Reporting live from Tokyo:

From The Nikkei Weekly: "PlayStation fever has broken out in Japan. The symptoms are an obsession with March 4, the day Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. begins selling its PlayStation 2 videogame console in Japan...

"The fever has swept so far and wide that it's hard to get a clear picture of just what Sony Corp.'s realistic prospects are for its next-generation game machine with its digital-versatile-disc player and its capability of accessing the Internet through cable television... But even the pessimists admit that it's a good time to be Sony..."

More on this story this weekend or Monday in RAIN.




Last week's Business Week noted, "While Europeans lead in [cell] phones, Asians are kings of consumer electronics. As the mobile Internet advances into live video and stereo, Sony, Matsushita, and Samsung are likely to unleash an avalanche of multimedia phones. Most of them will be test-marketed first in Japan, home of the world's most advanced mobile Net."

So to report to you first-hand from where the action is -- i.e., from the home of the world's most advanced mobile Net -- I have arrived in Tokyo this morning (as documented in photo at right, taken two hours ago at Narita airport) for five days of live reporting.

I plan to explore the current state of MP3-enabled and wireless Internet-enabled cell phones, to learn the current state of Webcasting here, and to find other interesting and useful new ideas that may have applications for you.

If you'd like to reach me, simply e-mail me here. VIrtually all of the pay phones in Tokyo have a modem port for Internet access, so I'll be checking e-mail frequently.


First Internet Media Corporation
acquires Radio Profits Corporation
From a company press release: "Radio Profits Corporation provides a telephone sales consulting program to stations designed to develop new revenue sources and locate new advertisers. The combination will create a total solution for website sales revenue in the radio industry -- stations use FIMC to create their website and then generate revenue with the RPC system.

"FIMC CEO Chad Meisinger says: 'The synergy between our two companies is absolutely tremendous. Now stations can confidently move forward in the direction of the internet. Stations have generated significant revenues with the Radio Profits’ program for years... Now, using the FIMC tools, their Internet revenues will reach new levels of success.'



Two weeks ago, former WMMS/Cleveland GM Bob Bellin contributed a provocative Guest Essay (here) on the weaknesses he perceives in the current state of Internet-only radio. Numerous RAIN readers wrote in to either congratulate Bob for his strong stand or strenuously disagree with him.

Today, Bellin contributes some follow-up thoughts:

I'm glad my column stirred up so much interest and I've enjoyed reading the different reactions to it. Retrospectively, if there's one change I'd make to the column it would be to change "…they all suck" to "…almost all of them suck."

I should have pointed out that exceptions do exist. For example, some of the formats produced by Westwind Media as Lycos Radio sound quite good, as does CityRadio.com -- a one man operation run out of the founder's apartment that's my "find of the month."

I'm sure there are others too, but sadly, I don't think that a couple of exceptions in a highly populated space has any bearing on my basic hypothesis -- that the bar's been set so low by so many that a negative, hard-to-reverse perception about the whole category may already exist.

I hope that the defensive nature of the comments that many made will evolve into a re-thinking of strategy and maybe even business models. If I help someone, I will be delighted -- even if my only contribution is to open up a dialogue.

Here are some thoughts and corresponding suggestions that I believe to be actionable and potentially helpful:

First…whatever people want from webcasters, based on the low levels of audience being documented, accept that they aren't getting it now. According to Edison Research, almost half of America is online, yet only 4% listened to any kind of webcast last week, only 10% last month (and that includes terrestrial radio stations that stream their signals). Perhaps more troubling is that the percentage of people tuning in is not growing.

Second…without the benefit of consumer research, no one's going to figure it out any time soon.

Third…people with experience programming traditional radio stations will almost surely do a better job of implementing whatever consumers want from Internet radio than people without that experience.

Fourth…make it easier and more reliable.

This doesn't mean that I'm advocating the systematic construction of a mirror image of radio's current programming on the net, as some have suggested in their comments. That's a guaranteed loser due to portability and reliability issues. Netcasting will have to be different and, to enough people, better than radio, if it's going to build any real audience base.

What I am suggesting is that some of the methodology and expertise that is applied to optimize radio should be utilized to perfect the Internet version of it.

Here's the detail:

1) Research
There are a bunch of experienced, competent radio research firms out there. They know how to do format searches, music tests and focus groups. The radio industry is using them, often even in the smallest of markets. Hire one. Or, if you prefer, hire away some of their top people and let them build an in-house facility around your needs.

Without good, broad-based perceptual research, you won't know which formats people really want. Without music research, you won't know what songs people want to hear within those formats. Without listening to people talk about the medium and how they use it in focus groups, you won't be able to think like your target audience thinks.

I remember the sacred cows that were abandoned and major changes that were made in radio when research were first commissioned and implemented. I have no idea how any individual studies on Internet radio might turn out (although I'd be willing to bet that overall, the format menu on the net leans too old to max out the current available audience), but I'm sure they would reveal a number of critical flaws in the assumptions that have been made by the current crop of netcasters. History has shown that guessing at what consumers want is a much riskier and less effective strategy than asking them.

2) Top radio programming talent
Consolidation has bred a large number of regional programming heads who are schooled in the simultaneous application of different formats. They know how to construct a format from scratch, implement research, build clocks, do music rotations, evaluate production, etc. There are quite a few talented, accomplished people out there whose stock and options are pretty much vested. Building a webcasting outfit from the ground up would be enjoyable for some of them and they can afford to take a flier, thanks to those vested options.

Micro-recruit a bunch of radio's best and I guarantee you'll get some great people. If you don't know where to start, e-mail me and I'll give you some names. (Heaven knows, I don't want to start another controversy by naming actual people here!)

3) Minimizing user effort
According to the previously cited Edison Research study, roughly 30% of the public thinks it's difficult to "tune in" Internet radio. Requiring users to download and access a special player for each different webcaster isn't helping any. I think webcasters should seriously reconsider their business models and abandon those custom players. I understand the marketing potential they offer, but that potential is more than neutralized if the consumer is driven away. What if the original business model for radio included a different box for each station you listened to? Maybe I'm wrong and the different players aren't the main reason why listeners perceive difficulty…but there's clearly some reason for it. Research could provide the answer.

4) Reliability
A recent RAIN includes a story about NetRadio contracting iBeam to do their streaming. More arrangements of this type should be consummated, then aggressively marketed by webcasters. Many companies are working on techniques that will make streaming more regional and consistent as interruptions are one of the big drawbacks to audio streaming. Every multi-format webcaster should be actively researching techniques and partnerships that will improve their reliability. It should be a core focus.

I sincerely hope I helped someone with my rambling rants. It's great to see people feeling passionate about what they do and it's especially great to see that passion applied to a new form of radio.



Agree? Disagree? Contribute your comments here.

Part Two:

Click here for RAIN News Archives
Looking for Part One of the "RAIN Guide to Internet Audio?" Go to the bottom of this page for the latest version.

Department of Viral Marketing: If you have friends or colleagues that you believe might enjoy reading RAIN, please click here and we'll help you them about us. Thanks!