What Does Internet Radio Mean: Technological Implications for the Larger Media

I have written a couple of times now about the arrival of internet radio: The devices that look like old school radios and use a wi-fi connection to deliver tens of thousands of radio stations from around the world. Similar solutions are hitting the streets for iPhones and other portable devices.

The arrival of internet radio and the looming death of satellite though is not what media companies need to focus on. It already happened and, if their planners know what they are doing, they've made the necessary adjustments and are already there.

The important thing to look at, as with all new technology, is what it means. What does it imply for what's coming down the road? The answer here is a fairly easy and obvious one. First it will shortly mean internet television : television delivered directly via the internet (and of course the ability to use your television to access other internet services). If it can be done with radio it can be done with TV - to a 'television' or a mobile device but internet radio and television delivery is just the start.

The more important signal here is the end of the need to store media on a portable device. Customizable audio and video libraries and playlists stored in the clouds and accessible from anywhere will shortly follow. This means unlimited storage capacity and much smaller portable devices.

For content producers this is great news. It is a huge opportunity and maybe the last shot at redemption for 'big media.' Because none of the media people consume will be stored locally people will largely get their content via streaming. They will be able to have their own libraries of media and stream it to themselves but you may be able to save them the work.

Think of the cable model, with a provider giving consumers access to hundreds of 'channels' for a fee. This could work on the same basic model, with content producers bundling their content into libraries and a content provider providing bundles of those libraries to consumers who can then pick and choose from the available content and access it via customized playlists or on demand.

Yes consumers could do this on their own but if you can save them the time of downloading everything and storing it somewhere you will have an audience. If you can provide them a library containing everything and available all the time most consumers, I believe, will pay a monthly fee for that service rather than creating their own. The pitfall to be aware of though is overplaying your hand.

1) Do not overcharge. The more you charge the more consumers will go around you.

2) Don't try to strengthen your position by blocking out your competitors and/or smaller companies - the idea here is to offer consumers everything they are looking for and trying to strengthen your hand by limiting their choices will be fatal - it's the kind of priggish arrogance that caused the problems you are facing now.

Who gets paid how much is something that producers and distributors will have to work out between them. It is also important to remember that technology will continue to change and something could happen that alters this. However, there is finally the semblance of a potential business model emerging. Old/traditional/big media has, over the last few decades, acquired a well earned reputation for being slow to move, for turning opportunities into liabilities and for trying to legislate their way back in time. Can we take a shot at breaking that mold?

Truth: Microsoft Does Not Innovate

Microsoft has pretty much built itself on 'borrowing' other people's ideas, and then when possible patenting them and gaining a monopoly. Here are few small examples but the internet is rife with examples, just Google it. Perahaps nothing more is needed to understand Mircosoft than their new ad campaign.

Microsoft



Oscar Nominated Short by Josh Raskin "I Met the Walrus"



This isn't anything new or surprising. People in business borrow each other's ideas all the time. The point here is that Microsoft is not, and never has been a creative organization. They are not driven by innovation, they are driven by taking what's already there and putting it in a pretty package. It is more of a marketing company than a tech company, it just happens that what they are marketing is technology.

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This is part of the ongoing Truth campaign in response to Advertising Standards Canada who say:

""Fact is, truth is an essential part of any successful ad campaign. Smart advertisers have known this for years. That's why the advertising industry created the Canadian Code of Advertising Standards. For more than 40 years, the Code has set the standards for acceptable advertising in Canada. It helps ensure that the ads you see and hear are truthful, fair and accurate. Check it out for yourself. Because the more you know about advertising, the more you get out of it."

The Year of Internet Radio

Internet radio has been around for years, but it would appear that it's finally coming into its own. A number of copanies introduced new lines of home internet radio devices last year. Now, via Inside the CBC comes word that the people who officially study media trends, for lots of money, are catching on as well.

“In 2009, Internet radio may not just reinvigorate the medium of radio. It may reinvent it.” This prediction comes from the consulting firm Deloitte, which has published annual reports on upcoming media trends for the last eight years.
If the report is correct, 2009 will see much more widespread adoption of WiFi enabled internet radio sets (like the one pictured above). These sets, which retail for about $200, are designed to connect to digital radio signals from around the world via the internet.

