College Radio vs. Music Aggregators

It was cool to see today that Meredith over at my favorite youth culture blog Ypulse took the time to listen to my interview on the Mediageek radio show about college radio. In response to my argument that college radio is still important because it often showcases hand-picked, curated playlists by human DJs she raises some questions about whether or not these stations and DJs can compete with the online world of music aggregators. In her piece, "Can College Radio Stay on the Same Wavelength as Young Listeners," she writes:

"I'm guessing Jennifer wouldn't be happy to hear that the first thing her description [of DJs curating their own shows] brought to mind was music blog aggregator sites like Hype Machine and We Are Hunted that ascribe these same virtues of authenticity and passion to the process of curating the curators (Hype Machine even creates online radio shows with the results.)..."

While curating the curators is cool and all.... I still like college radio more. I like the mystery involved with turning on a radio station and not knowing what I'm going to hear next. I love discovering new sounds by hearing them before I've heard about them. If you read bloggers to discover music, then often you are getting their take on something before you even happen upon the sounds. I suppose that's the same dynamic as learning about something from a friend or a record store clerk....which is cool. But my magical musical moments have been when I've heard something for the very first time (on the radio, in a music store, at a live show) and have become spell-bound.

Similarly, another point that I made in my interview was that with digital music, for the most part people are selecting what they want to hear before they hear it; rather than ceding control to someone else, like a DJ.

Meredith also writes:

"All this is NOT to question the need for college radio DJs, but rather ask how the traditional role can evolve to embrace this proliferation of music-discovering avenues on the web? I'm sure many are already out generating innovative solutions (that I'd love to hear...)..."

This is an interesting question and I think college radio stations have actually been on the forefront of embracing technology. College stations were early to stream, blog, archive shows, provide live cams, and real-time playlists. So, yes, indeed...many college radio stations are similar to the music bloggers. But radio is still radio and has some inherent benefits. And radio stations have the potential to do so much, from live events, to specialty music shows, to band interviews and live performances, to audio art.

Ypulse Mashup Recap Part Two: Levi's, MTV, Playlist Culture and Trend Gurus

Anastasia Goodstein Moderating Panel at YPulse Mashup

It's hard to believe that youth culture blog Ypulse is celebrating its 5th anniversary. Anastasia Goodstein provides such a great service, with a fun and informative website and some of the most interesting conferences that I've ever been to. Last week I attended the 3rd annual national Ypulse Mashup (June 1st and 2nd in San Francisco), immersing myself in the current state of youth culture and technology.

I've already covered the role of music in college marketing in my piece last week on the pre-conference session that I attended. In this post, I'm going to share a few tidbits from the remainder of the conference. For the full scoop, you can take a look at posts from the live bloggers who were in attendance and also download some of the speaker presentations.

Josh Shipp at Ypulse Mashup

Josh Shipp - "My goal is to offend you."

"Advice slinger," motivational speaker, and soon-to-be TV star Josh Shipp of HeyJosh.com gave the opening keynote, suggesting to marketers that they listen to teens, show vulnerability, and be irreverent. He encouraged companies to allow users access to things like one's brand logo, so that consumers can "mess with it" and make it their own.

Levi's and Viral Video

Way back in my ad agency past, I worked on the Levi's account on kids' wear and 501 jeans. So, I always feel a bit proud and nostalgic whenever I see news about what they're up to. Their VP of Brand Marketing, Doug Sweeney, started his presentation by showing some old Levi's ads (some from my ad days!) and saying that one of their goals is to "authentically insert the brand into pop culture." One of the ways that they recently did this was by producing low budget viral films that appeared to be created by regular folk. They had a huge response to one of these films, "Jean Jump," which became a big hit on YouTube, then attracted mainstream press. Next up for Levi's, a series of films on the skater-like faux sport of powersliding.

Panel of Trend Gurus at Ypulse Mashup

Trend Guru Roundtable and the Role of Playlist Culture

I love trend gurus. Every since I was a lowly ad agency worker charged with keeping track of youth and pop culture trends, I've been obsessed with the business of trendwatching. Back in 1990 or so I met teen culture tracker Irma Zandl for the first time and thought that she had THE coolest job in the world since she got to monitor trends and report to companies about what was hot and what was not. A few years later we hired Marian Salzman's company BKG Youth to work with my agency and Levi's to interview and find trendsetting youth. For the first time, I actually got to be a trend tracker as well, helping to determine if hipsters that we pulled from the street were style leaders. I was drunk with power... Although I didn't build a career out of it, Marian Salzman has gone on to become an even bigger trend diva and now heads up Intelligent Dialogue, the trend arm of public relations firm Porter-Novelli.

