Time of the year to reflect on things.   As an early adopter of technology (still have my original MacIntosh from 1984), I'm thinking of the early adopter things I DON'T do anymore:

1. Download and manage podcasts in iTunes - Now I just subscribe and listen to them on Stitcher Radio.
2. Manage my music in iTunes - Now I listen to my music and music I don't own on Spotify, Google Music, Pandora and iHeartradio.
3. Read and manage my RSS feeds through Google Reader - now i use Flipboard, Pulse, and Google Currents.
4. Try to keep up with Twitter - I still will use Hootsuite but find integrating into Flipboard a much better experience.  Same with Facebook and LinkedIn.
5. Try to get my email to Inbox Zero - Impossible! 
6. Search the web for interesting things to read - I let my curators do that for me on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, & Google+ and then read it in Flipboard etc.
7. Read Techcrunch - I get the headlines of all the Techcrunch stories every morning on Stitcher.
8. In my car, plug my iPhone into my factory-installed iPhone adapter in the glove box.  I just plug my iPhone in through an RCA cable so I can still access it (at red lights).
9. Listen to XM/Sirius in the car - See above.  
10. Download music to the car's hard drive - Ditto above.

How about you?

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Social Geek Radio September 1, 2011

Here are the Valpak envelope images I mentioned that contain QR Codes.

 

Here's a link to the sources I cited on the show tonight.

And of course, here's a link and the QR Code to the show....

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How many "social media experts" does it take to change an industry?

Two recent events helped me conceptualize something I've been thinking for some time now.  First was attendance at the International Franchise Association's annual convention in Las Vegas.  This event is attended by nearly 3000 franchising industry professionals - franchisors, franchisees, and industry suppliers.   I've been attending this event off and on for about 6 years.

In this instance there were several "social media experts" on hand from both the franchisor and industry supplier camps that were able to provide excellent input and value to the attendees who participated in several sessions, all of which were standing room only.  Within this vertical category, these "experts" were relevant.  In addition to the "experts", there were a number of us early adopter, social media active individuals who don't go by "expert" but certainly have experience and perspective in this buzz.  We all were able to have excellent conversations and I loved the honest discussion that no one really knows how this will all turn out and exactly how the franchising industry should use social media because it's too new and there are not enough best practices - although they are beginning to become documented.   The consensus was - put your toes and ankles in the water and let's figure it out.

The other event was the recent SXSW - which I did not attend - but watched, read and listened to remotely.  The joke I heard was that if an individual in Austin that week shouted "Is there a social media expert in the house", they'd be overrun and likely trampled.

How can there be so many "social media experts" out there in a phenomenon that is so new?

My bigger question, is after following so many of these "experts" on Twitter and blogs, based on the amount of tweets, retweets and posts SOME of them throw out there, I wonder how they have any time to really PRACTICE social media when the math shows that there is not enough time in the day to read all the articles and posts that they retweet and blog posts that they publish.  No way!

Listen, let's just be honest here.  Many of us use social media.  Many of us have had professional experiences (good and bad) using social networks.  Many people can speak to the topic.  Some are making (or trying to make) a living advising businesses and companies about social media.  I'm not one to judge what an "expert" is and who they are.  It just bugs me that there are so many so fast in an area that hasn't shown enough documented case studies of social media success for there to be so many experts.

But what really bugs me and the point of this post are the number of those retweets of posts and published social media-related articles that some people are using to try to position themselves as an expert. 

Let's just cut it out.  Curate what's appropriate but let's see what you've done, not what you've read.

Whew,  I feel better.

DISCLAIMER:  I was recently asked to speak about social media at a vendor's convention.  This was based on an article I wrote about Twitter for the International Franchise Association's "Franchising World" December 2010 issue.  The vendor read the article, called and asked me if I was a "social media expert".  Ha!   I said "No", but I have been using social media since 2008 when Twitter was unknown and Facebook was just coming out of the college world and I'd be happy to speak to it if you'd like.  I will be in May but not as an "expert". 

Because I'm not.

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Radio Listening 2.0

It occurred to me the other morning driving to work while listening to my customized playlist of audio news & podcasts stream from my iPhone, that my move from terrestrial radio to the Internet has just about come full circle.

