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As predicted last week in RAIN, Vancouver-based GlobalMedia.com
(Nasdaq: GLMC) announced today that it has purchased certain assets
of Magnitude Network,
Inc., a subsidiary of iCAST
Corporation, a majority-owned operating company of CMGI,
Inc. (Nasdaq: CMGI).
GlobalMedia sent an e-mail late last night to Magnitude's
clients titled "Welcome to the GlobalMedia Network of Associates"
 that
said: "GlobalMedia.com is a leading provider of customized
solutions for brand extension, streaming, and integrated advertising
and e-commerce solutions. Our largest market is radio and we are
fully committed to it.
"As part of our expansion strategy," it continued,
"we recently purchased your contract
with Magnitude Network. We are very pleased that you are one of
these stations and welcome you to the GlobalMedia Network..."
GlobalMedia said this morning, "With this acquisition,
and the recent purchase of 212 contractual  agreements
from OnRadio.com in June 2000, GlobalMedia has taken a major leap
towards consolidating radio streaming on the Web. GlobalMedia acquired
the assets of Magnitude for approximately $6 million in stock
plus additional warrants.
"GlobalMedia will now provide streaming media, web site
development, and e-commerce services for Magnitude's more than 100
radio stations across the U.S. and Canada."
Jeff Mandelbaum, President and CEO of GlobalMedia, said,
"With this acquisition, we will now be broadcasting content for
12 of the top the top 50 Arbitron-rated streaming stations (Arbitron,
February 2000), a move which strengthens our value proposition to
our  customers
and provides greater revenue opportunity by driving increased traffic
to our sites."
Margaret Heffernan, president and CEO of iCAST, said, "This
will allow iCAST to more aggressively focus our energy on delivering
a world-class Internet-only radio offering,
an area in which we already enjoy outstanding technology and content
leadership."
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When
Magnitude's low-cost streaming deals also
gave them (A) shared revenues from their "Music
Massive" CD store -- as for everyone else who's trying
to sell CDs, probably not a big money-maker -- and (B) rights
to some broadcast avails, which I believe they couldn't convert
into big bucks either.
After CMGI made Magnitude a division of iCAST last winter,
iCAST apparently never found a good synergy between the two
firms.
GlobalMedia has a market capitalization today of about $65
million (down from about $200 million last spring. For a chart
of GlobalMedia's stock price over the past year, from Quicken.com,
click here).
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Questions? Comments? Deep background?
E-mail us
here.
From the Wall Street Journal:
"Ever since the personal computer came on the scene in the
1970s, the U.S.
has dominated the digital world. Most of the new technologies and
applications flowing from the PC...were invented in the U.S. and
adopted there first and most extensively.
"As
a result, nearly everything cool in
consumer digital technology, whether it was hardware,
software or an online innovation, showed
up first in the U.S....
"But...the
PC, the linchpin of America's digital dominance, is very slowly
giving way to a host of other digital devices,
or information appliances, able to do digital tasks --
.jpg) especially
to tap into the Internet more simply and reliably. That gives foreign
companies a real opening that could threaten American leadership
in the field.
"Already, all kinds of non-PC-based digital gadgets
are available overseas that Americans can't buy at home." (See
photo of Japanese i-Mode cell
phone at left.)
"This trend is likely to accelerate, at least in the
short run, because the two main types of info
appliances that have emerged so far are rooted in technologies
where Europe and Asia lead the U.S.
"One branch involves wireless
devices, including mobile phones that can tap
the Internet... The other branch is composed of consumer
electronics-type boxes that access the Internet,
or otherwise do some of the things a PC does but without all of
a PC's hassles.
"Europeans and Japanese, not Americans, are first to
get all the cool new wireless stuff... Much of (this) is due to
a tremendous blunder made by the U.S. government and phone industry.
They failed to  adopt
a single national standard for wireless phones, while
Europe and many other parts of the world settled on a standard called
GSM.
"The
other handicap that will hinder America in the new info-appliance
age is the culture of the PC itself and the techies who control
it. They have been slow to accept the notion that devices other
than PCs might be preferable for doing digital tasks.
"Who might be better at building a simple, cheap, reliable
home Internet terminal that looks good enough to be in the kitchen
or family room -- Sony or Hewlett-Packard?"
Read the
entire story from yesterday's Wall Street Journal here
(subscription required).
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...
Note that Internet radio would be portable today
if we had the kind of cell phones that are becoming popular
in Asia and Europe.
And while radio-oriented Internet appliances like Sonicbox
and Kerbango are now beginning to roll out, we don't know yet
whether the available content is compelling enough to drive
consumer demand for them.
... |
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 We'll
send you RAIN's e-mail news updates on a regular basis,
plus bulletins when important news breaks. (In addition, we'll
appreciate knowing that you're reading our efforts -- and
you'll hopefully appreciate reminders to read RAIN.)
You should be receiving
a confirmation e-mail from us shortly.
Thanks!
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From WetFeet.com: "Two years ago, digital music was
an underground movement led by a bunch o f
college kids in search of a cheap alternative to CDs. Since late
1998, the evolution of MP3 technology and its emergence as the next
killer app for the Internet has caused MP3 to go mainstream. The
result has been an explosion in the number of online music companies—and
jobs for music lovers...
