BY KURT HANSON
Cupertino-based Internet startup Kerbango is set to make a major announcement at a prestigious Palm Springs trade show next week that will include the formal unveiling of the industry's first stand-alone Internet radio.

The concept behind Kerbango's product is to offer consumers an "Internet appliance" that makes listening to Internet radio as easy as listening to local radio -- e.g., turn on the power and then turn a dial to select a station.

A mock-up of the proposed radio, which was shown briefly at the Radio Ink Internet Conference in Santa Clara last fall, was a retro-styled device about the size of a kitchen radio, with familiar-looking buttons and dial. However, unlike a traditional kitchen radio, it included a small LCD screen.

The Kerbango radio will require an Internet connection but not a PC. The debut of the actual radio Monday will be at a new products showcase called Demo --the same show at which the Palm Pilot was launched several years ago.

Kerbango's current website is a comprehensive search engine and directory for Internet audio around the world -- both streaming and archived.

One unique feature of the directory is a "signal strength" meter for each audio stream identified during a search. "Signal strength" is a Kerbango-designed metatphor that "distills four of the most important factors determining signal [quality] into one easy-to-read Strength Meter." The four factors Kerbango uses are reliability (i.e., how often a station is on- or off-line), bandwidth (the data rates at which you can listen), software ("We consider who uses new and pervasive streaming formats"), and stereo (extra credit for those streaming in stereo).

Although the Kerbango site is perfectly useable on its own terms today, the site also notes it "is clearly designed for the upcoming Kerbango radio... Your use of the site will someday extend directly to your new radio."

Earlier this week, Kerbango VP/Sales John Felt gave RAIN a preview of the business model for the Kerbango venture. Revenue opportunites that Kerbango is looking at include the following: (1) Selling a gateway-type ad in the several-second buffer period that occurs each time a user changes stations. (2) Selling premium positions on the radio to content partners -- e.g, rights to be the the first "rock" station listed on the Kerbango radio's interface. (3) A percentage of revenues from purchases (e.g., CDs) made via the radio's interface. (4) License fees from radio manufacturers.

You can visit the Kerbango website this weekend here if you want to be up to speed in advance of their announcement on Monday. After you've tried it, please tell us what you think; contribute your comments here.

Reprinted from Friday's edition of RAIN:


The nation's first news radio station focused on Internet-related news has debuted on AMFM's KNEW-AM/San Francisco -- and its live audio stream is now also available on the CNET website.

CNET Radio runs live from 5:30A to 7P. "We've signed an agreement to run CNN Headline News from 7P to 5:30A and on weekends," KIOI/KNEW/KABL VP/GM Brent Osborne tells RAIN, "although we're exploring possibilities of adding more Internet-oriented content during the non-CNET dayparts."

"It's not all tech news," Brent continued. "The station is dayparted. We're doing news of the new technology and the New Economy -- it's very broad. It's for general consumption; it's not a techie radio station. Middays are more feature-oriented and lifestyle-oriented, and afternoons are a wrapup of the business day"

"We believe that the two things kind of came together that allowed this to happen for us. First of all, we have a cluster of radio stations. That means we have a unique opportunity to promote a new venture -- CNET is being promoted on all six other AMFM stations in the market.

"Secondly, this information -- the technology revolution -- has progressed so far and so fast that this format probably would not hav been realistic as recently as a year ago. But now this new technlogy and New Economy affects everybody's life. If your kids go to school, you're involved in this. If you bank, if you get an automobile, you're involved."

CNET produces its programming from its own facility, which happens to be in the old KMEL location at 55 Battery. Ironically, CNET Radio news director and morning anchor Brian Cooley (pictured at right), worked for AMFM at one time.

