Nearly 20% of U.S. adults now own a smart speaker, according to a survey spearheaded by Voicebot, in collaboration with PullString and RAIN Agency (not the same as RAIN News). Extrapolated, the results from its survey of more than 1,000 adults indicate that about 47.3 million people own the devices. Nearly two-thirds of all households said they own just one smart speaker. Continue Reading
It was only a matter of time before two of the biggest trends in the tech world crossed paths. There’s a new skill for Amazon Alexa called DeepMusic that plays songs composed by artificial intelligence over a smart speaker. Click to listen. Continue Reading
Digital audio ad company AdsWizz has entered a partnership with Lagardère Publicité, a major media sales house in France. Under the terms of their agreement, Lagardère has chosen AdsWizz to provide advertising solutions for its podcast inventory, taking advantage of several of AdsWizz’s services. Continue Reading
Triton Digital has announced another integration for its a2x programmatic audio ad exchange platform. The a2x service will be integrated with Fusio by S4M, a mobile advertising technology centered on drive-to-store campaigns. The deal allows S4M clients access to programmatic audio inventories as well as the option for dynamic targeting by location. Continue Reading
James Cridland’s Future of Radio is a column by the Australia-based radio futurologist. THIS WEEK: Infinite Dial 2018 examines the latest U.S. audio trends. Andover Radio and digital-first stations. Continue Reading
Label services company Kobalt has made a big investment in independent artists. It has combined its recording business under the AWAL brand and is putting $150 million into marketing and advances for indie performers. AWAL is also hiring 100 more employees, about doubling the headcount under Kobalt’s umbrella. Continue Reading
Google is opening up a new option for musicians to curate their presence online. The company offers Posts, where verified people can supply content that appears in the Knowledge Panel when they are the subject of a search query. In effect, this allows artists to directly message their fans or potential fans. Continue Reading
Voxmatic is looking to put voice commands into the hands of podcasters large and small. The business has launched a free platform for the creation personal skills on the Amazon Alexa platform for podcasters. Its starter kit offers individual skill/flash briefing publishing. It plans to add a professional package later this year. Continue Reading
Facebook continues its assembling of music industry deals. The social media company has secured a broad licensing deal with Warner Music Group that covers use of both its recorded music and music publishing catalogs. Continue Reading
The Infinite Dial kicked off with a look at ownership trends in technology and media. Most telling, the research from Edison and Triton focused on the growth in smart speakers. Awareness of the device segment was 71% for Amazon Alexa, up from 57% last year, while Google Home awareness rose from 45% in 2017 to 56% in 2018. Considering the recent ad blitzes for the segment, John Rosso joked that those who haven’t heard of them are “probably living in caves and staring at their tablets.” Continue Reading
The Infinite Dial 2018 shows steady growth in online audio. The latest installment of the research project found that 64% of survey respondents, or an estimated 180 million people, listened to online audio in the past month. Weekly online audio listening has risen at an even more dramatic clip. Continue Reading
AM/FM radio is holding onto its strong lead as the most-used source of audio in cars. According to the latest Infinite Dial results, 82% of respondents ever tune in to AM/FM radio. That rate is the same as was reported in 2017, and down from the 84% in 2016. Continue Reading