A Peek at CBS Radio on the iPad

Here's an official "shaky blur-cam" peek at CBS Radio's new execution for the iPad, called radio.com.

While the app is certainly slick, the experience feels like a browser of CBS radio station (and Yahoo/AOL partner) websites.

That's not a criticism per se, because presumably the whole motivation to download this app is to get deep into a station's experience.

The problem, obviously, is that you're getting deep into one company's radio experience, and most consumers are fans of stations (if they're fans at all), not the companies which own them. 

The app also covers a slew of genre territory thanks to AOL and Yahoo, but am I here for genres or for stations I know?  And if I'm here for stations, then why does an app called "radio.com" behave like an app called "tiffanynetwork.com"?

Then again, from the "I might become a stockholder" perspective, who could ask for anything more?

In any event, CBS deserves great credit for embracing change and leveraging their content on this new platform.  It's not the way I'd do it, but it will be vastly better than most.