When I bought my first iPod in December 2004- 30gb iPod Photo, I almost immediately began listening to podcasts that I would download through a 3rd party "podcatcher" and import into iPod (later automatically synced through iTunes and then to my iPod each morning).  The iPod would go with me in the car to work and I would listen through an audio jack to my Auxiliary input in my Infinity M35. The audio input was really for DVD players but served the purpose for me just to get the audio.   Apple even included the cable with the 3rd Generation iPods.   

I had started listening to one of the early pioneers of podcasts, Adam Curry, and his Daily Source Code.   This was initially fascinating to me as he was living outside of London, would record basically a monologue into his computer from his house, take the file and apply the appropriate geeky RSS tags to it and upload it for "podcatching" software to find.  Adam's show was very self serving, but that didn't bother me as I enjoyed the podcast industry-centric nature of the content and he turned me on to other podcasts that eventually became part of his Podshow podcast network.  Here's some Wikipedia history, if you care.

I was hungry for more programming and became an early subscriber to a handful of other early adopter podcasts.

One of the first I found was WTOP Radio in Washington DC, a 24/7 news station in the Nation's Capital that would take their on-air short segment features and interviews and package them up into a podcast generally lasting less than 5 minutes.   Their access to Washington-insiders was fascinating and something I couldn't get on local radio in bite-sized segments.  Since then, most other talk terrestrial radio stations and personality-formatted music stations have done the same.  Digitally record normal programming, edit (sometimes), package, tag, and upload. 

The challenge I had with iTunes podcast functionality was and still is that unless you wanted all the shows to automatically be deleted upon listening, you had to go in manually and delete the file once you had listened to it to free up space on your iPod.   This became a weekly chore for me as some of the files I would want to save and perhaps listen to again later.

So for several years I maintained this library of content and listen to it in the car to and from work, around the yard, walking the dog, and whenever I wanted to multi task on the move.  It became habitual for me, but I never could see the general public making this same effort despite the fact that the iTunes Podcast inventory increased to thousands of different titles and it could be automatically downloaded.

Then came along Stitcher Radio at www.stitcher.com.   Note:  I have nothing to do with this company.  Stitcher basically has become my default 'radio station."  They aggregate content from thousands of content providers and organize the content into "stations" that listeners can browse and listen to. Audio content is delivered from thousands of large and small podcasters as well as national media providers such as CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, BBC, NPR, and the Associated Press.  The content is kept continually up to date so there is always fresh content available.  

While I still allow the podcasts to automatically download to my (now) iPhone, I find myself just launching the Stitcher iPhone app and plugging it into the iPhone jack in my car and listening to my personalized content via Stitcher and the iPhone's AT&T 3G or Edge connectivity.  The content updates automatically so I don't have to manage it and I have put the podcasts in the order I want to listen to them.   So on my 35-minute commute to work in the morning I listen to:

1.  New York Times Front Page  (5 Min)

2.  Wall Street Journal Morning Tech News (5 Min)

3.  TechCrunch Headlines (5 Min)

4.  Tech 5 (5 Min)

5.  Tech News Today (30 Min).

I don't even have to take my eyes off the road as the content plays automatically and in order.  If I did want to bypass a particular show, a simple tap on the right arrow and I'm on to the next program.  If I've already listened to the show, Stitcher moves on to the next new program effortlessly. 

The full circle is I feel like I am just listening to the radio everyday without the hassle of managing the content.  Like traditional radio, that's been taken care of for me AND  it's customized to my interests!

I usually don't finish the 30 minute Tech News Today from Leo Laporte's TWIT Network, but I just launch Stitcher on my desktop, fast forward to where I left off, and hear the remainder as I'm working.  I always have the latest release of the podcasts I like to listen to and they are always available on any device with connectivity.  I find myself rarely syncing to iTunes anymore except when I plug in the iPhone to juice up or if I'm going to fly.  Stitcher has thousands of different podcasts as well as live streaming terrestrial and internet talk and music stations available.

It's the best of all worlds -- streaming "radio" in the car, customized for my tastes, and automatically fed. This..... I can see the general public, non-techies, non-early adopters gravitating to.  As a former radio guy, this is almost as magical as radio was when I first got into it in high school and continues to support my belief that audio and the spoken word will reign supreme within the disruption of digital technology.


Addendum:  General Motors & Ford have announced a partnership with Stitcher that will bring it into vehicles directly.

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The Blues Highway in Mississippi & Memphis, TN August 2008

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My Personal Disruption

At the risk of restating the obvious to some, I was sitting in an airport recently with my iPhone thinking about how it (and the original iPod Touch) have impacted my life, made it more interesting and positive and disrupted so many of my previous habits & processes.

