From MSNBC.com: "Are you ready for Web ads that not only know what you want to buy, but speak to and serenade you? The NASDAQ meltdown and online consumer privacy battles haven’t stalled Madison Avenue’s rush to the Web, as ad targeting becomes more sophisticated and audio and video invade the banner...

"It may not be as revolutionary as singer Al Jolson introducing sound to silent pictures in “The Jazz Singer” in 1929, but [recent] Windows 2000 ads—produced by DDB Digital using streaming technology from Microsoft Windows—show how far Internet advertising has come from the static banner ad...

“'Audio and video are clearly where everyone is running to,' says Steven Marrs, co-managing director of DDB Digital, which developed the Web campaign. All over the Web, banner ads are talking, playing music and letting people input information into them...

Acceptance of audio ads will be a critical point in the development of Internet radio! Note, however, that the industry seems like it might be jumping directly from banner ads to ads with video! (You'd think audio ads would be a logical intermediate step, wouldn't you?) Read the full MSNBC piece here and contribute your thoughts and feedback here. -- KH



From Radio Business Report: "While Cox Enterprises’ Internet arm Cox Interactive Media (CIM) still may own 10% of MP3.com, it has decided to sell its majority interest in MP3radio.com to MP3.com, ending the joint venture between the two. MP3radio.com offers music information, free downloads and content directly targeted to a variety of music formats for radio station websites.

"MP3radio.com, currently based in Atlanta with CIM, is expected to move to MP3 HQ in San Diego. MP3radio.com President Gregg Lindahl is staying in Atlanta with Cox and is getting a new position within the company."

Read more of Radio Business Report here.

All Access adds, "Among those that got downsized are former radio programmers Stacy Cantrell (stacy.cantrell@mp3radio.com) and Kip Taylor (kip.taylor@mp3radio.com)." Read All Access here (registration required).




From today's New York Times: "The major record companies BMG and Sony Music Entertainment recently announced long-awaited plans to sell their music online via digital downloads. But the fine print suggests that mainstream Internet users are not going to buy their music digitally any time soon.

"Despite the promise of digital downloads for the masses, the technical challenges could continue to confine the audience mainly to that breed of technology-minded, time-wealthy human known as the college student.

"Take the statement from BMG, which focused on the fact that the company had selected a half-dozen -- count 'em, six -- different technology partners to put its music online and to protect it from pirates. Even describing BMG's approach is rather complicated..."

Read the full story in today's New York Times here (registration requried).



In the most exciting contest in the history of Web-based newsletters about radio and Internet issues, we're giving away today, to one lucky RAIN reader, a fantastic prize package that includes a state-of-the-art Sony Music Clip digital music player, a state-of-the-art wireless-Internet-ready Nextel cell phone, and a Kerbango Internet radio!

The cleaned-up, alphabetized, and hopefully final version of the list of entrants is here. Make sure you're on the list if you should be. (The deadline to warn me of errors or missing names is 12N CDT today.)

And here's the random-number generating technique we'll use to pick our winner:

We'll take the final digit of each of today's closing numbers of the Dow, the NASDAQ, and the S&P 500 (in that order). That will give us a three-digit number. (I believe that the final digit of each one is as random a number as you could ask for.)

If the three-digit number that we create using this technique is greater than 200, we'll keep subtracting 200 as many times as necessary until we manage to bring it down to a number between 1 and 200.

That, then, will be our winning number -- and the name corresponding to that number on the list of entrants will be the winner. And it could be you!

Good luck!

FOR EXAMPLE: Friday, the Dow closed at 10,305.77, the NASDAQ at 3,321.29, and the S&P 500 at 1,357.31. That would give us a three digit number of 791. Keep subtracting 200 a few times -- 591, 391, 191. Bingo! The 191th person on the list would be our winner. In the unlikely event that the both the list of names is slightly shorter than 200 names and such a high number comes up such that we don't have a corresponding name, the fairest thing to do, statistically, would be to postpone the giveaway for 24 hours and try again with tomorrow's Dow, NASDAQ and S&P 500 instead. Which is what we'll do.

Finally, note that although it won't improve your odds of winning in any measurable or statistically sense, it might be good karma to tell another friend or collegague about RAIN today!

Sign up as a RAIN subscriber! We appreciate hearing from you. And in return, we'll send you e-mail news updates every so often so you don't forget about us -- plus bulletins when important news breaks.   Name:   Company:   E-mail:   Your   comments   and/or   suggestions:     Please add me to your "subscriber" list     I'm already on your mailing list; I just wanted to              send you the comment above.         Thanks!

From today's Wall Street Journal: "Spicing up the drab Internet landscape is one of Web advertisers' favorite topics of discussion these days. They're always looking for ways to go 'beyond the banner,' a reference to traditional banner ads scattered throughout the Web.

"A new advertising tool, called superstitials, is one of the latest efforts to make Web advertising leap out of computer screens. The technology creates video-like ads, timed to appear when a user moves from one part of a Web site to another. The ads are like mini television commercials on the Internet..."

"'The market value of superstitials could go down as people get more used to them and respond less,' [Agency.com's Nigel Beale] says. 'But for now, the success factor is infinitely better than a standard banner...'"

Beale doesn't seem to know the meaning of the word "infinitely"(unless banner ads are astoundingly ineffective). But, in any case, you can read the full article here (subscription requried).

You can easily click through previous issues of RAIN by using the blue arrows next to the issue date at the top of the page. (This navigation element has been added retroactively to all of March's issues.)