Brent explains, "He was News Director with John London and the House Party at KMEL and he went down to L.A. with London for The Beat. Then he came back to the market and was the original News Director and the anchor on the Westinghouse news operation that started when the O.J. trial began [on KPIX-FM]. When that went away, one of the founders of CNET had heard Cooley doing a tech update on KPIX and hired him for CNET. He's been there for a couple of years. He's a trained news guy and experienced program director who brings real broadcasrt experience and finesse to the challenge of presenting 13 hours of tech news every day.

"Sales have been, as far as I'm concerned, unprecedented for a brand new radio station," Brent told us. "We've had demand from national markets and demand locally. Advertisers have been eager to get involved early. It's been overwhelming. We had no idea that ther response would be like this. We have other markets clamoring it, and the national rollout is being planned." How soon? "We want to get the bugs out of it and get the product right, but we have markets thart are awaiting delivery of the product now."

You can listen to CNET Radio by clicking here.

Eric Rhoads's Radio Ink magazine has announced its first two big-name speakers for its upcoming Radio Ink Internet Conference East: Yahoo! marketing chief Seth Godin and computer journalist Walter Mossberg.

Godin, the best-selling author of the book "Permission Marketing," is nationally known as an expert on the Internet and opt-in e-mail marketing. He became part of Yahoo! after selling his highly successful company, Yoyodine Entertainment, to Yahoo!

Yoyodyne developed games and contests consumers played via e-mail to sell products; Yahoo! bought Yoyodyne and Godin received $30 million in stock

Mossberg is best known as the author and creator of the weekly "Personal Technology" column in The Wall Street Journal, which has appeared every Thursday since 1991.

According to Radio Ink, Newsweek magazine calls Mr. Mossberg "the most powerful arbiter of consumer tastes in the computer world today," Time magazine calls him "the most influential computer journalist," and Brill's Content, the watchdog magazine that covers the press, ranks Mr. Mossberg as one of the 25 most influential people in the American news media.

Radio Ink's Fall conference in Santa Clara, CA was of the best-received radio industry conferences ever. Its 607 attendees were inspired to start dozens of new Internet ventures (including this newsletter!).

For registration information for the Boston event, which will be held at the Copley Theater from May 15th to 18th, call 1-800-610-5771 and ask for Gwen. (And just for fun, tell her you read about it in RAIN.)



From CNET News: "All of the 'Big 5' record labels and Madonna's Maverick Records have invested undisclosed sums in Listen.com, the San Francisco-based start-up plans to announce today.

"Although the labels are finally moving their battleships to address consumers' growing interest in building digital music collections, collectively the majors have been skittish of the MP3 format, which employs no security measures to curb piracy...

"Listen.com only points online users to legal MP3s, meaning its is directory is dominated by independent artists..." Read the full story on CNET News here.



DaimlerChrysler Makes Sirius Investment
From R&R Online: The automaker will purchase $100 million in common stock and exclusively factory-install Sirius receivers in its cars and light trucks -- including Mercedes-Benz, Chrysler... The deal also calls for the two companies to work together to develop telematics functions using Sirius' digital satellite system, which could result in a range of wireless security...and navigation services... DaimlerChrysler spokesman Sjoerd Dijkstra tells R&R Online the receivers will be installed when Sirius works out the bugs in its service. "The moment the system works flawlessly, we'll be ready to install receivers. We have a pretty quick turnaround." Read R&R Online here (subscription required for current content).

Here are some headlines from recent RAIN stories and reader feedback to those stories:



BY KURT HANSON
One of the most interesting aspects of the recent Arbitron InfoStream Webcast ratings report is this: Out of 255 stations measured in markets of all sizes across America, three sister stations in Columbia, MO (Arbitron market #243) managed to take the #2, #4, and #6 slots in terms of Time Spent Tuning (TST)!  How in the world did they do that?

''We have the opportunity to create a personal jukebox in the house and the car,' Case told Business Week recently. 'Ten to 20 years from now, we'll think it was a silly notion that music was so tethered to a physical disk.'

Read the full story in Business Week Online here.

Also, more on this story soon.


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