Radio
A modest week of press
Wednesday, July 23, 2008 10:34 AM (permalink)
I was interviewed twice this week on the subject of HD Radio, once by Chuck Taylor for a Reuters piece, and once on American Public Media's Future Tense program. The Reuters story was worked to a variety of outlets--check out the differing headlines in the Washington Post version and the PC Week version to get a sense of the gigantic flame magnet HD Radio has become!
My radio interview went well, though Jon Gordon clearly has a great talent for digital editing to make me sound so toastmasters-ly lucid--thanks, Jon :) I've included a link to the podcast below.
Finally, I posted some additional thoughts on this controversial topic over on our company's radio industry blog, The Infinite Dial. Have you heard any great HD Radio stations? Do drop me a line, if so.
Future Tense Interview: MP3 - iTunesA Research Bonanza
Tuesday, April 8, 2008 9:18 AM (permalink)
Loads of data being presented over the next two weeks. First, if you are interested in the changing digital platforms for audio, I am co-presenting the 2008 edition of The Infinite Dial: Radio's Digital Future with Pierre Bouvard, the President of Sales and Marketing for Arbitron. The webinar is free and you can sign up here. So far we have over 1200 people signed up, so the "Q&A" should be a hoot.
Next, a subject close to my heart--the state of web design for radio stations and other Internet audio players. I will be giving a short (but punchy!) talk at the Radio And Internet Newsletter (RAIN) Las Vegas Summit. If you are going to be in Vegas for the NAB, do drop in (sign up at the RAIN site). It should be a great day, keynoted by Joe Kennedy and Tom Conrad from Pandora.
For you podcasting aficionados, I have some great new data to premiere as part of the Association for Downloadable Media's forum at ad:tech in San Francisco. This forum, called "Get The Download", will feature some great presentations from the board and members of the ADM and will feature success stories, case studies, and of course a big ole' bucket of Edison numbers at 9 AM (what better way to wake up?").
Finally, if you can't make it to SF next week, I will be presenting a much longer version of our new Podcasting data at Podcamp NYC on April 25, after which I will have the whole report online. Lots of news, stats and insight on the current state of podcast consumption coming up, so I hope you can check it out!
An Unsatisfying Flirtation
Thursday, February 28, 2008 9:37 AM (permalink)
For a lark, I experimented with using creaky old Radio to upstream this blog instead of exporting from Tinderbox and manually uploading the site using FTP. Experiment over. While both options gave me a locally published weblog (which I prefer, cause I'm 'fussy' that way) and I still did a lot of my writing in Tinderbox, Radio's far-too-easy one-click interface between RSS and posting (and merciless, constant upstreaming) actually affected my writing--my blog posts were essentially becoming Twitter posts. I use Twitter for twitter posts, and I don't think I add any real value as a link-blogger, so the past two month's worth of my blogging output were strangely untherapeutic, and God knows I need therapy. I know pretty much any blogging tool can be customized to suit one's particular style, but it is funny how, all things being equal, my 'style' changed immensely from one tool to the other.
Old Radio links still work for now; will redirect them on my next big honkin' flight across the Atlantic.
Does Talk Radio Matter?
Thursday, February 14, 2008 9:00 AM (permalink)
I had some great exit poll data to work with today on that very issue, taken from our work on the Chesapeake Primaries yesterday. My conclusion--talk radio pundits may influence attitudes, but not beliefs, and most Republicans in those contests tended to vote with their core values more than on the strength of individual issues. Anyway, read the whole piece on talk radio and politics here.
Presenting Data Vs. Telling a Story
Monday, July 9, 2007 10:04 PM (permalink)
I have been giving a lot of presentations lately--some good, some bad. In my business, clarity is Job #1. I often scour the Internet for mentions of my presentation or the data I give not out of vanity (though I have no small amount of that) but out of the fear that the data will be misrepresented, miscopied, or otherwise butchered. I always get one or two of these, and those I chalk up to the writer either reading what they wanted to into the slide, no understanding research in general, or just making a typo. When I find more than one or two specific examples, however, I know that I was the butcher.
For instance, I gave two different presentations over the past couple of weeks that came out very differently-one pretty good (at least for me) and one not really up to my standards. In both, I was presenting data-slide after slide of data. But while I left the first one, a presentation to the Country Radio Broadcasters about the state of Country Radio partisans, with a good feeling, I left the second one, to the Corporate Podcast Summit, feeling like I hadn't done my best.
For both I was well prepared, knew the data cold, spoke confidently and had few nerves. But there was a big difference in how I felt afterward, and it taught me something. In the CRB presentation, I went through about 50 slides in an hour--with only 30 or so complex data graphs. In the podcast presentation, I used 40 slides in 25 minutes, and actually skipped 4 or 5 slides as I raced to leave myself enough time for my conclusions.