With that personal history in mind, it was super fun to see a round table of trend expects talking about the latest and greatest 2009-style in the panel "What's Cool in 2009 and Beyond." They admitted that with changes to technology, everyone has access to trend information at hyperspeed, but argued that those looking for trend insights still need guides or filters to help understand the trends. Jody Turner from Culture of Future described this nicely, saying that she works as a "cultural translator."

In talking about the role of Twitter and social networking, Lauren Puglia from Undercurrent argued that today there is a "heightened self-awareness" since people are accustomed to filling out detailed personal profiles for all of their online identities. Jody added, "I call it more of a playlist culture.....online...[it's] more about what you've got...Life has become sharing playlists...[that's the] new identity builder." This was probably my favorite insight from the entire conference and I agree that this list-making behavior, which started with music, is a compelling way for people to share tidbits about their personalities.

Mobile Marketers in a Ypulse Breakout Session

Mobile Youth Marketing and Music - Def Jam's SRC on MocoSpace

A big theme throughout the conference was user-generated content, more specifically, users manipulating a company's content in order to create something new. Additionally, companies are starting to post things that look user-generated, either by creating low budget viral videos or by inviting viewers to comment on unfinished work. Mobile community MocoSpace has been working with a Def Jam label to post uncompleted music tracks in order to get not only exposure for various artists, but also to get feedback on the material.


Disney and User-Generated Campaigns

A trio of Disney execs chatted about Disney's role in social media and how they are embracing user-generated content. This is a real departure for Disney, a company which has historically maintained tight control over their artists and content. Yet, in today's world of YouTube, American Idol, and music mashups, they needed to be more welcoming to an audience of fans who want to be more involved in the creation of artists and content.

They talked about how we live in a day when a YouTube sensation like Marie Digby can actually get a record deal based on a viral video. With Disney Records, they are now utilizing a DIY aesthetic and are inviting fans to play around with their content in order to produce their own music videos. Through their U Rock the Summer promotion on Disney.com, they provided downloadable music and asked users to create their own music videos, which were then voted on by other site visitors. It was so successful that the promotion will continue this summer on U Rock 2.

User-generated lunch discussion on iPhone apps
(fun fact: at least two people at the table were former college radio DJs)

MTV Does Air Music and is Moving Beyond "the Hills"

One of my favorite speakers from Monday, Ross Martin of MTV, was back on Tuesday on a panel about Generation Y and the recession. Ross was optimistic, saying, "this is not a generation that is depressed" and adding that the younger generation thinks about money simply as a "means to an end." When he was asked about MTV's demographic, he pointed out that MTV has something for every age-group, with 168 channels.

In response to another question from the audience about some of MTV's more superficial programming ("The Hills"), Ross pointed out that MTV does a lot of work in the pro-social arena and that its embedded in the network's "DNA," with efforts like "Choose or Lose" and, more recently, with MTVu projects related to Darfur (Darfur is Dying) and the financial crisis (Indepted). Additionally, Ross talked a bit about a new fall show on MTV called "The Buried Life," which will portray recent college grads working on their list of 100 things to do before they die.

Answering to the ever-present critics, he also added that one can still find music and videos on MTV properties, including an all-video website MTVMusic and a new early morning music-oriented show on MTV called AMTV that airs 24 hours of music a week. I also noticed that there a number of MTV-themed online "radio stations" (via Rhapsody), including some that are outside the mainstream ("Emo Youth" and "Indie Now"). He added that it's important for marketers in this economy to be risk-takers (he referenced Barry Judge's blog which posts rough cuts of Best Buy ads for user feedback), saying, "If you're not getting in trouble, you're probably doing something wrong right now."

Ross also mentioned that increasingly they have little control over how their content gets re-appropriated. He said that MTV decided not to stream the recent MTV Movie Awards online, but that viewers did it anyway and that what resulted was an active viewing audience online, with real-time tweets commenting on the show.

