Dear advertisers: Our audience numbers are garbage! And… The road to Hell is paved with pageviews. Plus, rants and raves about the iPhone parody gadget which earned one startup 1.5 million visitors a day, the Brangelina wax figure divorce, and more. This is the episode to listen to if you’re a media brand perplexed that greater scale only drives down the value of your reach. It’s episode 51 of Media Unplugged with branding authority Tom Asacker and media strategist Mark Ramse

So the hot rumor about the forthcoming iPhone 7 is that it will lose something that has so far been taken for granted. I’m talking about the headphone jack. No headphone jack means no place to plug in your earbuds, headphones, or stereo cable. That means the audio will transmit wirelessly, and that most irritating of mobile phone nuisances – the easily tangled and easily ripped-from-your-ear cord – will be a thing of the past. According to one source: …the iPhone 7 will ship

Rush Limbaugh’s contract is up and it’s decision time – not only for Rush but for the industry which awakens to a 2016 where, for better or worse, Rush is the most famous name in radio. And it’s time for Rush Limbaugh to go. Now this is nothing personal. Rush has had an amazing symbiotic relationship with radio over the years he has been behind the mic, and for that a great many listeners, broadcasters, and clients are grateful. And when Rush moves on, obscurity will not be t

“Is it time to kill that clunky stream?” reads the headline in the Radio Ink piece.  It is an interview with the National Associate Director of SAG/AFTRA. First, the premise that a “clunky stream” is the norm, let alone the state of the art, is wrong. A clean stream is as close as some simple best practices available from the streaming provider of your choice.  A “clunky stream” is typically the result of station inattention, not technological insufficiency. Second, If you wa

It hasn’t gotten a ton of attention, but SiriusXM’s recently revised mobile apps add some functionality which I think makes a dramatic difference in the quality of the user experience and also transforms the meaning of satellite radio online using the familiar metaphor of the DVR (not new for the conventional satellite radios, but certainly new for their streaming versions). It’s no longer simply the mobile way to stream most SiriusXM channels via the Internet.  It now allows

So the other day I was in Barnes & Noble for the first time in a long time.  What a revelation! Where are the DVD’s?!  Gone!  And the music?  Gone!  Both replaced by a wide variety of “learning toys.”  Meanwhile the “Nook” section was expanded and moved to the center of the store, complete with ultra-contemporary Apple-like design aesthetic. Remember when the bookstore sold books (and music and movies)?  That was back when B&N competed against my dearly departed Borders, the

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

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

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

This graphic is courtesy of RadioTime. What this picture leaves out is the suddenly changing definition of “radio” in a world where personalization, customization, and connection rule.  All of those factors will soon be built into cars, and the entertainment delivery system will be one of the most potent differentiators in the dealer’s showroom. Yours will not look like mine because I will be able to make mine my own. There will be no such thing as an “audio entertainment sys

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

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