I have read lots of advice about how many slides you should have in a presentation, and most of the experts say that you should count on one slide for every :45 to 1:00 of your talk. That might work for a Tom Peters-esque slide that says nothing but "FOCUS" or "WOW!" but not so much for tracking the purchasing habits of two distinct lifegroups over 4-5 years. So I think I am going to make myself a new rule. The Internets love lists, so here is my "list of two":
- 1. Allow at least three minutes per slide for a data-rich chart or graph
- 2. If you can't talk for three compelling minutes about a data-rich chart, cut it.
The last bit will be the most difficult for me--after all, I have all this great data--why not tell it all to the world? But I have learned that even in a presentation filled with exciting, really new-to-the-world data, less is more. I found myself in the podcast presentation really racing through some slides (and, in hindsight, they weren't that important) while spending 4-5 minutes on others. It is the slides that I spent 4-5 minutes on that really told the story, and are the ones that no one got wrong, miscopied or otherwise corrupted when I read the write-ups later.
I think if I have to "fill" a certain amount of time I wildly overestimate the number of charts to use, and this is, I am sure, a crutch. After all, if I run out of things to say in a 30-minute presentation, it is comforting to know that I have 60 slides of data to blow through as a safety net. Unfortunately, this results in a less-than-memorable presentation, though I used to congratulate myself for "not even using these slides--that's how great I was!" Now I see excess material as a real failure--a lack of proper planning and foresight to what the story really is.
Looking back over the podcast presentation, I had 7 or 8 really great charts, and then a bunch of charts that were best left as conversation bits at the cocktail hour. Had I gone with that, I probably would have given a 22-minute talk that told the same story, only better. That is the best 30-minute presentation advice you'll ever get!
Okay--I'm a Mac guy, and I bought a Zune
Monday, December 11, 2006 11:37 AM (permalink)
I wanted to get a portable video player for my frequent flying, so I did a considerable amount of research and finally settled on Microsoft's Zune, despite all the rabid anti-Microsoft fervor with all the Digg-y kids out there. Now, I am as dyed-in-the-wool a Mac user as they come, as evidenced by the fact that I am writing this in Tinderbox, which (for now!) is as Mac-centric as they come. In fact, I am an outright inconvenience to the rest of my office back in NJ, who are all on a PC network and require the PC for some of our more esoteric research apps. Still, I 'cope' and do quite nicely with my MacBook Pro, Parallels, and (where necessary) Boot Camp.
But. I bought a Zune. I have a first generation iPod, so I am no luddite. Guess what, Mac fanboys, the Zune is actually pretty good. True, I have to use Boot Camp to get my Mac to recognize it (Parallels won't--yet) but in my case this is not a hardship since I already had to use Bootcamp for a couple of work apps. Frankly, despite the '5.5' appellation given to the latest iteration of iPod Video players, the '1.0' Zune has a number of compelling features that simply beat out the iPod. Here are my top 5:
1. The Screen--the "iPod Video" is no video player. It's the same screen the music iPod uses--but the tiny size is no "feature," it is an inconvenience. I ripped the complete Lord of the Rings Trilogy (Widescreen) to my Zune yesterday--try even watching a widescreen-aspect video on the current iPod video. Ow, my eyes.
2. The Radio. Why doesn't the iPod have a radio? I know I can pay even more money and get the Radio Remote, but the Zune ships with a pretty great FM radio interface, complete with RDS.
3. Zune Pass. iTunes music store has no subscription music option. Zune does. Pretty big benefit, as far as i am concerned.
4. Interface. This one, I grant, is a matter of opinion, but the Zune Interface is nice and clean, easy to use, and makes great use of the increased vertical real estate on the Zune. Besides, that scroll wheel on the iPod felt like cracking a safe with my massive music collection. I don't miss the scroll wheel at all.
5. The casing. Why, at version 5.5, does the iPod still scratch with a sneeze? This is one that much-maligned market researchers like myself could have helped to fix at version 2. You NEED cases and screen protectors with iPods, because they scratch so easily. Can't scratch the Zune, which tells me that they read all the iPod users' feedback, even if Apple didn't.
Apples to apples (no pun intended), the Zune is just a better value. Priced exactly the same as the iPod video with the same amount of hard drive space (30 Gigs), it just has more to offer. Note that I didn't even mention the Wireless functionality yet--which, admittedly, holds little use for me now, but perhaps in the future (even with a hack) I could grab my tunes off my wireless network. Doesn't exist now, but could, at least. Couldn't, with the iPod.