MTV always seems to be doing something new and interesting, which is refreshing. I hadn't been to their website in awhile and another thing that impressed me was that they have an ever-changing stash of backgrounds (sort of like "skins") for the page. Many of them look hand-drawn, kind of hearkening back to the early days of manipulated MTV logos. It's a nice touch.



Young Entrepreneneurs are Collaborative and Fearless

The Ypulse Mashup ended with a duo of sessions focused on young entrepreneurs. Donna Fenn discussed her forthcoming book Upstarts, which profiles young business owners. She argued that young entrepreneurs are much more collaborative than their older conterparts and that they tend to embed social goals into their companies. Donna also said they tend to be optimistic and are open about sharing their ideas in order to get feedback from others.

Guy Kawasaki then moderated a panel of very young entrepreneurs (the oldest was 23), some of whom started companies when they were as young as 13. Guy seemed impressed with their fearlessness when faced with board rooms, 40 year olds, and venture capitalists. And, indeed, their passion to follow their dreams was inspiring. I was particularly thrilled to hear about Carly Wertheim's success with Teens Turning Green, an environmentally-friendly product line that's now in Whole Foods.

WAMU-FM in the News: VA Incident, Bluegrass App, and Social Network

American University's public radio station WAMU-FM was in the news this week for an incident that happened at a VA Hospital.

According to a piece on CNN:

"A college radio station reporter was expected to get his memory card back Friday after it was seized by the Veteran Affairs Department when he tried to interview a veteran. David Schultz of American University's WAMU-FM told CNN he attended a VA town hall meeting Tuesday for minority veterans held at a Washington VA hospital. Schultz said that he heard a veteran speak during the meeting and asked him to talk in the hallway. Once there, he said, a VA public affairs officer, whom he would not name, interrupted, saying the interview was illegal."

By the way, D.C. station WAMU also has some interesting stuff going on tech-wise. They started up their own social network called "The Conversation" on their website and also have an iPhone application focused on their bluegrass programming.

College Radio Tidbits: WPRK's 10 Years of Punk, KUCI Dance Party, WHRB's iPhone App, & Music vs. Talk at Community Station

Here are a few college and community radio-related stories from the past few days:

10th Anniversary of WPRK Show "Punk Rock in Your PJs"

There's a sweet blog post paying homage to the 10th anniversary of a show on college radio station WPRK (Rollins College, Florida). Here's a bit of the post from This is Radio Chas!

"...Part of the magic of college radio is that the shows, tastes and attitudes change with the years, but I do admit that there is some pleasure in knowing that a few staple shows are going to still be there as the seasons change, and PRiYPJs is one of those we always enjoy.

I think this anniversary is particularly noteworthy in light of all the 'life changes' one typically goes through post-college, such as getting married and having a kid and -- (shiver) 'settling down.' For most people, their priorities as well as tastes change, but Maggie is still brimming with that youthful energy and passion for the music she plays -- mostly punk-pop from the 90s to today, with a handful of 'old-school' punk like her beloved Ramones. I find it very inspiring as part of my ongoing efforts to find new music to enjoy..."

Right on. It impresses me too that there are dedicated college radio DJs who continue to do their shows for years and years. And, I think it's worth recognizing that many folks in college radio have had their shows longer than a lot of commercial DJs. It's usually a labor of love with no paycheck, so we should all send some love to our favorite DJs.

KUCI's Dance Party

A piece in New University talks about a dance party event this weekend being hosted by University of California, Irvine station KUCI. DJs from the station will be playing music and hope to introduce the station to some new listeners. The article points out the college radio station's history in playing independent music, stating:

"With the demise of popular local radio station Indie 103.1, KUCI has seen increased attention as the only radio station that supplies similar music, according to [KUCI General Manager Mike] Kaspar.

'Now that Indie 103 has gone away … we’ve been approached by a lot of different clubs and bands,' Kaspar said.

But Kaspar sees Indie 103.1 as a passing influence compared to the history of independent music on KUCI.

'We’ve been doing what we’ve been doing for 40 years,' Kaspar said. 'Without us, there’d be a lot less opportunity for new music. We want to be playing stuff that hasn’t been heard before.'"

Harvard Station's iPhone Application

A piece in the Boston Herald talks about a new iPhone application created by students at Harvard that allows users to stream their student station WHRB. The piece states that, "

"...according to WHRB General Manager Joseph Poirier, the eclectic, nonprofit Cambridge station is the first college radio station to court iPhone users."

