From Radio Ink's cover story: "Radio Ink: 'What must Radio operators understand about leveraging streaming media for their business?' [Real Networks CEO Rob] Glaser: 'My fundamental message would be that there’s a huge land grab going on, and they need to accelerate their efforts. There’s so much opportunity, and it’s completely unlike FCC-based broadcasting, where there’s a limit to the number of channels or frequencies that one can own in a city.

"'The dynamics of the Internet are quite different, and people who get in early need to have a national and global view. I’d tell those broadcasters who have entered the Web business that they must commit even more resources and that it’s time to double down...'"

Read the full interview here

From ABCNews.com: "I am writing this column on my beloved Vaio Slimtop Pro. My little Vaio background bitmap is a picture of one of my daughters, taken with a Sony digital camera and downloaded to my Slimtop via a Sony i-Link cable. And I am asking myself, 'Why hasn’t Sony taken over the world? Vaioworld is incomparable! And there certainly is no laptop out there that approaches the Vaio in terms of charm, ease of use, portability…'

"Alas, the answer is readily apparent. For all of its engineering prowess, Sony doesn’t know beans about selling. It is as hard to buy a Vaio product as it is easy to use or steal..."

Read about columnist Fred Moody's difficulties with ordering off Sony's website here.

From the company press release: "Parrotheads around the globe will be able to see and hear Jimmy Buffett concerts, listen to his music and hear stories from the artist himself as RadioMargaritaville.com becomes part of the worldwide network of BroadcastAMERICA.com, the booming dot com broadcaster of music and television. The announcement comes as Buffett is preparing to launch his summer tour.

"BroadcastAMERICA.com, now the world's largest streamer of radio, TV news and talk programming, has made an agreement with RadioMargaritaville.com that will keep the two-year-old Radio Margaritaville intact while expanding its video capabilities and improving its radio channeling.

"Radio Margaritaville currently streams music 24 hours a day with top Program Director Steven Huntington, and also lists concert schedules and displays photos. The site broadcasts live shows and plays a mix of Caribbean sounds, beach and surf songs, and influential artists such as Bob Marley, James Taylor and Bonnie Raitt, among many others -­ including, of course, Jimmy Buffett..."

Read the full press release here. (It claims that Radio Margaritaville is visited by more than 300,000 fans per month -- which, if true, would make it significantly more popular than any radio station measured in the Arbitron InfoStream webcast ratings.) Visit Buffett's site here.

Reprinted from Friday's late afternoon edition:

From the company press release: "WWW.com, the world's leading Music Application Service Provider (ASP), today announced its formation of an exclusive European joint venture with Carlton Communications Plc, the largest independent television broadcaster in the United Kingdom (UK). With the formation of WWW.com Europe, the company continues to expand its market reach, content, and brand awareness worldwide.

"Carlton is investing $11.6M in cash into the WWW.com parent company... Additionally, Carlton will invest another $14M into WWW.com Europe, for a total investment of $25.6M.

"Also, WWW.com, through its wholly-owned subsidiary Codec.com, will provide encoding services, storage and streaming of Carlton's audio assets and film library, which is considered the largest in the world.

"'In less than a year we have built WWW.com into the world's largest Music ASP and second most popular radio site in the world,' said Scott Purcell, president and founder of WWW.com. 'With Carlton's access to mass audiences, knowledge of the UK entertainment market, and understanding of the rapidly developing Internet market, they are the right partner to expand WWW.com overseas and allow us to continue building a true global brand.'"

RAIN notes: Carlton is a USD $3 billion firm that is the largest free-to-air commercial broadcaster in the U.K., but apparently has no radio holdings. It gets about 1/3 of its profits from the U.S., primarily from its Technicolor subsidiary.

Its CarltonOnline subsidiary has launced a Carlton.com entertainment portal (see screenshot at right) that derives much of its content from three other sites it has established.

WWW.com's Mike Romano tells RAIN that the European plan will follow their U.S. plan of a business-to-business approach (i.e., providing co-branded multi-channel radio stations for corporate websites).

June 12-14	Streaming Media East 2000, New York City
June 14-17	R&R Convention 2000, Los Angeles
June 14-17	PROMAX & BDA, New Orleans
July 13-16	Upper Midwest Conclave, Minneapolis
August 3-5	Morning Show Bootcamp, New Orelans
September 20-23	NAB Radio Show, San Francisco
October 5-7	Billboard/Airplay Monitor Seminar, New York
November 5-7	NAB European Radio Conference, Berlin
Nov. 28-Dec. 1	Radio Ink Internet Conference, Santa Clara, CA

On Wednesday (here), I promised that I'd write an analysis of the latest Arbitron InfoStream webcast ratings this week... Coming soon!

New and improved!

xxx

Try it out! Explore the wide world of Internet audio by clicking the screenshot above.

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If you're hiring for a position that's radio- and Internet-related this week, we'll post it -- free! Simply e-mail the job description here. If you're looking for new opportunities that involve the Internet, you can take a look at the first three available positions here.