My expectation is, in a down economy that people will begin dumping satellite radio anyway (except maybe a few who drive for a living). For those who want radio at home this provides a great alternative. Instead of 100 stations for $15/month plus the cost of the device, they can get tens of thousands of stations as part of the internet connection they already pay for. For those on the road their upgrade from satellite to internet radio will come at the same rate they adopt 3G phones. Nokia is just one of several companies already experimenting with internet radio for cell phones.

It's come alot faster than I originally thought but the age of satellite radio is over. Within two years there won't be enough subscribers left for satellite radio companies to continue operating and television is following closely behind.

How to Fix the CBC and How Not Too

The National Post has an interesting piece up this weekend on how to fix the CBC. Articles on 'how to fix the CBC' are almost an annual requirement for every news organization in this country (except the CBC) but this particular one isn't written by a TV critic or political pundit. Instead they asked people with a stake in the future of the CBC how they thought it should be fixed: Among the respondents: Director Bruce McDonald, actor Nicholas Campnell, ex-BBC journalist and current UBC journalism professor Alfred Hermida, fashion designer John Fluevog and talent agent Amanda Rosenthal.

Bruce McDonald's reaction was, to an extent predictable - urging that creative talent have more input.

"We need to be smarter, faster, quicker and braver than other programmers. Give artists permission. Then set them free."
- Bruce McDonald

That it was predictable though doesn't mean it's wrong. I find alot of the CBC's new programming feels like it was created by a calculator rather than a person. Given it's federal subsidies combined with it's ad revenue the CBC can afford to take risks that no other media company in Canada can, but they don't. They seem for the most part to be the best funded but least brave or creative of Canada's 'big media.'

Also predictable was the response from Amanda Rosenthal, president of Amanda Rosenthal Talent Agency Inc. who talked about how Canada needs a 'Star System'. I've heard this argument frequently and don't think much of it. Even the U.S. seems to be tiring of it's star system. The reality is that Canada has a star system and that we will always lose talent to the United States.

I heard it said once that the British have their own star system: That there are alot of 'stars' in Britain who the rest of the world wouldn't have heard of. The same is true in Canada. The biggest TV Star in Canada is Don Cherry - not because he does alot of photo ops and late night interviews, but because he is himself - brash, politically incorect, opinionated and unapologetic.

Beyond Cherry we have Peter Mansbridge, Rick Mercer, Bruce McDonald, Feist, Nicholas Campbell, the various members of the Kids in the Hall, Sarah Polley, David Suzuki, and a great many others. All of them are well known, and respected and have survived Canada's 'tall poppy syndrome' by not getting too tall. They are humble, talented, experienced and hard working and Canadians respect that. In my experience at least Canadians recognize talent and hard work but have little appetite for pretense, garish wealth or celebrity culture.

The U.S. has ten times Canada's population. As a result they have larger budgets, more production and can pay higher salaries. That will always lure many of Canada's best and brightest south. This is not only true in the arts but in science and medicine, sports, business and technology etc. This is not only a Canadian problem - Great Britain, Australia, India, and essentially the entire english speaking world lose talent to the United States.

We do need to make it easier for Canadian talent to stay in Canada, but in most cases that just means making the arts financially viable, we have to enable our artists to stay and make a living, not stay and become ridiculously wealthy - that we can't do. I have with publicbroadcasting.ca have tried in many ways to work on this problem. I know though that no matter what I or anyone else do some will stay in Canada and accept less than they could make in the States, some will leave and some will go back and forth.

Fashion designer John Fluevog helps my case:

"Sometimes, I get a sense CBC is justifying its existence. That, because of government harassment, it has to prove it's ‘Canadian.' CBC has no need to apologize. It's not our culture, that's too much pressure. It's the glue that holds Canadian culture together. Hip is being yourself, it's a naturalness of owning who you are. Be quirky and offbeat, but don't try to be cool - young people smell that a mile away."

