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MARK RAMSEY MEDIA

Technology (and Media) After Steve

Oct 12, 2011

Technology (and Media) After Steve

One of the lasting gifts of technology in general and Steve Jobs and Apple in particular is not the technology itself but what that technology allows us to do. I don’t just mean what “problems” the technology can solve. Nor do I only mean what tasks that technology allows us to complete – its function in the world. While technology does put the proverbial power in the hands of the people to unsettle and disrupt one mature and profitable mega-industry after another, it does s

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A Lesson for News/Talk Radio from Amazon’s Kindle Fire

Sep 29, 2011

A Lesson for News/Talk Radio from Amazon’s Kindle Fire

Too many News/Talk broadcasters just don’t get it. What can they learn from Amazon’s new Kindle Fire? Quite a lot, I think. This is not a piece about Amazon vs. Apple. Nor is it a piece about the merits and prospects for Kindle Fire. Those are all discussed ad infinitum elsewhere. This is a piece about strategic thinking, specifically the strategic thinking that makes Kindle Fire different from the zillions of other tablet alternatives to Apple’s groundbreaking iPad. Amazon

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What Broadcasters can learn from Steve Jobs – the Tao of Steve

Aug 25, 2011

What Broadcasters can learn from Steve Jobs – the Tao of Steve

What lesson does Apple’s just-departed Steve Jobs have for broadcasters? As one Appler once told me, “Steve doesn’t think anybody listens to the radio.” And while this person’s tongue may have been placed slightly in cheek, it’s certainly true that Steve doesn’t think anybody should be limited to what they hear on the radio. I once caught sight of Jobs on the Apple campus. It was a beautiful, sunny day, and there was Steve talking to a coworker a few feet away. As a result

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“Pandora is Clearly Radio”

Jul 22, 2011

“Pandora is Clearly Radio”

“Pandora is clearly radio,” not – as some folks insist on arguing, a “feature.” So says Daniel Ek, CEO of music service Spotify, who believes that Spotify and Pandora can peacefully coexist in much the same way that music stores and radio coexisted (until the digital earth moved, disrupting brick-and-mortar music stores out of existence). Watch the full conversation with Ek here: “We want to manage your music – we want to hold your music collection,” says Ek. This is a tangi

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Radio Thinking is not Platform Thinking

Mar 24, 2011

Radio Thinking is not Platform Thinking

Recently CNN’s Fareed Zakaria spoke with Sony Chairman Howard Stringer about Japan’s post-crisis economic recovery. In the context of that discussion, Stringer talked about the evolution of his own company, Sony, in the wake of a different kind of Tsunami – the kind Apple let loose on the world of mobile devices and entertainment beginning with its iPod and continuing to this day. Sony, Stringer explained, was once building vertical devices for vertical markets. The company

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Guy Kawasaki knows how to make Radio Enchanting

Mar 8, 2011

Guy Kawasaki knows how to make Radio Enchanting

Guy Kawasaki is one of the most widely read and respected voices on the digital frontier. He’s an entrepreneur, marketing guru, one-time Apple chief evangelist, and author of ten books (most of which I have read), including his newest, Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions Watch the video of our conversation here. An abbreviated transcript is below, but the video is richer and funnier, too. Prefer audio? Try this: Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (versi

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Everything you need to know about Radio in the new iPhone 5

Feb 14, 2011

Everything you need to know about Radio in the new iPhone 5

Rumors are rumors, but patents are real. Whether the technology produced by these patents arrives in the forthcoming iPhone 5 or a later version is anybody’s guess, but it sure makes sense to me that we’ll see this sooner rather than later (although it’s also possible that we’ll never see this). Back in December, Apple quietly submitted a patent application that altered the radio experience for its users and introduced three new elements to the iPhone: FM, AM, and Satellite

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Using an iPod in your car just got easier – and better

Feb 10, 2011

Using an iPod in your car just got easier – and better

The ubiquity and ease of use of radio are two of its greatest strengths compared to all the techno-upstarts on the horizon. And, as I’ve said before, they are two of our least easily defended. When Pandora has 80 million registered users (and counting) it is clearly on a trajectory of ubiquity. And iPods (and their i-kin) are even closer to everywhere. Gadgets that satisfy what consumers hunger for explode into every nook and cranny of our lives faster than ever before. Mean

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Can Radio Change the World?

