 steps from the Apple store was an AT&T store with a HUGE display of iPhone’s waiting to be bought and ZERO people in line.

My wife was the first to notice and we both laughed a bit at the insanity of waiting in line at the Apple store for the same phone you could have at AT&T in four less hours. Sometimes brand loyalty is blind, but in effect that is the power of proper branding. When you do it correctly you create a systemic need for people to be with you, buy from you, support you and defend you. It didn’t matter to those people that they were waiting hours for the iPhone; they wanted it and the only proper way to purchase the phone would be from Apple itself.