The CBC does not need to be like the US, it does not need to be hip. Cool is over. Society, as an early affect of modern technology, is fragmented - everything is cut into niches now and each niche has it's own sense of what is and isn't cool. On the whole I find that those who try the hardest to be cool are the least popular. People respect individuality and creativity and talent and that combination is the closest there is to a definition of cool in 2009.

Take for example the the Bucky Awards. Radio 3 is the CBC's coolest brand. The Bucky Awards are Radio 3's annual music awards. In this years awards, as voted by the audience, Laura Barrett - a talented young musician (who plays the kalimba, an african thumb piano) wears large glasses and doesn't wear makeup was voted Canada's Sexiest Musician - welcome to Canada and the new definition of cool.

The CBC's two biggest challenges are still left: Technology and the Government.

"CBC must stop thinking of itself as a broadcaster. It's a content provider. Of course, in every organization there's inertia. CBC is a cruise liner and there's an iceberg approaching; it takes time to get that ship turned. There will be resistance. At BBC, new media was met with suspicion: Why are we going online? So we found the journalists, editors and producers interested in exploring - we got the early adapters and worked the edges of the organization. Then it spread.

"Newsrooms are notoriously reluctant to change. When change comes, the initial reaction is defensiveness. But BBC changed and so can CBC. It starts with strategy. Don't blog because everyone else does. Innovate! In 2007, the BBC iPlayer streamed programs to hand-held devices which proved tremendously popular - think about getting content out there so it suits the audience. CBC is in the process of re-invention. They have to change how, not what, they do."

Alfred Hermida, assistant professor of journalism at the University of British Columbia

"If Ottawa wants to find a way to get rid of it, CBC only has a 50/50 chance to survive. I got told by a member of Parliament that Paul Martin began planning on how he'd spread the savings once he got rid of CBC. And Jean Chrétien was the worst. I love him, he didn't even call me by name, he'd just yell, ‘CBC!' He'd get so mad talking about it, I'd have to calm him down. He thought they ambushed him at a press conference and made things hard on everyone and brought morale way down.

"There's a prejudice out there against them, like it's CBC so it's not very good or it's a copy of American things. Talking with Don Cherry, he'd say Da Vinci is so good I thought it was American. I'm like, ‘Don, man, that's the worst thing you can say.'

I love CBC and I'm willing to fight for it. Loyal, patriotic Canadians should have something that blows their minds."
- Nicholas Campbell

The CBC has no real political allies - at least the Liberals and Conservatives are not exactly fond of it. It is only public support that keeps the CBC up and running. In order to keep that support the CBC does not need to become cooler, or more American - it needs to remain deeply relevant to Canadians in terms of what content it delivers and how it delivers that content. The way people consume media is changing rapidly and the CBC must accommodate those changes. I've heard a few people say recently that "TV is for boomers" and that is a perception that the CBC cannot allow to stand. I'm sure the temptation is great. The baby boomers had the least exposure to the internet in their youth and are the slowest to adopt new technologies - as a result they make up the bulk of the traditional television audience so the easiest thing to do is to program for them but this is terribly short sighted and would kill CBC television in the longer run.

So going back to where we started - with Bruce McDonald who said the CBC must "give artists permission. Then set them free." The CBC must take the same approach to new media. Even if they start small they must give their new media people permission to try and fail, permission to experiment and be bold. This cannot be an afterthought, these people will create the CBC of the future and there will be trials and pitfalls and colossal failures along the way but that is the only road from here to there and the CBC needs to give some brave explorers permission to go down that road.

On a final note the CBC certainly needs more money from Ottawa. The mere fact that both the Liberals and Conservatives dislike and distrust the CBC means that they are worth keeping around and making stronger. Beyond that if the CBC needs more money in order to experiment and give license to it's creative talent, lower production values are absolutely acceptable. Internationally people are willing to accept lower production values if the ideas are good. In television shows like South Park and the Simpsons started with low production values that grew over time. The original BBC version of 'the Office' and the original Saturday Night Live both had very low production values and films like the Blair Witch Project and Roger & Me have shown that films made on a shoestring budget can be internationally successful. In technology and new media this is especially true. Facebook, for example, was started by a few students in a dorm room. What is holding the CBC back is not purely financial, there is far more 'won't' than 'can't' causing the problems.

