A MUST Read!

Trent Reznor from the band Nine Inch Nails talks about the bands new iPhone app and their web strategy...that's working.

Here's a small portion of the story from WIRED:

"I've said it before and I'll say it again: I don't think music should be free," Reznor says. "But the climate is such that it's impossible for me to change that, because the record labels have established a sense of mistrust. So everything we've tried to do has been from the point of view of, 'What would I want if I were a fan? How would I want to be treated?' Now let's work back from that. Let's find a way for that to make sense and monetize it."

Over the past year, NIN.com has quietly evolved into a series of interlocking services designed to deliver maximum benefit to the fans at minimal expense to the artist. To build it out, Reznor decided to use off-the-shelf resources — Blogger, Twitter, FeedBurner, Flickr, YouTube — rather than trying to duplicate what other people had already created. "They're going to do a better job than we are," he explains, "and they're going to have a lot more resources to put into it."

I couldn't have said it better myself...and I have.

Read the entire story, watch the video, and see the screen shot here.

NBC's Today Show Gives Up Control...

To it's web users.

The days of telling your customers what they want is over...has been for some time. Sure someone has to create the content that people might want to consume, but from there--leave it to them.

"We've made it easier for millions of consumers to find and share more of what they love about TODAYshow.com,"

Mediabistro's Webnewser has the story:

As part of a new look, Todayshow.com now allows users to customize the sections you want to know most about. Want to know more about Weather & Travel? Move it up. Want to know less about Fashion & Beauty? Move it down. There's also more video, interactive features and featured options at the top of the page including the "allDay," blog; "Photo features," showcasing spectacular images; the "Participate" section and the "Concert series" section.

"We've made it easier for millions of consumers to find and share more of what they love about TODAYshow.com," said Catherine Captain, general manager of TODAYshow.com. "The new site puts consumers in the driver's seat, giving them the ability to customize the page so they can get the number of stories they want, in the order they prefer."

The cleaner look spans the width of the page and does away with an orange background that dominated the previous design.

From The NAB...

Saw a good session on Sunday here at the NAB in Las Vegas. The presenter was Rob Curley, Vice President, Product Development, WashingtonPost.Newsweek Interactive.

It's one of the most popular websites and you can check out the Washington Post here. Or sample a special series produced exclusively for the website--it's called on being. Very well done and entertaining. You may have to register to see certain parts of the their site, but it's free.

For the second time in the last couple of months I learned just how big Web/Internet departments can be. And that number is: 350. The first time was at a recent conference and the discussion was Sports Illustrated's web staff; and today I learned that's the number in the Washington Post's Internet office--of which 15 are full time videographers. How many web creators does a radio station/cluster/group have? I'm sure there are some that are appropriately staffed up, but I'm not sure that's the norm.

It was pointed out at the session that even though Washington is a world city there seems to be an enormous appetite for finding out about your neighbors and the interesting aspects of their lives. Their POV is be local and people will be interested. Of course that is provided the content is good.

Stating the obvious: find out what content your listeners crave and make sure you provide that content on your website. Our industry has improved, but the improvement must be ongoing.

In-Dash Web *update*

A few weeks ago I wrote about BMW beginning to offer in-dash internet service in Europe and one can assume here in the US a short while later. The service will be provided and billed directly by BMW. It's fully functional and as this video demonstrates, there's little it can't do. Let's go to the video tape courtesy of CNET