It's apparently Lightningcast's dedication to development
in the wireless space that made them such a great fit with 
investors
in their latest financing round, especially lead investor Nokia
Venture Partners.
Lightningcast CEO Tom Des Jardins told Radio Business Report
"We are extremely excited about this investment because it
validates our position as the leader in the streaming media ad
insertion market...As we look to the future, we expect great synergies
with Nokia’s wireless expertise. It’s exciting to work with a
partner who brings so much strategic value.”
Yesterday, Lightningcast announced that they had secured their
second round of financing, to the tune of $15.5 million. See RAIN's
coverage here.
Des Jardins says his company's "move on into wireless
is just simply a small extension for us. Remember, what
we do is put ads inside of content, so the most important thing
is making sure you can get into the largest types of content."
"We would like to see wireless at some point during
the course of this year...We think it’s a very important market
-- especially in Asia," said Des Jardins.
Read the RBR story here.
From the press release: "
MeasureCast
announced today that 22 of the top 25 on-line stations in the company's
weekly ranking attracted larger audiences during the week of January
15 than they did the previous week.
"The number of estimated unique listeners, or "Cume
persons," for the MeasureCast Top 25 increased seven percent from
the week of January 7. (Cume persons is an estimate of the total
number of unique listeners with one or more listening sessions lasting
five minutes or longer during the reported time period.)."
Read the MeasureCast press release
here.
See the Top 25 for the week of January 15th
here.
You can always see the latest MeasureCast weekly report by clicking
the link under "Metrics" in the left-hand menu of
RAIN.
From the press release: "
XM
Satellite Radio has signed programming agreements with comedy
giants
National
Lampoon and Firesign Theatre and with the Discovery Channel,
the premier educational television network, to provide material
for XM's revolutionary radio service...
"National Lampoon, the launching pad for dozens of comedy's
greatest performers and writers over the past few decades, has produced
such classics as Animal House and the Vacation movies as well as
the radio show and numerous live stage shows.
"'We chose XM for our partner in this venture because of
the potential for growth in the medium,' said Alan Donnes, whose
company Network One has exclusive rights to the radio program. 'We
feel that satellite radio is the future and XM is the future of
satellite radio.'
"Network One will provide XM with National Lampoon's
entire library of archived radio shows created prior
to the Saturday Night Live era, including skits from renowned comedians
such as John Belushi, Billy Crystal, Gilda Radner, Bill Murray,
and Harold Ramis. The hour-long shows will be featured on one of
XM's comedy channels.
"As part of the relationship, XM will contribute funds
to Gilda's Club, which provides places where people with cancer
and their families and friends join with others to build social
and emotional support as a supplement to medical care."
Read the press release
here.
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From
the Detroit Free Press: "For two young Lenawee County (Michigan)
entrepreneurs trying to figure out how to score big with a high-tech
product, the breakthrough idea is like a wake-up call. Literally.
Darik Chapman, 30, and Justin Morton, 25, decided to invent an Internet
alarm clock...
"The result is the Logiclock,
a trim looking rectangular box that looks just like the clock radio
it is. But instead of receiving information over the airwaves, this
clock is wired to the Internet. Like other trendy new Internet appliances,
it will communicate with PCs that can receive wireless transmissions.
No need, therefore, for the PC to be in the bedroom.
"A couple of minutes before the user sets a wake-up
time, the Logiclock goes online, downloads from the Net the weather
forecast, a road report, overnight sports scores, news
headlines and whatever other information the user wants and, when
it goes off, uses a natural-sounding synthesized voice to deliver
a customized and up-to-date wake-up call."
Read the story
here.
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Reprinted from yesterday...
BY PAUL MALONEY
Thanks
to Christina Aguilera, Carlos Santana, and Ricky Martin, Latin-influenced
pop is enjoying unprecedented success at mainstream radio. Thanks
to
Batanga.com,
fans of Latin sounds can get a taste of the "real" Latin
music from which conservative radio programmers allegedly shy away.
And thanks to Batanga's Music News section, we're now troubled by
the unsettling knowledge that boxer Oscar de la Hoya's album has
been nominated for a Latin Grammy (
shiver).
Batanga offers streaming music 24 hours a day over 16 channels.
The selection ranges from the "expected" traditional genres
like Tango, Latin Jazz, Salsa, and Merengue -- contemporary
formats like Rock, Indie, and Hip-Hop -- to fresh and unique mixes
like this week's "Station of the Week," Norteno; or Cubanisimo,
which was inspired by The Buena Vista Social Club movie and albums.
The site launched in November of '99, founded by Troy McConnell,
a webcasting software programmer, and former BMG music marketing
manager Luis Brandwayn. The firm is based in Yanceyville, NC, and
employees a staff of only eleven people.
If you want nothing to get in the way of your music, this
is the spot for you. No show hosts. No commercials, PSAs, promos,
or any other production elements.
There are no liner notes, nor a "skip" button --
but there's also no special player to download and install (the
channels stream in low-bandwidth stereo Windows Media or Real).
Thumbs up there!
There is, however, a pop-up screen for each channel, which
you can see above. The current and three
previous selections are shown with artist and album title information,
a chance to rate the selection, and buy it. The CD artwork for the
current song appears in the lower right, and from this pop up you
can change channels, enter the free CD contest, and access other
areas of the site. Finally, there are a few banner ad's on the site.
In putting together RAIN Radio (see our latest report
here),
we gained insight into the different compatibility issues the design
team had to take into account (Internet Explorer vs. Netscape vs.
Macintosh, Windows vs. Real, etc.). Suffice it to say that after
all this -- regardless of where in the world you are when you visit
us --
RAIN Radio
will remain hopelessly limited to one language: the President's
English. Batanga, on the other hand, is completely bilingual (that'd
be English and
Spanish...not Latin!). Too bad our "Espanol"
is not "bueno" enough to fully enjoy this.
The homepage has a pretty neat scrolling "Now Playing"
feature, which shows the current selection on each station (Batanga
is a random "jukebox" type player, but this operation
takes place on the server side, which means everyone tuned to the
same channel at the same time will hear
the same thing -- like live radio.
RAIN Radio, on the other
hand, works from a database on the "client" side -- meaning
the player on the listener's computer is actually choosing the songs!)
The homepage offers more opportunity for visitors to interact
with the site. Listeners can place song requests for the daily request
hour on each station. A few of the day's requests are posted beforehand
-- though not the time or even the order in which they'll be played
(as Batanga minds it's D's and M's and C's and A's). And, there
is third-party content like Music News and an online resource to
add value, and hopefully increase visits, to the site.
Some new sounds to our ears, a
RAIN-approved color
and design scheme, and it works with the media player already on
your system! And we haven't heard Oscar de la Hoya yet!
| xxx |
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Try
it out! Explore the wide world of
Internet audio by clicking the screenshot above.
