Gary Vaynerchuk calls this “the greatest era of fake businesses ever,” but is he right? And… Dollar Shave Club is snapped up by Unilever, but it’s all about the data. Plus, rants and raves about the wisdom – or not – of flossing, how money-losing SoundCloud could possibly be worth $1 billion, and why YouTube stars will keep haunting the top of the book bestseller lists. It’s episode 47 of Media Unplugged with branding authority Tom Asacker and media strategist Mark Ramsey. Li

Video goes viral, but what about audio? I have never even heard the expression “viral audio,” have you? “Going viral” means “being shared.” So why is it so tough to share audio online? In some cases the sharing capability is clunky or nonexistent. But even where conventional sharing functions exist there are two larger problems: Consumption and discovery. Consumption: Online audio is hard to consume. Okay, not hard, but taxing. If one picture is worth a thousand words, then i

As media mix and match, as edges smudge and barriers topple, it’s inevitable that the original audio medium becomes enhanced with pictures and even video. Not only will this be more engaging to consumers, but it will be more valuable for advertisers. Case and point: SoundCloud. This week the company announced a beta “Pro Partner” tier for uber-content makers, rolling out with folks like Snoop Lion, Red Bull Sound Select, Chris Hardwick’s Nerdist, The Grammys, Kevin Smith’s SM

One of radio’s great opportunities is to get our communal heads and hands around the form and manner in which we post audio online.  Yes, I’m talking about the dreaded podcasts, people! If you’re a radio broadcaster then chances are you have a section of your website devoted to show podcasts (assuming you have a show worthy enough to warrant on-demand listening). Some stations refer to that page as an audio “archive.”  I refer to it as an audio dungeon.  Because only someone

Recently I was interviewed by Olivia Collette for Sparksheet, a business-to-business blog on media, content and marketing.  Olivia has allowed me to share the audio of that interview with you, so here it is. Some of the questions we covered: Is Pandora “radio” or not? Is “radio” today a service, an experience, or a medium? (My answer:  It’s an “experience”) What’s one sentence that can define radio for the future?  And what can we do because of that? What’s the difference bet

Recently the folks at SoundCloud (a very good tool, by the way) did a presentation called “Why Sound will be Bigger than Video.” Well, with all due respect, I don’t agree.  At all. Here’s their argument (points are summarized from Business Insider): Simplicity. Twitter is popular because it gives users a way to express themselves in only 140 keystrokes. But now everybody with a smartphone has a microphone in their pocket, and it takes only one click to record something. A lot