RAIN Summit West, the premiere education and networking conference for the online audio industry, concluded late Sunday afternoon with a Dashboard Dynamics panel moderated by Paul Heine, Senior Editor of Inside Radio. That session wrapped an intensive day which included 14 topical sessions — keynotes, special short presentations, and panel discussions.
The day was anchored by two keynotes that summarized broad industry trends. First, celebrated entrepreneur Jason Calacanis presented his State of Media speech, a roaming encapsulation of the entire media landscape. Later in the day, RAIN founder Kurt Hanson delivered the 2014 edition of his annual State of the Industry Address.
Along the way, focus topics included local digital ad dollars, podcasting, mobile radio apps, curation and storytelling, differentiation among streaming services, royalties and licensing, streaming ads, and more.
Watch the site in coming days for write-ups, audio recordings, and videos of RAIN Summit West.
First, Kurt Hanson and his staff is to be given credit for having such passion for Internet Radio from day-one. As someone who has attended5 of these events I have a few comments. “Tell us something we don’t know”-too many panelists are knee deep in cliche, overreaching platitudes, and a cocky corporate viewpoint on their specific product. This was echoed by others in attendance. Sponsors of the event almost by default are not credible panelists, I don’t fly to Vegas,rent a hotel room to hear product partisans pitch their respective product on and on. There is not enough actual programming or content people involved in the panels. What about the small webcasters? The only panel that resonated as a real life discussion was David Oxenfords, exposing the Sound Exchange for what they are: Clueless. I enjoyed Jason Calacanis key note speech, but I was amused when he made a comment that he was shocked how cutting edge attendees were, “didn’t expect for radio people”. The point is very few in attendance were “radio people”.