SoCast is a company that integrates radio and social media to make the distinctions transparent across platforms. In other words, SoCast makes radio social. Not only does SoCast social media-enable all your online radio content, they can even provide an all-social CMS for your brand. Sandy Hurst is COO of SoCast, and he highlighted the opportunity for radio in the social media space at hivio 2013, the first-ever radio ideas festival held this past Summer in San Diego. Watch a

In this presentation, Patrick brings us up to date on trends in online radio and explains just how much online listening is happening to Pandora at the local market level (it’s pretty astounding). In the month before hivio, about two-thirds of the market’s online listening was to Pandora, while the rest was spread across an astounding 4,754 different sources, including many broadcasters from across the country. Patrick detailed many fresh statistics on the growth of online ra

Invariably, that means some in the industry will become leaders while the rest become followers and even also-rans. Mike Hodges is one of the leaders. He’s President and COO of U-T San Diego (formerly known as the San Diego Union-Tribune), one of the largest and most profitable local media companies in Southern California. My conversation with Mike was one of the most popular Q&A’s from hivio, the radio ideas festival held this past June. Mike has tons of lessons for broadcas

Among the presenters at this year’s hivio radio ideas festival were two Google execs: Gabriela D’Addario and Maggie Ferrante. They are part of the team introducing media companies to Google’s social and communication platforms: Google+ and Hangouts (I just peeked at Google+ and jumped on a live Q&A between the LA Times and Aaron Paul from AMC’s Breaking Bad). We live-streamed hivio on Hangouts Live and built our event base on Google+, and it worked great. It seems to me that

What could radio broadcasters possibly learn from a Zoo? Ask the folks at hivio, the first inaugural radio ideas festival, because this conversation between me and San Diego Zoo Global Brand Manager Michael Warburton turned out to be one of the “hits” of the event, and it had the room buzzing. Some highlights: How legendary brands can keep fresh Why bother to go beyond “good enough” in all the actions of your brand (hint: Because the extra effort matters to fans and they appr

My talk with digital trend-setter Chad Robley is one of the opening sessions from hivio 2013, the inaugural radio ideas festival in San Diego. Chad is CEO of Mindgruve, a digital agency whose clients include brands like Proctor & Gamble, House of Blues, Oracle, Merck and Live Nation. Watch as Chad describes: The importance of content in any digital play, and how integrating that content into the everyday lives of consumers is the best way to move them (not “speaking at them”

Here are some of the questions I asked Tom: How has Apple’s introduction of iTunes Radio changed the calculus for Pandora? Are you personally surprised by how big Pandora has become? Why has Pandora become so big and not its many competitors? What’s your secret sauce? Are there any plans to add spoken work/talk content to the platform? Are there any plans to add local traffic, weather and news to the platform? What will the Pandora user experience be like in 3 years? What pla

It’s called: Solving Radio’s Attention Crisis. What attention crisis, you may ask? Watch this presentation and find out, because the ratings for all of radio have been steadily declining for years and there are only two solutions to this problem. In this presentation, I explain both. This is a super-important presentation that shares some Arbitron statistics you probably have not seen – stats that folks in radio do not like to acknowledge. But to make plans you need to begin

What are the key takeaways from hivio, our inaugural radio ideas festival? Listen and find out! Earlier this week I was honored to be one of the featured interviews on the Radio Stuff Podcast published by Radio consultant and programmer Larry Gifford and radio personality and producer Deb Slater. Larry and Deb summarized some of the key takeaways and included audio from Triton’s Patrick Reynolds and Sports Radio consultant Rick Scott, both of whom were part of the “hive” at h

Yesterday, I posted the morning sessions from hivio, the first-ever radio ideas festival, a free event in San Diego. Today, you can watch the afternoon ones. The event streamed live. Click the video/image below to watch the afternoon sessions. Because this is a real-time stream, feel free to scrub to whatever point in the afternoon that interests you. Over the coming weeks we will be publishing every individual Q&A and presentation. The afternoon kicked off with a timely

We had a full house and a massive amount of social media conversation last week for the debut of http://hivio.com, the first-ever radio ideas festival, a free event in San Diego. The event streamed live. Click the video/image below to watch the morning sessions (tomorrow I’ll post the afternoon ones). Because this is a real-time stream, feel free to scrub to whatever point in the morning that interests you. Over the coming weeks we will be publishing every individual Q&A and

And if you’re not here in San Diego in person, you can watch it live! It’s the first-ever radio ideas festival and it’s happening on Thursday this week. It’s FREE – and it’s invitation-only. We have a room full of people attending at a quirky downtown San Diego location. The day will include in-depth Q&A with brands, agencies, and media as well as trend-defining presentations. It will stream live in two parts – morning and afternoon. I’ll update this blog post to share the UR

It’s called hivio, and it’s just over two weeks away! It’s radio’s first-ever ideas festival – a free, invitation-only event. We’ve got a full house at our secret location in San Diego on June 20 – dozens of folks have been formally invited and RSVP’d. If you’re not on the guest list. don’t sweat it. You can watch the whole thing online live! It’s a day full of presentations, demos, and discussion with tons of authorities from outside radio about the radio and audio space and

Have you joined the hive yet? Last week I introduced hivio, radio’s first-ever ideas festival. It’s a FREE event and you can watch it and participate in it, either in person or on-demand. This is my last abject pitch in this blog for you to sign up for the event. So don’t miss out! It’s going to be an exciting day, including Q&A with Pandora founder Tim Westergren, a presentation from the folks at Google – and much more. So far, the positive response has been overwhelming. M

In this era of choice and abundance and consumer control, people will continue to embrace radio primarily because it offers them something they can’t get anywhere else, something unique and compelling. Or they won’t embrace radio at all. So how to explain the results of a survey I conducted last week – 1,000 random US respondents ages 18 and up. The question: Agree or Disagree – “Radio brands create unique and compelling content” The results? That’s more than 3-to-1 in the