I think back to late 2007 when I bought my first iPod Touch (I did not buy the original iPhone which debuted late June of that year).  Immediately I had the Internet in my pocket (whenever I had a wifi connection- which besides home & work, I sought out).  That was a huge deal as I now had mobility to access everything the Internet provides without a laptop, netbook, or tethered desktop.  The portability was huge!

I would read my email, news sites, blogs, listen to my music, podcasts, and recorded audio presentations.  My daily routine of walking our dogs now became a much more productive 20 minutes as I hopped from unprotected wifi connection to another accessed my neighbors' homes (interestingly, now they are all secured).    

I remember right after buying the device, being at the Virgin Megastore in Orlando looking at music and books and checking on Amazon if it had the same products at a lower price (it did!).  I read a couple of reviews of a book I was considering buying and ordered a Christmas gift for my mother-in-law from Amazon while in the store using their wifi connection.  

Isn't that absurd!?

That might have been my first realization of the disruption this device had the potential to create.  Today there are apps such as ShopSavvy which help me comparison shop by scanning the bar code of an item, in-store, with the built-in camera on the iPhone.  This either verifies I'm getting a good price or suggests I look elsewhere (both at a local bricks & mortar stores or online).

I waited until the iPhone 3GS came out to switch from a combination of my Blackberry & iPod Touch to one device that had what the two offered and more.  The phone & email capabilities of the Blackberry are legendary, but the AT&T 3G mobile broadband connectivity & the iPhone's features were another game changer for me.  Always-on broadband changed the PC and always-on mobility is probably several factors more powerful to me.

The disruption of this device makes what I thought the iPod Touch created look puny in comparison.  Here's a list of what the iPhone and its apps allow me to do that formerly I used another way, service or tool:

Service	Formerly	Now
Radio	Terrestrial & Satellite	Pandora, Stitcher, Slacker, AOL Radio
Traffic	Radio or TV	Real time traffic on Google Maps & Traffic.com
Photos	My small Canon camera	Built-in still camera
Video	Flip camera or larger JVC	Built-in video camera
News Information	Newspaper, Radio, TV, Online	Blogs, Twitter, Google Reader, Apps
Weather	TV, Radio	Live local radar feed apps
TV	Be in front of TV at the appointed time or remember to set DVR	Remote scheduling of my TIVO
Local	Look it up in a directory (Yellow Pages)	Yelp, Google, myriad of apps with maps, reviews, coupons
My time	Standing in line	Remote ordering such as Chipotle's app
Travel	Call airline to get flight arrival information	Airline push notifications and FlightAware flight tracking app
Exercise	Guess at calories burned & progress	Apps such as Runkeeper keep track
Movies	Reviews & showtimes in newspaper, online, Moviephone	Apps such as RunPee (even tells you when you can leave the movie & what you missed if nature calls)
Investing	Phone, Desktop or Laptop	Various Investing apps & personal finance such as Mint

These are just a few of mine, but there are a myriad of other disruptive applications that each of us have found.  What are yours?

Some more important uses of the iPhone for me:

It has given me the capability to go to a trade show, take photos for the company e-newsletter and website that get published later in the day, record audio testimonials from customers, and demonstrate our web/mobile apps.

I was a late adopter to the iPhone Kindle app but have found myself unable to consider going on a trip without using it as my book reading app. Besides my music library, I have my bookshelf in my pocket available at a moment's notice.  

Speaking of moment's notice, I find myself accessing Google from my iPhone whenever a question comes up that we are looking for an answer. This has ranged from trivia questions sitting at a baseball game to using the Shazam app to get the name of a song playing in a restaurant.

Twitter use on the iPhone has been the subject of hundreds of thousands of blog posts, but suffice to say the real time nature of the service allows me to get news & information long before even radio, TV, or the traditional web can provide. Case in point is this past Saturday's Major League Baseball trading deadline.   Here in Tampa Bay, we were very interested in whether the Rays would trade for a player(s) that would help us make a run to the World Series.  By following the St. Petersburg Times baseball beat writer, I knew what had happened (or not) as soon as he shared it, which was pretty close to real time. By following the hashtag #Rays, I read other updated information on our trade progress.   Didn't need to watch the news or read the paper to get this information.