Did You Know?

Facinating video. It is not Canadian in origin but summarizes in 5 minutes and 16 seconds some of the changes happening in our world.

Sadly I would have to say that Canadian politicians (every party) and Canadian media companies are largely oblivious to or in denial about all of it. The world is changing very, very quickly and we are not prepared or preparing.

What I Should Have Said (catching up)

Ok so the holidays have been a busy time and there are a few things that I meant to mention but didn't.

Chris Brogan has an excellent guest post on What Artists Can Teach You About Social Media from Amrita Chandra. I've spend a good deal of time talking to artists about how to use social media and the premise of this article is correct. Most artists 'get it' far more quickly than business people, tech people, marketing, advertising or PR people. Even many younger people seem to have a hard time grasping that what they've been doing online, sometimes for years, can be applied directly to business and promotions (without changing it a bit.)

Bill Doskotch reminds us that Canadian journalist Amanda Lindhout still isn't home. Amanda was kidnapped in Somalia Sept. 25. We can only hope that Foreign Affairs is working on the situation. For those that say 'the best government is no government', Somalia would be your utopia

Black Diamond Bay which features Patrick Krief and other former members of the Dears has begun the remix on their new album. David Shiffman who has worked with Johnny Cash, Tom Petty, the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Nine Inch Nails, Frank Black and others is doing the mix. The album is due to be released February 24.

Amy Millan of the Stars and sometimes Broken Social Scene has started recording her second album.

Said the Whale announced the departure of bass player Jeff LaForge and the arrival of new bass player Peter Carruthers on their blog.

Serena Ryder has posted some live videos from her gig at the Mod Club.

Free Calls to U.S.

Free phone calls are normally well outside my area but times being what they are - if it helps you get through the holidays etc.,: Via the Globe and Mail, starting tomorrow callingamerica.com will let you make free phone calls to anyone in the United States from any computer with "a web browser and a broadband connection" (We'll assume a microphone and speakers or headset would help as well). There is, naturally, a catch. You have to watch an ad before making your call. But if you have time but not money this could save you a few bucks.

"Most important, the service works domestically and all over the world. That means you can call the United States free from any cybercafe or Internet-enabled computer virtually anywhere. While it might not be as cozy as a call from a phone booth in London, the service is certainly cheaper."

The ITunes Killer?

Well not for me. My mac is not Intel based so it won't work for me and I don't have enough problems with iTunes to buy a new machine so I can use this app. If you do have an Intel mac, Windows XP or Vista or a Linux machine check out the new open source music player Songbird and let me know how it works for you. Songbird is, as I suggested, free and open source and comes with a ton of features including:

Mashtape:Discover Flickr photos, YouTube videos, last.fm biographies, Google news (and more) for the currently playing artist.

Last.fm Scrobbling - Integrated Last.fm support allows you to scrobble, love, and ban your tracks.

Concert Tickets: Discover upcoming shows in your area based on the artists in your library. Event listings powered by Songkick.

SHOUTcast Radio Stream music using the integrated SHOUTcast Radio directory.

There is also a large and growing directory of available add-ons to play with.

The Beginning of the End for Satellite Radio

Satellite Radio vs. the Dodo revisited

Back in 2005 in my Circles Around the Square blog (a thing tied to the CBC lockout) I expressed more than a few future of satellite radio.

"Soon, very, very soon - anything available online, and much that isn't available online yet will be available to anyone, anywhere, on their pda, cell phone, iPod, laptop or, of course, desktop. People will be able to listen to literally thousands of radio stations across the world, a small (very small) sampling of them are available on this site, and there are about 10,000 available here, even on publicbroadcasting.ca there are over 120 public, university and community radio stations listed. Then, add to this all of the available podcasts and now vidcasts, and the fact that TV will soon be as available as radio online (there are a few thousand feeds here already) and then peoples private collection of music and video plus, of course, video games, email, web sites, text messaging, phone calls...

Once all of this is available to you whereever you are, on virtually any device, largely for free (or for the cost of your cell/internet connection, who exactly is going to be paying "$14.99 per month" for "100 commercial free stations" on a separate, proprietary, device that doesn't do anything else?"

