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Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Web radio, regions and promotion

Was listening to web radio and found myself pondering what made it different from traditional radio, and realized you get information from traditional radio about what people around you in your own region are hearing.

To me radio has great promotional value, and is great for discovery as I think of so many songs I would never have known I could like them if I hadn't heard them repeatedly on radio. While web radio seems to want to personalize my experience and gives me no clue what other people in my area prefer. But why not?

Seems to me tech executives who control web radio think their software can pick songs I prefer. Um, I find I tend to pick songs I prefer almost perfectly! It's amazing, except of course, it's not. Of course I'm best at picking songs I prefer. Radio at its best lets me hear other music.

We humans are communal creatures, and part of the value of radio is giving us a communal experience, so that when you are at the dance club you all can know the same songs. If everyone has a personalized experience then you could have weirdness in such communal areas as no one hears what they like the most.

Maybe these tech executives see a future where people wear headphones at clubs so they can all dance to their own music, and you could have weird clusterings of people glassy eyed looking at each other, gyrating to different songs, desperate for some kind of connection so they're there, anyway.

No idea about the regulatory framework in this area, so don't know what the FCC allows, but why can't web radio have regional flavors, like South Georgia region, where you can hear what people around you like? Maybe even vote on your favorite tunes for that region, so it could be like a weekly thing, say? And local radio could be piped through with a share of advertising, which could help support local radio?

And wouldn't local advertisers line up for such a thing? Knowing they could get to the audience that might come in and buy stuff?

And the federal government should focus on helping to promote and sustain local radio. So at the national level the way should be clear for partnerships that help all concerned: radio listeners, local radio stations, and web radio providers and stations as well.

Recently posted about traveling to the region where I grew up, so may as well take yet another opportunity to promote it!

Now I can move from speculations about web radio, to my own ideas about figuring out ethical promotion, and oh yeah, so like NOT even thinking about ever getting paid for community promotion. That's a cool one to me, so no matter how far I might go, community promotion, like for the region where I grew up, or even for my favorite nation, my own USA, will always just be about feeling it.

Not currently getting paid to promote anything. But let's say, hypothetically some tech company wanted me to advise them on implementing ideas in this area, sounds good, hypothetically. But I'm talking this out to see how it feels if it's out there even just as a far-fetched notion.

So like there would be some temporary consultation contract with some upfront amount, and some success metric, where there would be a certain additional. And then I help out, and then there's a roll out, and I'd promote it here on my blog, where it would be noted I was a paid consultant. Hmmm....pondering.

So that's a hypothetical example of a promotional thing and I'll admit a lot of why I'm doing this post is to talk out such a thing, as I puzzle over what kind of paid promotional things I might consider. Sounded good hypothetically and then it didn't.

The entire arena gives me a queasy feeling. Maybe there is nothing.

Interesting. Will ponder. Oh, so no clue if any of those ideas will have an impact. Don't know why things weren't done that way before anyway, but it's easy for me to put up some ideas, and use the opportunity to puzzle through things.


James Harris

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