Jan 3, 2011

Can Radio Change the World?

One of the media genres I work in regularly is Christian radio. There is something different about a project with Christian format broadcasters from one with more conventional, let alone commercial, broadcasters. And what’s different isn’t simply the source of funding or the familiarity of the songs on the air. What’s different – what’s palpable – is that everyone on staff knows the brand stands for something bigger. And this feeling is generally lacking for most broadcaster

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Apple helps Radio by Banning “Bad” Apps

Nov 30, 2010

Apple helps Radio by Banning “Bad” Apps

You’ve heard the dustup over whether or not Apple has unceremoniously banned all single-station apps from their app store. The evidence indicates that, in fact, they have not. But all single-station apps are not created equal, and if you are out to make a “lazy app” – an app redundant to your over-the-air station with functionality that is unworthy of Apple’s (or anybody else’s) mobile experience, don’t be surprised if the Gods of Cuptertino turn up their nose at you (and don

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WHY there’s an “App for That”

Oct 10, 2010

WHY there’s an “App for That”

The best argument for why you – or your clients, for that matter – could benefit from their own branded app is not “because everyone seems to have one” or “because my competitor has one.” Nor is it because “I have to get my stream on a mobile device.” The best argument is because mobile devices and the applications which power their potentialities are central to the experience of consumers, especially the younger ones who have never known a world without them. And that argume

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Jul 2, 2010

Radio is what’s on it – and how it makes us feel

People – real people – consume products and services because of what those products and services do and how they make us feel in their presence. You could sell an iPhone by advertising its technical specifications just the way your local radio station promotes how many songs it plays in a row. Or you could focus on what problems the device solves and how that solution transforms our lives. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1wbQdVezio It's not about the device per se, it's about

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Jun 23, 2010

Paint your Masterpiece, Radio

You can feel the passion ooze from this Apple video which celebrates the makers of apps. And interestingly, several of the examples shown here are media (a.k.a. content) companies. And a couple of them are in the radio space. That would be your space. For my part, this is not a pitch for developing on the iPad. It's an illustration that content knows no boundaries, that content lives in different shapes and sizes on all platforms, that content and technology are now inextric

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Google has glimpsed the future…and it may be yours

Jun 22, 2010

Google has glimpsed the future…and it may be yours

From the Wall Street Journal: The first phase of Google's music service is expected to be a Web store where users can buy and download tracks, music industry insiders said. It will be tied directly to Google's search engine, so that people using Google.com to look for a particular group or song will be served a link to the company's music store, according to people familiar with the talks. Sounds innocuous enough, right? But wait, there's more… These people also said the dow

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The dark secret iBiquity doesn’t want you to know

Jun 20, 2010

The dark secret iBiquity doesn’t want you to know

What's left out of the news is one important point: We're talking about an accessory here – not a core functional piece of the iPod hardware. That's abundantly clear from the title of Apple's application and completely missed by most of the radio industry trades: "Digital Radio Tagging Using an RF Tuner Accessory." An accessory is what you call shoes and a purse. It's not part of the dress itself. The significance, of course, is that an accessory is optional. It doesn't

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iTunes – coming to a cloud near you

Jun 8, 2010

iTunes – coming to a cloud near you

Yesterday much attention was lavished on Steve Jobs and his announcement of a new and improved iPhone (still and, I would argue, forever lacking a radio receiver, HD or otherwise). Fast Company noted at least one topic that was glaringly absent from Jobs' address: The much rumored idea of "iTunes in the cloud." Not a peep about iTunes during Steve's speech, which may be a surprise to some who were expecting news about a move to cloud-based storage and content streaming (poss

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May 20, 2010

What IS “Radio” in 2010? (Hint: Move the Frame)

Those of you who are thoughtful about radio's future and its many opportunities in a digital world will appreciate this video – it's a highlight from my recent presentation at the British Columbia Association of Broadcasters conference in May, 2010. How do we redefine radio for an all-new age? The answer is here (and it's not "stick an FM receiver in a mobile phone"). At least part of the answer. The rest will be on display at the upcoming Convergence conference. Want just t

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