I won't even bother going into how far the internet/wi-fi/etc has come since 2005. But I thought it was worth mentioning that you can now buy a variety of internet radios for your home - that is radios that will play any of the tens of thousands of stations you can get online.













Cell phones and ipods that do this will be right behind I'm sure. If the CBC is short of funds they might want to see if anyone wants half of Sirus at a very reasonable price.

Something That's Better Than Google?

Though Google has moved far beyond their original inception as a search engine, I think they finally now have competition in that area. addictomatic.com is yet another way of searching the web, but it presents the results a little differently and focuses more on social news and information. When you enter a search term addictomatic grabs the lates results from Topix, Live News, Google Blog Search, Twitter, YouTube, Digg, Flickr, Twingly, Bloglines, Truveo, Ask.com, Technorati, Wordpress and more but leaves them all in their individual boxes so you can get the latest official news as well as 'What people are saying about...'

It seems, at first glance anyway, to be a quick, easy way to find out the very, very latest about whatever it is your are interested in at the moment. At the very least it's more fun than Google.

Breaking Links: Wednesday, November 28

Via Michael Geist: The Globe and Mail on why the problem with 'illegal downloading' is the entertainment industry and not the pirates.

"The history of media innovation for the last hundred years is essentially a history of gadgets that have been considered at one time or another to be "pirate" technologies. Time after time, these technologies have been opposed by the status quo and embraced by consumers. In each case the consumers have won, and in each case the more efficient and convenient distribution of media has been a financial boon to the industry as a whole."

From Spacing Toronto: News that the voice of the London Tube (Emma Clarke) has been fired for posting fake announcements on her website.

"You’ve got the microphone. It’s a Monday morning. There are hundreds of bored commuters listening. The temptation is simply too much…"

Fround through the Radio 3 Blog: Canoe's 6 Steps to fix the music biz

"6. Stop Sucking
Ask kids who their favourite acts are right now. Then throw away those lists and ask for their favourite acts of all time. Virtually every one will mention Led Zeppelin, The Stones, The Beatles, AC/DC, Nirvana, The Who or Black Sabbath. Why? Because those bands made great music. Great music is timeless. What you make is product. People don't want product; they want great music. So stop investing in every flash-in-the-pan trend and start investing in the next immortal band."

From the Montreal City Weblog Bob Gainly is now saying that the official report on death at sea of his daughter last year is a cover up. the CBC's Fifth Estate will report on it this evening.

"She was the adventurous daughter of Canadian hockey icon Bob Gainey and when Laura Gainey was swept overboard from the deck of the tall ship, the Picton Castle, last year it was reported as a tragic accident.

But, Gillian Findlay and a fifth estate team have investigated and found that there are disturbing questions about the safety conditions on the ship and about two conflicting reports about what happened the night Laura was swept into the Atlantic Ocean."

Broken Social Scene and the Stars will both contribute to At the Barricades, volume I

"At the Barricades: Volume 1 is the first in a three volume series produced for Lake Ontario Waterkeeper by Chris Brown. The album reflects the efforts of a group of artists committed to the fight for clean water. They are joining Waterkeeper at the grassroots, where we are working to break down the barricades of economic influence and political clout that currently impede fair, democratic environmental decision-making."

the CBC's Canada Reads has announced the year's contenders.

"An astronaut will defend a book about a 19th-century man obsessed with a glacier and a hip-hop poet will vouch for a book set in a dystopian Toronto of the future in the 2008 edition of CBC Radio One's Canada Reads."

If you're in Vancouver, would like to see Apostle of Hustle for free and know how to send a text message this might be your lucky day!

"Any AOH fan can see the band play for free at the Centre for Digital Media - all you have to do is text message "ApostleofHustle" to 66937 (spells Mozes). The first 30 people to send a text will receive a message back from Mozes explaining where they can pick up the tickets. "

From Michael Geist:

"Industry Minister Jim Prentice has just announced that the government will put in place measures as part of the forthcoming spectrum auction to encourage greater competition within the Canadian wireless market.  Prentice acknowledged that Canadian wireless pricing is too high, particularly for data.  Accordingly, they will set aside a significant chunk of spectrum - nearly 40 percent of the auction - solely for new entrants and mandate tower sharing. "

So, more competition for Bell and Rogers which can only be a good thing. Also, this is a reiteration of the idea that the public airwaves are still the public airwaves and public service requirements can still be placed upon those that lease them.

