Category Archives: Radio

Internet Slacker

Previously I wrote: “If you happened to be a corporation that recognized market demand when you saw it, you’d find a way to promote and capitalize on emergent global Internet dissemination of music and politics.” Maybe something like Slacker:
At the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas today, Broadband Instruments launched the potentially disruptive “Slacker” music ecosystem, which combines interactive webcasts, satellite radio, and traditional MP3 playback in a next-generation device that could make Apple’s iPod – and even its upcoming iPhone — look, well, a little unconnected.

— Slacker Steals the Show at SXSW, Eliot Van Buskirk Wired Blogs: Listening Post, Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Hype? Maybe. But notice iPod and iPhone are the benchmarks, not Hollywood or ClearChannel or AT&T or cable TV. Continue reading →

The Internet is their CBGB

If you happened to be a corporation depending on centralized mass media for your livelihood, this might be what you fear:
…one who has loved rock ’n’ roll and crawled from the ranks to the stage, to salute history and plant seeds for the erratic magic landscape of the new guard.

Because its members will be the guardians of our cultural voice. The Internet is their CBGB. Their territory is global. They will dictate how they want to create and disseminate their work. They will, in time, make breathless changes in our political process. They have the technology to unite and create a new party, to be vigilant in their choice of candidates, unfettered by corporate pressure. Their potential power to form and reform is unprecedented.

— Ain’t It Strange? By PATTI SMITH, Op-Ed Contributor, New York Times, Published: March 12, 2007

If you happened to be a corporation that recognized market demand when you saw it, you’d find a way to promote and capitalize on emergent global Internet dissemination of music and politics.

We’re talking the Reformation here. Do you want to continue selling indulgences and suppressing Galileo, or do you want to be in the middle of a new information revolution?

-jsq

Internet Radio Priced out of Its Market

Internet radio is an increasingly popular service, providing both online feeds of on-air radio stations and eclectic Internet-only services. Internet radio was operating under the Small Webcasters Settlement Act of 2002. On March 7, 2007, the Copyright Royalty Board released new rates. Rates that will end up with the average Internet radio station paying more than it makes in revenue. And the rates increase annually through 2010. Ah, yes, plus retroactive collection for 2006.

Regarding how radio back in the 1920s used to be so cheap and popular that people would run up a mast in the backyard and sgtart broadcasting, I wrote “The trick used with radio of allocating spectrum won’t work for the Internet.” That was the trick that closed down most radio and left that medium to a few big mass media. There’s always another trick, though, and copyright may work for Internet radio.

This isn’t strictly about net neutrality, because it’s not ISPs that are effectively shutting down Internet radio. This whittling away at services will happen much faster without net neutrality, however.

-jsq

Exogenous Technological Change

Here’s a good backgrounder video on where the Internet came from and where it may be going: Humanity Lobotomy. See especially the part by Larry Lessig about how printing presses in the early days cost about $10,000 in 2007 dollars, and lots of people had one and published books and pamphlets.

What did the telephone companies have to do with inventing the Internet?
Nothing.
The browser?
Nothing.
The World Wide Web?
Nothing.
What have they had to do with the Internet from the beginning of time?
Nothing.

–Bob Kahn

What did they invent? Continue reading →