The biggest complaints I have heard about the Zune could easily be applied to the iPod--the draconian DRM, for one. How is the Zune's any worse than the iTunes "7-strikes" model? And the wireless feature is getting slammed by lots of pro-mac press. At least they tried! C'mon, Apple--respond with something cooler, and I will buy it.
Again, I am as big an Apple fanboy as they come. The Zune, however, is a welcome entrant--Apple has let the iPod stagnate over the years, as far as I am concered. Maybe the increased functionality of the Zune will convince Apple's product engineers that the public is ready for more robust .MP3 players.
A Great Panel on Blogging
Monday, October 23, 2006 8:33 PM (permalink)
I normally don't cross-promote items from my work here, but I am going to be moderating a fantastic panel at the National Association of Broadcasters Radio Show in Dallas next month. Details are here, and with participants like Jason Calacanis, Anil Dash and Bryan Jay Miller, it promises to be lively and fun (for me, at least). Wish me luck!
Possibly Related:
I Want to Give Six Apart My Money
Saturday, June 3, 2006 10:08 PM (permalink)
A few days ago, Mike Rundle wrote an interesting comparison of Movable Type vs. Wordpress over on the Business Logs site. Since there are many users of both, Mike's post generated a lot of passionate comments, many of them anti-Six Apart. I'm no designer, and little more than a hobby-ish developer--my day job keeps me busy enough. But I am a licensee of Movable Type, and I have used Wordpress for various little projects, so the technical aspects of Mike's piece don't fly completely over my head. There is, however, another decidedly non-technical aspect to Mike's comparison that bears amplification.
About a year and a half ago, soon after I joined Edison, I pushed very hard to get our website (a hideous, out-of-the-box Frontpage special) redesigned to make publishing content easier. Edison has grown into a thriving and profitable business, in no small part due to an aggressive thought-leadership strategy of continually putting new studies and analyses into the market. When I took on the task of turning our website into a more effective platform for these purposes, I turned to Movable Type to handle all of the static and dynamic pages of our site. If you visit the site now, the design may be a little kludgy (which is not the fault of the person who did the original stylesheet--anything that looks bad I probably did), but the site works like a charm, is well-optimized for search engines, and is dead easy for the folks back in the office to add columns and studies to.
The success of this modest redesign in 2004 has given me a bit more leeway (and budget) in 2006 to really spruce it up, and we have engaged the aforementioned Mr. Rundle to do the job (and I can tell you, it is going to look fantastic.) We had the option of moving to a new platform, and I am very cognizant of the increased traction Wordpress has with developers and designers. I am sure there are more Kubrick-themed websites out there than people who even know who Stanley Kubrick was. We chose to stick with Movable Type, however.
Now, I can give you a few technical reasons why. We are going to launch two auxiliary blogs to accompany the Edison site redesign, and Movable Type makes administration of multiple sites under one interface dead easy. The interface itself is very professional and just "feels" more robust than many of the other options I have tried. And, frankly, I know how it works, and inertia plays a role here, too. The biggest reason we are staying with Movable Type, however, remains the same as the reason we started with Movable Type in the first place. There is a there there, as one of my colleagues at work might say.
We have had three or four reasonably serious problems with the site in the past couple of years, and whether they were due to Movable Type or not, the support staff at Six Apart solved every one of them, generally within an hour of our initial ticket. We pay for that support within the terms of our commercial license, and the fact that there is a company there with a tech support function is 100% why we will continue to use Movable Type for our site. I am no Luddite, and am not afraid of getting my hands all code-y while I monkey around with my little hobby. But, again, I am but a dilettante when it comes to web design and development. I am not arrogant enough to think that the tiny bit of knowledge I have that enables me to get this article published on the web will save Edison from some kind of MySQL disaster. But Six Apart once saved me from a MySQL disaster, and got us back online in an hour. That's money to us.
Look, I know there is a huge community of developers out there who are more than happy to help out with Wordpress. If I am building a website for personal reasons, I might use Wordpress (have done), Tinderbox (this site) or even iWeb, for crying out loud, as I have done for my personal site (ugly URLS and bloated code be damned--there is currently no easier way to get my family photos out of iPhoto and onto the Web, and I am all about easy.) I really like Wordpress, for many of the reasons Mike mentioned. I also know that there are hundreds of folks out there who are available on a contract basis to fix Wordpress problems for a fee. What you have to realize, though, is that to a small business such as ours, retainers and hourly developer fees are "variable costs." A Movable Type license is a fixed cost. Fixed costs can be capitalized, predicted and budgeted for.
