Everyone’s abuzz about podcasting! Well, kind of. Maybe not everyone. You’ve probably seen the 2016 stats: According to Edison, 21% of Americans ages 12 and up have listened to a podcast in the past month. That’s followed by this spin on trends: “That is up from 17% in 2015. Monthly podcast listenership has increased 75% since 2013.” Everyone deserves a high-five, right? Those numbers are huge! But wait a minute. I think folks in the audio space are missing the bigger story:

Why does any consumer behave in the way that she does? It’s because she has a problem and she wants a solution.  And the more effective, convenient, and simple that solution is, the more she will gravitate towards it. A “problem” doesn’t necessarily mean some vexing dilemma.  It could be as simple as the desire to hear a familiar voice on the way to work. The great thing about technology is that it creatively enables a whole host of problems to be solved in clever and powerfu

It’s not news that Arbitron has a problem with small samples in PPM markets. Every broadcaster in these markets has bumped into this problem at one time or another, usually with either delightful or devastating ratings consequences. Let’s look at this problem from a different perspective: Forget ratings and consider cancer rates in the US.  Did you know that the lowest cancer rates occur in the the least populated communities? Aha, obviously it’s the quality of life in these

Every great brand – just like every great culture – has its origin story. Here’s one from entrepreneur Chad Hurley: We were having a party in San Francisco in the pre-YouTube era.  We’d shot a lot of great videos of our guests, which we wanted to load onto the Internet to share with our friends and family.  But uploading was time-consuming and complicated, and the net result looked like garbage.  It shot our enthusiasm and the fun of the moment was lost. Anyone in that situat