Is this true? If your station has iPhone apps, let me know. If not, this sounds like a worthwhile challenge to create some.

Role of Music and Talk Programming at Florida Community Radio Station?

There was a blog post this week about the role of music and news programming at community radio station WMNF. In response to a fundraiser message from Florida community radio station WMNF, Jay Cridlin of the Tampa Bay Times' Soundcheck blog writes,

"That headline -- 'The end of music on WMNF?' -- was the subject line of a mass e-mail...the music director for WMNF-88.5 FM, sent out this morning.

It was a plea for donations to the station, which is in the middle of its Spring pledge drive, and Courtney's message was: News shows are getting a lot more support from readers than music shows.

In fact, he said, the station has debated switching another hour or more of its daily programming from music to news."

It's kind of scary when stations start tallying up fundraiser donations by type of show. Is this something that you worry about at your station?

College Radio on the iPhone

A piece in Macworld reviews various streaming radio applications available for the iPhone, including two that specifically feature college radio stations.

In the article, Jeffery Battersby discusses the College Radio Tuner, the IBS Student Radio Network tool from Backbone Networks that has 27 streams from IBS member stations. According to Battersby, "The streams from these stations are… well… college radio, which means that the quality of the programming can vary from the mundane to the absolutely brilliant."

He contrasts College Radio Tuner with Tuner Internet Radio, a broader service with hundreds of stations, including around 50 college radio stations.

If your station is using one of these iPhone applications, I'd be curious to hear what impact it's had on the number of mobile listeners to your station.

Radio Innovations

On the blog 10,000 Words, Mark S. Luckie wrote a great piece this week called "Radio: Innovative ways to follow the aging medium" in which he outlines some creative uses of radio and technology. The article covers online radio, website features like the KEXP Music Explorer, mobile applications, and Twitter. He also mentions a site that lists radio stations on Twitter and I was surprised to see that it was a fairly short list.

In terms of college radio, the piece talks about a new iPhone application called College Radio Tuner that pulls together radio broadcasts from a number of college radio stations who are members of the IBS network.

In his post he also mentions some other websites doing radio commentary that weren't on my radar before. One of the sites, Radio 2020 ("A Guide for Broadcast Industry Professionals on the Future of Radio"), has an interesting post this week about public radio station WBUR's embrace of social media like Flickr, Twitter, and blog tools. By the way, according to their affiliated website RadioCreativeLand, "Radio 2020 is a cooperative effort between the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), the Radio Advertising Bureau (RAB), and the HD Digital Radio Alliance. The goal of the group is to guide radio into a bright, new digital and creative future."

It's no surprise that the commercially-driven parties in radio are starting to figure out that they need to innovate in order to attract and maintain audiences. They should really take a look at college radio stations, who I think have been the real technology pioneers in radio. Many college stations utilized online tools well before most commercial stations. Online playlists, live internet streams, podcasts, song downloads, live video, blogs, and IM have been typical features of many college radio websites for a long time. And, I would guess that college radio has a much bigger presence on MySpace, Facebook and Twitter than commercial radio.

Is your station making the best use of technology and social media? What sorts of creative projects are you proud of at your station?

Ring Tones as the Latest Late Night College Radio Hit?

It's always fun to find references to college radio in odd places. Today's New York Times has an article about mobile phone allowances and its lead paragraph uses college radio as part of the punchline. In "Phone Smart: How to Give Your Child an Allowance, The Mobile Way," Bob Tedeschi writes:

"Nowhere is it written in stone that all teenagers must at some point run up their parents’ cellphone bills with 3,000 peak minutes, 5,000 text messages and enough new ring tones to fill the overnight slot on a college radio station."

Now that's some graveyard shift lore that I was not privy to. I can't say I've ever heard a ring tone-filled show, but I suppose the gauntlet has now been thrown down.

Community Radio and iPhone Streams

The other day I mentioned all the buzz about the ability to listen to radio over the iPhone. I'd heard rumors about various indie stations who had this capability already and today I got word from the folks at young community radio station (as of May 2008) UtahFM that they have a specific iPhone Stream that can be heard without having to download any additional applications. According to their press release:

"Utah Free Media (UtahFM) is proud to be one of a handful of stations worldwide to stream audio directly to the Apple iPhone...UtahFM's product is unique for iPhone users since it doesn't require the user to download an application from Apple's App Store but instead utilizes the Quicktime software already built into the device. Mobile streams are available for the newer iPhone 3g as well as older models."

