2007 Trend To Watch: Widgets
Labels: dashboard, gadgets, Google, Jointblog, Konfabulator, Media Trend Watching, New Media, widgets, Wireless, Yahoo
Want to build your brand cross-platiform but having trouble getting it to happen online? Widgets just may be your answer.
And it's cost-effective, too.
The Jointblog has been a longtime fan of widgets since first discovering Konfabulator in 2004 (later purchased by Yahoo! a year ago). With the release of Window's new Vista platform, PC users will get a whole new array of widget options (also known as "gadgets") for the desktop which will pull more Internet activity off of web browsers and onto these customized mini-applications.
Widgets were one of several great additions for Mac's OS X system, epecially for its Dashboard advancements for 10.3 and 10.4 in the last year (expect even more once Leopard 10.5 and the new iPhone are released this summer).
And Google already has invested deeply into widgets, too.
In addition, as WiFi and WiMax helps make the web more accessible with mobile devices and cellphones, widgets will be the key killer app to make the web tolerable to use when mobile.
It's the perfect bridge technology bringing "old" media into the new media world.
Business 2.0 said "suddenly everything's coming up widgets." In November, Newsweek proclaimed 2007 to be the Year of the Widget and we couldn't agree more. Last month, West Coast wireless carrier AllTel previewed its new widget-handy cellphone tools and received rave reviews for it at January's CES.
Most powerfully, these widgets create focused user experiences giving exactly desired content immediately, on-demand, 24/7, when the user wants it.
For content owners, it also provides an advertising opportunity that can be built right into the widget app.
It's the media trend the Jointblog continues anticipating to grow in significance.
The big question: will traditional media sources such a radio, TV, newspapers and magazines be too slow to notice or will they see the low-cost, ease-of-use opportunity in time?
If radio could figure out its DRM and AFTRA issues, it could create the perfect bridge to build fast online tuning. For example, RadioSherpa's radio badges.
What's going on with your radio station this week? On your morning show? Latest contests and promotions? How about for your market's entire cluster of radio stations? It can all be done on one widget you build. Auomatically, through RSS and other feeders.
Nice and easy. For you. And, more importantly, for your listeners' digital online needs.
Good follow-up article: What's Up With Widgets?
For a quick review of why widgets matter now, here's a 2-minute YouTube/Engadget clip explaining the immediate value of widgets and why you should consider offering customized widgets for your own users to use, install and even embed into their blogs and websites (which, if done, can serve as a free form of marketing for you):
posted by Unknown @ Sunday, February 18, 2007,
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Mobile WiFi Radio: What Radio could look like soon in a city near you
Labels: Clear Channel, Digital, eChannel, Internet, Jointblog, Mobile, New Media, Radio, Teens, WiFi, WiMax, Wireless
Broadcast radio began ignoring teens right after Baby Boomers finally moved out of the demo 20 years ago. The only rare exception was the short-lived Alt Rock boom during the Grunge 90s. Yes, Top 40 radio still attracted teen listeners (what choice did they really have?). But, for the most part, radio strategically decided it needed grownup listeners in order to maximize revenues.
Teen radio listeners were accepted by default. Secondary. Most often, teen ratings have been viewed as a negative for a long time.
The rise of the Internet, file sharing, iPods, and Internet radio easily and quickly filled the void created by radio station ignoring teens. Now that the World Wide Web is 15 years old, an entire generation has grown up relying on the Internet, not radio.
What can radio do to begin connecting with current and future teens? And what do teens want?
Well, to start, radio can start appreciating, targeting and programming to teens. But, to do so, it needs to deliver ("broadcast") in a manner teens listen to their modern definition of "radio".
For teens, radio is a digital experience -- fluid, listened to in multiple formats, on multiple devices, time-shifted whenever they want to hear it.
Radio was the original "wireless". Today's teens think of "wireless" in a completely different way. Wireless means something to communicate with -- cellphones, texting, emailing, WiFi, WiMax, Internet-based, fully digital and fully listenable on any and every digital device they own.
Last September, Toronto became one of the first major cities where a major radio broadcaster launched a new radio format available not over the old airwaves...but through the Internet to be heard on the new free city WiFi services.
Here's another new example of what radio could (and should) look like in cities everywhere, as reported in InsideBayArea.com:If a radio lover were featured on MTV's "Pimp My Ride", his or her car would look very much like the two Scion xBs that Clear Channel's new eChannelMusic was showcasing around San Jose earlier this week.
Attitude. Mobile. Edgy. Street.
These were rolling radio stations, although they never use the word "radio".
They were WiFi Internet stations, programmed partly by listeners at www.echannelmusic.com with video screens, blaring waterproof speakers running 24/7, and a computer keyboard and screen and a large microphone in the back seat, from which street DJs could do commentary.
The $40,000 rolling studios are the first stations that the large Clear Channel radio company was programming without actual radio signals.
Remember when radio knew how to do that?
posted by Unknown @ Sunday, January 21, 2007,
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All the world is NOT a stage; All the world is a cellphone
My 12 year old wants a cellphone.
"But Dad, all my friends have one", she says. Why is it this annoying phrase that has lasted for multiple generations keeps getting ressurrected? Is it because...it's so effective? Guilt, guilt, guilt...subversively and innocently delivered...now that's effective marketing. Especially when it comes out of the mouth of your 12 year old.
According to American Demographics, a majority -- 57% -- of teens aged 13-17 now have a cellphone, but that’s far below the 80% of adults 18-plus who own a phone. Still, for a glimpse of the future, look no further than what is now being labeled "Generation Wireless".
Or another new label is "SuperConnectors"
These kids have never known a world without cellphones. Apple rumors say an iPhone will be released before year-end that will blow away the Razr and Sliver with iTunes. Apple likes keeping everything in-house in its distribution and manufacturing system. With special attention to DESIGN -- the capitals are intentional and earned. All the world is not a stage, as Shakespeare may have believed; all the world is a cellphone.
Cellphone users aged 13-17 are connected to their phones by ear, eye and touch like no other age group. They are far more likely than other demographic groups to use a broad range of cellphone data services, and they will be first in line to try emerging offerings like cellphone TV.
Now, only 12% of 8-12 year olds really have a cellphone...far fewer than the "all my friends" line from my daughter.
Okay, when Apple releases its iPhone, my daughter will be 13. Maybe then she can have one.
Read on about cellphone usage with a related AdAge.com article here (free log-on required)
posted by Unknown @ Tuesday, March 21, 2006,
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