"While still in the early stages of development, online
radio promises to allow websites to customize radio around individual
listeners' preferences...
"If you love music and want to be a part of a movement
that is changing the way we experience and access music, then this
is may be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. 'This is a really fun
industry,' says an insider. 'Music is something everyone relates
to. As an art form it affects peoples' lives in a personal way.
I feel lucky that I have the opportunity to participate in such
a dynamic industry.'
Read the full guide (targeted primarily at college-age young
people, I believe) here.
Spanish Broadcasting
System (SBS), the largest Hispanic-owned radio broadcaster in
the U.S., and America Online (AOL) announced a strategic promotional
alliance this week  under
which LaMusica.com's
Latin music and entertainment content will be available across several
AOL brands in the U.S., and AOL will be promoted in SBS's radio
advertising.
LaMusica.com, the award-winning premier Web destination for
Latino entertainment, is owned and operated by Spanish Broadcasting
System's subsidiary, JuJu Media
Under the agreement, LaMusica.com will be an anchor tenant
on AOL and major provider of Latin music and entertainment content
to AOL.com, CompuServe, Netscape Netcenter, Digital City, Spinner.com,
Winamp, ICQ and Gateway.net, providing the tens of millions of users
of these brands with easier and more convenient access to LaMusica.com's
Latino entertainment content.
In addition, America Online will develop a comprehensive
Spanish-language radio advertising campaign, which will receive
broad promotion on the Spanish Broadcasting System radio network.
LaMusica.com includes a nice presentation of links to eleven
of SBS's major-market stations (shown above). Most English-language
broadcast groups aren't doing anything like it. Click here
to visit it.
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"It's
a new paradigm that corporate programmers will have to grok
before they can rock..."
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The Digital
Millenium Copyright Act is the most blatant package of first amendment
rights violations I've ever seen. It's nothing short of Junior High
schoolyard bullying and I serioiusly doubt it would stand a legal
challenge. To most folks, music is NOT a commodity as
much as an entertainment, and the RIAA needs to look at how
the songs are being heard, not just packaged and purchased.
Who the hell are they to tell you what to play and what to front-announce?
It's not like you're Alan Freed doing a remote from a local record
store with the promo guys in the background.
Re (yesterday's article on) radio stations having a hard time
of it on the web: Nobody wants to tune in to a distant signal to hear
back-to-back commercials, promos, jingles and other "miscues" from
the entertainment they're looking for. You can call it "Internet radio,"
but it's a totally different medium. It's a new paradigm that
corporate programmers will have to grok before they can rock.
Webcasting and websites are all a synergistic experience and
need to be presented as such. It's not just music, graphics, interactivity
or "personalization." Its all of these and more. It's not spreadsheet
and database ruling the playlist. It's all about flow and immersion.
Radio has a limited timeframe to learn this
and time's running out. You can't just throw dollars at
the opportunity, you need a truly creative team to get the show on
the road (or at least the info superhighway).
The main difference between radio and webcasting is that radio
stations do their best to reach a nonexistant hypothetical average
listener in order to increase 1/4 hour and cume listening. It's "mass
marketing" without soul.
Internet webcasting (including site navigation, design and interactivity)
is about "Mass Customization," and needs to reach individuals in a
more intimate way based on listener choices, trust, habits and flow.
It's the listeners that demand "on demand," not the advertisers that
demand "potential listeners." Personalization is easy to justify to
the bean counters, but personality is what will ultimately win out
in webcasting. You'll see...
Coming this weekend in RAIN
Reprinted from
yesterday's issue:
Alligator
Records launches radio channel
with RadioWave
From Inside Radio: "RadioWave.com
brings blues and roots music to the Internet. Joint venture  with
Alligator Records.
Largest independent blues and roots rock label. Aims to be the  premiere
blues music portal on the Net. Chicago-based RadioWave.com has created
a customized interactive audio channel... Alligator Records joins
RadioWave's
impressive roster of music industry clients. Including Blue Note Records,
EMI, ARTISTdirect and Susquehanna. RadioWave created a similar audio
channel for Blue Note Records..." Read more in InsideRadio.com
here
BroadcastWeb.com
chooses
MediaAmerica as rep
From Radio Business Report: "International Internet’s
TheBroadcastweb.com
Network has signed  MediaAmerica
as its rep (8/2) for integrated streaming audio and banner advertising.
MediaAmerica will sell the audio ads in conjunction with interactive
banner ads where if the listener is interested in an  audio
ad, a click on the banner ad will send them to the advertiser’s website.
The Broadcastweb Network offers Classic Rock, Jazz, Blues and Soul,
and will also offer CHR, AC and Young Country formats within the next
few weeks." Read more in RBR here.
.
 Thanks
to RAIN interns David Don and Qianqian Zheng (top row, center,
in photo), you can now search through RAIN's News Archives
more quickly and efficiently than ever before!
To get started, simply enter a search term in the box below
and click "Search." (Our engine supports wildcards ("*")
and "+" and "-" inclusion/exclusion commands.)
For example,
if you want to find all RAIN references in the past eight
months for former AMFM exec Bob Visotcky, simply type Visotcky
into the box above and hit the "Search" button. In Bob's
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Click to one of those pages. Then use your browser's "Edit...Find..."
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