Is HD Radio evolutionary, revolutionary, or neither? That depends on who you ask. The digital transmission technology is expanding its footprint — again, either slowly or quickly depending on who you’re talking to. We spoke to Bob Struble, President and CEO of iBiquity, the developer and owner of HD Radio technology. Continue Reading
There’s buzz and activity around podcasting these days. Podcasting isn’t new, but I think it’s become reinvigorated of late with a few players moving things forward. Continue Reading
Songza updated its iOS and Android apps today, adding Chromecast capability. Google Chromecast is a thumb-sized WiFi device that plugs into a digital television’s HDMI port. when activated, Chromecast streams content from partner providers, or from anything playing on Google’s chrome browser. Continue Reading
If the holiday rush is starting to jangle your nerves, turn on Calm Stream, a Russian downtempo electronica station. Even the site is soothing, with its snow-white background and minimal, no-hassle, in-line music player. Continue Reading
Music service Rhapsody upgraded its Android app with something called Track Match, to solve the music-recognition need within its full-featured subscription platform. It’s a good idea — you hear something, tell Rhapsody to identify it, save it in your library. How well does it work? Continue Reading
Pandora updated its iOS app for Apple devices, adding a wake-up alarm. The app already had a timer feature that encouraged falling asleep to Pandora radio with a timed shut-off. Now users can fall asleep to Pandora, wake up to Pandora, and fortify the “hours listening” metrics Pandora publishes every month. We review the new feature. Continue Reading
SUBSCRIBE NOW: It’s free! Things change quickly in podcasting, streaming music, internet radio and every aspect of online audio. Stay up to speed with the RAIN Daily Digest — the everyday heartbeat of Internet radio. We’ll send you a… Continue Reading
Spotify will announce free mobile access to its listening platform, according to the Wall Street Journal, citing anonymous sources. If true (we think it is), the announcement will probably be part of a Spotify media event in New York on Wednesday of next week. Continue Reading
Streaming music is gaining popularity fast, but lags behind the web in understanding its users.
Internet content sites can tag, track, and categorize people as they move about the web, creating deep and accurate user profiles that follow most of us as we move among digital properties. Combined with programmatic ad buying, it means that when a user visits a certain website for the first time, that site can display an ad that is more-or-less precisely relevant to that user. Advertisers pay more for effective targeting. Continue Reading
The “Spotify Debate” has been raised to a new level. It features the same debate points, but now presented as dueling websites. Until now, the war of words and philosophies was waged in sniping blog posts and interview quotes among… Continue Reading
Pandora CFO Mike Herring addressed the Credit Suisse 2013 Technology Conference this week. The format was a moderated Q&A session. We pulled out three subjects within which Herring’s responses were of particular interest: ratings measurement, how Pandora sells ads, and… Continue Reading
The Save Winamp alliance and Change.org are plugging away at AOL, which announced the sunsetting of Winamp and ShoutCast as ongoing products, as of December 20. (See RAIN coverage here.) Yesterday in RAIN, Jennifer Lane commented that the Winamp closure… Continue Reading