Hasta La Gadget!

Having a hard time making it in the internet radio space? Maybe you should take a feather from the cap of a firm that still rides the airwaves. That seems to be Rdio’s approach — according to the New York Times, the company is partnering with Cumulus Media (a company that owns for-real radio stations) to create a free version of its audio streaming service. Rdio will also trade a stake in its parent company, Pulser Media, for chunks of Cumulus programming and promotion on the traditional airwaves. Cumulus will sell ads for Rdio’s impending free service, as well as compile playlists from its catalog of syndicated programming. This could buffer Rdio’s music library with news and talk shows, which will hopefully give the service a competitive advantage over services like Spotify, Pandora and iTunes Radio. Although the deal doesn’t involve a cash exchange, the Times reports the value of Cumulus’ services at over $100 million. As for that free Rdio overhaul? It’s predicted to be out sometime before the end of the year. The deal will be officially announced on Monday, until then, check out the NYT report at the source link below.

Filed under: Misc, Portable Audio/Video

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Source: NYT

It’s easy to think back on that whole Orson Wells War of the Worlds thing and think to yourself: "That could never happen today, not in a world with internet, and where everybody knows about that one time it happened already." Well, you’d be wrong.

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There’s nothing quite like a 180, and that’s what Pandora plans to pull as next month rolls in. The outfit’s 40-hour mobile listening limit, which was established back in February, will be history in September. The move was announced today by CFO Mike Herring, as he stated the following:

“When we introduced the 40 hour mobile listening limit, we were confident that our scale — over 7 percent of total radio listening and Pandora’s number one ranking in most major markets — would allow us to take this action without impacting our key monetization initiatives in driving the disruption of the radio advertising market and driving our mobile advertising leadership. As our results have shown, the continued strong growth in our advertising revenue allowed us to cover the increased royalty costs with dollars left over to invest back into the business. With these tools in hand, and insight into how they work, we are resetting our levers in September.

Notably, Pandora plans to eliminate the blanket 40-hour-per-month limit on free mobile listening effective September 1st. In the 6 months since we first implemented the free mobile listening limitation, we have gained critical insights into our user population that has given us greater control of our business. Because of these insights Pandora has implemented both other surgical levers to control content cost and new features that will allow for greater product usage.”

It’s not clear why the the reversal is being made — be it uproar from loyal users or something else entirely — but those who found themselves perturbed by such a notion will have plenty to celebrate in just a few days.

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Mobile

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Source: TechCrunch

Not to go all Garfield on you, but the only thing worse than morning is a Monday morning. You wake up and for three blissful seconds you’re not sure what’s in store. The world is your oyster. For one fantastic, fleeting moment you think that maybe you’ll take a walk in the park or go see one of those new motion picture films playing at the showhouse. And then it hits you. It’s Monday. And there are responsibilities to attend to. I’s need to be dotted, T’s need to be crossed, and pixels need to be pushed.

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While DAB radio is common in the UK, its broadcasting equipment is usually too expensive for community broadcasters. However, Ofcom’s Rashid Mustapha has shown that the technology is now within reach of amateurs. Taking advantage of DAB’s newly patent-free status, Mustapha tested a low-power digital transmitter based on an open source software radio and a Linux PC; he only had to stream that radio to an aerial through long-range WiFi. His solution would cost just £1,400 ($2,153) per year to run, letting many community radio operators make the leap to digital. The study doesn’t represent an automatic green light for low-power DAB — more work is needed, Mustapha says — but it’s clear that small-scale stations won’t be stuck in the analog world forever.

Filed under: Wireless

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Via: The Register

Source: Ofcom (PDF)