Spark Plug

Radio host, journalist and podcaster Nora Young has a new show and podcast on CBC Radio. According to the site: "Spark is your guide to the Next Big Thing. On-air and online, join Nora Young for a surprising and irreverent look at tech, trends, and fresh ideas." The program, Sark, launched today with

• Donna Bell from Ryerson University's Academic Integrity office on the ways students use technology to cheat
• Mark Federman on the changing culture of learning and creation
• Scott Moschella on cleaning your keyboard in the dishwasher.
• Ana Serrano on Late Fragment, a Canadian interactive film showing at the Toronto International Film Festival
• A call for your long-distance love stories.
• Thomas Kriese on Omlet, an urban chicken habitat.

The show also uses only Creative Commons music and sound effects so the podcast is exactly what you hear on the radio.

For more info visit the Spark homepage, or the Spark blog you can also download new episodes of the podcast directly from the blog (click here to download episode 1) or you can subscribe via iTunes or via RSS.

Neturality.ca dissapears

With little to no explanation the netneutrality.ca site has shut down.

Thank you to all those who have supported our websites. Due to increasing legal concerns resulting from our public participation in the Net Neutrality debate, we have at this time decided to shut down the operation of these sites.
We have no comment for the media and will not be releasing any additional detail about the factors leading up to this decision. We are currently looking for an appropriate organization to take over these properties and who has the resources to properly operate these sites.
Sincerely,

Kevin McArthur
StormTide Digital Studios Inc.

I wish I could provide further details, but it appears that there aren't any and that more will not be coming. For more information on Net Neutrality check the video below

Open Internet Coalition?

There is no doubt that the internet will, to an even larger extend than it already has, have a dramatic impact on the world. The implications for media are becoming more obvious by the day, but this is just the beginning. As more and more people come online and the average age of internet users goes up there will be profound implications for government and politics, religion and culture.

One only has to look at the effects that the printing press, radio, television and film had on society. The difference with the internet is the low, low barrier to entry and the fact that anything put on the internet is instantly available to the entire world.

This is the first truly populist, democratic media revolution in the history of mankind. We can all guess and speculate about it's ultimate ramifications but, to date, every guess about the future of the internet and how far reaching it's effects might be has fallen dramatically short of the mark.

It is also true that since the dawn of the internet, it has been a constant battle: between traditional and new media, between anarchy and control, between those who see the Web as a medium for sharing ideas and information and those who only see it as a medium for sales, and all too often between content creators and consumers.

I would like to suggest that it's time for a cease fire. I believe that the vast majority of people who use the Internet have more areas of agreement than points of division. So, I believe it is time to unite on the points where we agree and try to hammer out our differences on the points where we do not.

I believe that nearly everyone would like to see an internet where:

Everyone has an opportunity to be heard with a minimum of regulation.

Consumers have easy access to content that they enjoy.

Content creators can be paid fairly.

Conflicts between content producers and consumers are settled fairly and without law suits or the threat of law suits.

Individual privacy is protected.

Actual crime such as spam, identity theft, fraud and child pornography is minimized and punished when it happens.

So, If I am right about this, I would like to hear from content producers, internet users, service providers and nearly everyone else with a stake in this to discuss the creation of an Open Internet Coalition.

The idea at this point is vague. I don't know how these discussions will be held. It is entirely possible that more can be added to the list above. It is likely that separate coalitions will have to be set up in different countries (to deal with that country's specific issues.) But ideally those groups would remain in communication with one another to share ideas and work together when possible.

If you would like to be a part of this, or (especially) if you have ideas about how this coalition can be organized and communicate please get in touch at beach.justin[at]gmail[dot]com.

(Simultaneously posted to Hype, Circles Around the Square and JustinBeach.com)