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From Radio Ink:
"Recently Arbitron released its first webcast ratings report.
Where is the company headed with this strategy?"
 In
its interview with Joan Fitzgerald, director of marketing for Arbitron's
Internet Information Services, she reveals that "the
next report is going to be out the first week or two of January."
The full interview is available on Radio Ink's website here.
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Radio
and Internet Newsletter is
a daily compilation of news (plus essays, commentary, and resources)
designed to help you better understand the Internet and its
potential impact on radio -- both the dangers it presents
and the opportunities it offers. We hope you find it
valuable.
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From
Radio & Records: "Vancouver-based Global Media will
stream audio from Inner City’s WLIB-AM & WBLS-FM/New York, KBLX-FM/San
Francisco and WHAT-AM/Philadelphia, in exchange for a percentage
of the broadcaster’s web-related sales (e-commerce, banner ads,
etc.). Global says it has inked deals with about 150 U.S. radio
stations."
 According
to a press release posted on the PR Newswire site, Global Media
other recently-announced deals include WLSZ/Jackson, MI; WLSQ/Dyersburg,
TN; Hudson Valley stations WSPK-FM, WHUD-FM, WBNR, and WLNA; Faehn
Radio-owned KSDR; and WTBO-WKGO/Cumberland, MD.
Click here for R&R
Online (subscription required) or here
for PR Newswire (and then do a keyword search for "Global").
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One of the most challenging things about understanding the Internet-related
issues affecting the radio industy is figuring out who does
what. To help clarify the answer to that question, we're
in the process of developing a RAIN Vendor Guide. Click
here to
see our preliminary list of key vendors; click here to see a
sample page on either Magnitude
Network (a "full service" vendor) or WarpRadio
(a company that provides streaming in exchange for avails). |
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BY KURT HANSON
About two weeks ago in RAIN, I described a seemingly insane offer
from MP3 music seller eMusic.com in which they say they'll
give you $240 worth of merchandise if you'll just please, PLEASE
buy $50 worth of MP3s from them (at $.99 per track or $8.99 per
album).
 We
also uncovered the fact that they apparently haven't been able to
find 5,000 takers in almost three months. (This is a company valued
by the stock market at $500 million that can't sell $250,000 in
merchandise per quarter!) (Click here
and here to read our original
stories.)
Now I've learned one reason they may be having problems: They have
an incredibly clunky buying mechanism! I've been trying
to take advantage of the offer for two weeks now...and I can't
do it!
 Here
are some of the problems I've had: (1) If you put an item
in your "shopping cart," you can't learn what it is. (I
apparently liked a Christmas compilation album I saw, but now I
want to review what's on the album and there's no way to do it.)
(2) I absolutely want to add a They Might Be Giants album
to my cart. Although it's featured prominently on the site, I can
not successfully add it to my cart. (3) Every
time I try inputting my credit card information, I get an "Internal
Server Error" message (as shown).
One lesson to be learned here: If you've got e-commerce on
your site, test it frequently. Ask friends to test it. Ask relatives
to test it. Make sure it works.
 Finally,
an article in this week's The Industry Standard reveals that
this $500-million-dollar company lost $18 million last quarter --
to sell $40,000 worth of music! (Are "MP3" and "free"
synonymous to consumers, perhaps?) Click here
to read it.
We're
going to use the holiday period to add lots of pages of resources
to this site that we hope you'll find valuable. Here are a couple
of examples:
Click here to
see our preliminary version of a presentation of various interesting
station websites. (Like the look of a site? Click on the screenshot
to go there!)
A guide to participants in the Internet radio world starts
here, with pictures
of the various audio players. (Or feel free to wait a few days;
we'll add a lot more editorial content to the page.)
We'd like to know
what you think about the format of this newsletter. Please
take a moment, if you can spare the time, to fill out this quick form.
(All fields are optional.)
News archives
To
review last week's action involving
radio and the Internet, click the "News Archives" option,
either at top left or here.
Viral marketing
Finally, if you like this newsletter, please
tell one friend about it sometime today. Thanks
very much.
...
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