I have met some of the folks from Six Apart; I have even asked Six Apart's Anil Dash to be a speaker on a technology panel I moderated last year at the National Association of Broadcasters' Radio Show. They are smart people, and seem to have a business there. That is important to us. Again, NO disrespect to the Wordpress folks--and if we wanted a hosted solution, wordpress.com might have been a real option for us. But to me, there aren't really a lot of options for small companies like ours who don't have a full-time web development staff but want the stability of a license and paid support. So, for us, Movable Type vs. Wordpress is currently a non-starter (though Movable Type vs. Expression Engine is a more interesting comparison for our purposes.)
Wordpress is great--the more I play around with it, the better I like it. But unlike many of the folks who deserted Movable Type for Wordpress, I need to pay for it. If our site goes fakakta, we can't wait a day--we can't wait an hour.
Blogging with Tinderbox
Saturday, June 3, 2006 8:16 PM (permalink)
I recently went back to deciphering Flint, which is a collection of macros and templates to turn Tinderbox into a pretty robust weblog generator. Ever since Radio Userland I have liked the idea of maintaining a weblog locally and then only needing to upload html to a remote server with no server install necessary--easy to keep my thoughts on my laptop where they belong, and very simple to publish what I want to publish. I realize that you can accomplish the same thing with a weblog client like Ecto and any garden-variety weblog app, but Tinderbox's ability to replicate a post-it board full of non-linear notes is brilliant and irreplacable. Why does this matter? Look at the popularity of tagging as an organizational scheme for modern blogs. Tagging has become popular precisely because 'chronological' and 'hierarchical' just don't cut it as organizing principles for the giant spinning cork ball of the creative mind.
Tinderbox, however, lets me link any old note to any other old note, and back again--so my notes can be organized like index cards spread out on a table, regardless of how my weblog reads. That makes it much easier for me to revisit things I might have missed, and keep "back burner" thoughts percolating for when inspiration strikes. It also lets me maintain a private weblog and a public weblog all in one Tinderbox document--a highly usable intersection of Wiki and weblog, all searchable and linked on one big canvas. Again, though there are other apps better suited for weblogging, there are none better suited for brainstorming and organizing my thoughts--and now all I have to do is drag a note from one part of my drawing table to another, and it is published (or not). When you can truly live within Tinderbox for everything, the tool itself stops being visible and starts becoming a natural extension of your thought process and not just a "blog tool."
So I took the Memorial Day weekend as a chance to really dissect Flint and customize it for my own purposes. First, though Flint is available for only a small charge, I do wish it were included with Tinderbox, since it is really necessary to use Flint (IMHO) to generate a weblog that is at least competitive with the basic server-based apps out there (Blogger, Typepad, etc.). Tinderbox, right out of the...uh...box, has a considerable learning curve if you want to turn your box o' notes into a serviceable and attractive weblog. Having said that, I am all for supporting small developers (and Mark Bernstein's support for Tinderbox is fanatical) so I had no issue ponying up another 20 bucks to make Tinderbox really hum.
Flint, it turns out, is a great kick-start to learning how Tinderbox wrangles XML--once you get your head around that, you can pretty much create any kind of web document you want. The macros and agents in Flint take care of generating the basic pages of your weblog, and since it is set up to use CSS stylesheets (divorcing the content from the presentation) it is a snap to customize how it all looks. I am happy with how it turned out--no disrespect to the default stylesheets that come with Flint, but I never feel like I own the place until I have put up my own drapes.
Anyway, I thought about putting up a detailed step-by-step guide to how I wrangled Flint into what you see here, but the process of figuring it out for myself was incredibly valuable. Really. So, who am I to deny you that. But do drop me an email if you have any questions--I'm happy to help.
What a month! Staying sane and avoiding jet lag.
Sunday, May 28, 2006 8:47 PM (permalink)
Well, February and March have been a blur for me so far. I started out with a trip to Nashville to speak at the Country Radio Seminar, then off to Philly for a little Classic Rock. Then, a cup of coffee at home and a short quote in USA Today before heading out to San Francisco for some World Class Rock and even more that rocks, before ending up in Toronto to moderate a panel about Jack at Canadian Music Week.
Now, I am tired.
One thing I did do, however, that definitely kept me sane, was stay on Eastern Standard Time, no matter where I was and what I was doing. While I wouldn't do this on vacation, it is a must for me when I am travelling on business. For one, I just can't afford to be sleeping away in the morning while the office is open, because the rest of my days are usually devoured (and rightly so) by my clients. So this means getting up at 4 am every morning on the west coast, and getting to bed by 9 at the latest. If you never set your watch back, get some exercise in the morning, and lay off the wine at dinner, you can cruise right along all week on EST without even noticing, and skip the jet lag permenantly. I am tired enough when I get home just from travelling without accumulating an additional time-debt. I am crap at jet lag; if you are too, then give this a try. You might be amazed how easy it is to leave your watch unmolested and just refuse to change time zones.