Community radio station WFMU-FM has also been offering live streaming and archived content on the iPhone since November 2007 and may have been the first radio station to do this.

Super cool for both stations. Can you think of other pioneering radio stations with simple iPhone streams?

iPhones to Revolutionize Radio?

Last week Larry Magid wrote a piece called "Can the New iPhone Revolutionize Radio?," which points out some intriguing possibilities and new audiences for terrestrial radio with iPhone applications like AOL Radio, Pandora and Tuner. He writes:

"...the iPhone may fundamentally change the way people listen to the radio when they're in their cars or otherwise on the go.

Two free applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch, and another program that costs only $4.99, make it possible to listen to live radio on the iPhone from anywhere, including a moving car.

Unlike those pre-TV days when families sat around a big radio console in the living room, a lot of people now listen to radio mainly when they're on the move. Internet radio has been around for more than a decade, car radios were introduced in the 1930's and portable transistor radios became available in the 1950s.

Until now, live radio pretty much meant listening to a broadcast station with transmitters relatively nearby. But with the iPhone you can listen to stations from around the world, including some that broadcast only on the Internet and don't even have transmitters.

Over time, this could be as disruptive to the radio broadcast industry as the Web has been to print."

Have any of you tried listening to radio on an iPhone? Do you think this will mean more listeners for college and indie radio stations? Pretty cool if it does, but pretty sad if people just retreat further into their own individual playlists.

P.S. Here's another piece about the indie radio possibilities of the iPhone, along with praise for "cutting edge college radio stations" from The Daily Press.

P.P.S. An article last week in the San Francisco Chronicle pointed out that "More than 200,000 Pandora stations have been created on the iPhone, with the highest number of listeners the company has ever had..."

Sonic Youth and The Feelies Play NY July 4th

I was just catching up on the latest from New Jersey community radio station WFMU and was alerted to the Sonic Youth and reunited Feelies show that they are helping to sponsor in NY on July 4th. It's part of WFMU's 50th birthday celebration and I am sure jealous. I saw the Feelies play at my college in the 1980s and I thought they were some of the most amazing performers ever.

If you want to catch the free July 4th show, you can reserve your tickets on June 12th at noon (Eastern time, I assume). Read the WFMU blog for more details.

While you're over at WFMU's blog, be sure to read some of their "Great Moments in WFMU History," including this one about a DJ hit man (really).

Also, word has it that you can listen to WFMU on iPhones and other web-enabled mobile devices. Has anyone tried this?

Are Music Events Over-Documented?

I don't get out to see live music as much as I'd like, but last night I caught an old favorite, The Breeders, in San Francisco at Slim's. It was very nostalgic for me, as I'd probably seen them (albeit a different lineup save the Deal twins) 15 or so years ago at the same venue with the same friend who accompanied me last night. The show was fun - we heard many old favorites from the early days of the band AND saw a minor altercation in the audience (some things never change).

Since I'm not seeing shows that often, I was struck a bit by the number of people documenting the event using their cell phones, iPhones, video cameras, and digital cameras. Back in the day you had to get permission to even audio tape concerts, but these days I doubt that anyone makes any attempt to regulate since everyone has recording devices on their phones. I kept thinking that people were taking pictures on their cell phones so that they could blog about the show later and wondered to myself, does everything really need to be blogged? One guy even answered his cell phone during the show (why?)-- is that necessary, either?

Admittedly I was thinking, oh, damn, I should have updated my Facebook "status update" to mention that I was off to see the Breeders (probably because I thought it would look cool).

So, it's kind of random that today I saw this posting on PSFK (via YPulse) talking about the craziness of the documentation at Coachella (you've got to follow the link to see the accompanying photo), which, by the way, The Breeders performed at as well. Piers Fawkes writes:

"...these folks are taking photos of moments in order to share those moments with others in order to gain status for having experienced a moment they never really had."

Do you take pictures at every concert you attend? Why or why not? And does this lessen your enjoyment of the show? If you don't take pictures, does it bother you that so many people do?