Did I need to know this in real time?   Well, the group I was with was interested and it was the subject of the conversation.  Why wonder?

I'll close this post with my favorite distruptive activity I use my iPhone for.  It disrupts the tradition of taking notes on a legal pad or notebook and more importantly, the human nature of forgetting things you want to remember or misplacing items you want to find later.   This disruption is called "Evernote".   

I keep all my notes in Evernote.  What was formerly scribbled on a legal pad that eventually got stored away in my credenza, rarely to see the light of day again, is no more. Even more amazing is the ability to capture visuals and text with the iPhone camera and have the Evernote technology pull out the text that is then completely searchable.   My thoughts and ideas also end up in Evernote through the iPhone microphone.  

And, all of these notes & recordings sync to the Evernote servers, which I can then access from any Internet connected device.  

My important thoughts, notes, photos, & information are always in my pocket.  

Truly amazing.  Truly disruptive.

The icing on this cake is the new 4G multi-tasking, subject of plenty of blog posts.  This newest game changer takes just about everything described above to a new non-linear level.  For me, the simple ability to listen to streaming audio while reading (email, news, Kindle  books etc) or using any other app, may be the most disruptive application yet.

What do you think?

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Goodbye (Traditional) Radio!

I left the radio industry professionally over 10 years ago, but never left the audio medium from a professional observer and consumption standpoint.   I still maintain that audio is the most powerful communication medium of them all and regardless of the morphing of consumer habits to consume, it will continue to be, if not the winner, one of the most effective channels of communication - attention marketers!

Why?

Simply it's the only non-linear medium that you can fully concentrate on while you're doing something else!

You can certainly add in the other benefits such as theater of the mind, the number of people who are primarily auditory in nature, the personal nature of listening alone through earbuds or headphones and the like.  But, without distraction, can you read or watch TV as well as you can listen to audio while driving your car, jogging, answering email, reading a book, magazine, newspaper, blog post, etc?

I argue NO!

Now, the purpose of this post.....on June 21st, the new Apple iOS4 will be released allowing latest generation iPhone and iPod Touch users to update their software.   There are a myriad of enhancements to the hardware in the new iPhone 4.0, but the real game changer is the software that will allow you to multitask on your device.  The talk is the ability to switch between (selected) apps instantly with all apps remembering where you were the last time you used them.

But the real game changer for me is the ability to use your device while the (selected) Internet radio application of your choice continues to play.  The example shown in April was Pandora's ability to stream while you are using other apps.  Previously, you could only listen to music you had stored on the device while using any of your other apps.  If not later this month, soon the other "radio" apps will have this capability, whether it be Stitcher, iHeart Radio, AOL Radio, NPR or the hundreds of general and specific options you'll find in the App Store.

This changes everything for me, a veracious consumer of audio content on both my iPhone and iPod.


Yes, the Android platform has featured multitasking and this capability all along, but come on, admit that the masses use iPhones and heretofore Android deployment has been mostly the early adopter and geek community.  Count the white earbuds next time you're on any form of mass transit.

But that's not all, the next blow is later this year when the Ford SYNC system brings Internet radio to the car, the last safe haven for terrestrial and satellite radio.  Read this!

While I don't drive a Ford, already my subscription to XM ends at the anniversary date because I am already using the 3G on my iPhone to listen to many of the apps above in my car today.  A bit geeky I'll admit and requiring an audio input (which my car has), but when Internet radio shows up on the dashboard for the masses, it's all over.

Ah but Todd, what about the local traffic, news and weather (together) that local terrestrial radio provides?   Good point!

Anyone who has worked in radio knows that the traffic is spotty and rarely relevant to enough of the audience.  I get my traffic on my Google Maps app on the iPhone which measures the speed of the other iPhone users on the road and is amazingly accurate.  Throw in alerts I get from Traffic.com for my commute and I don't need the faux-helicopter traffic reports.   Local news comes in the form of tweets and RSS feeds from the local newspapers and TV stations that I subscribe to.  A quick glance at Tweetie and/or Google Reader and I'm all set in the morning.  That's my new "morning newspaper".   Weather is similar.   My iPhone shows me the forecast and current radar (wherever I am).

And I'm a baby boomer.  Imagine how the millennials are NOT using traditional radio.  iPod, torrents, streaming  (I'm listening to a live streaming concert from Bonnaroo 2010 as I create this post), etc.

I love radio.  I love audio.  I listen to more "radio" today than ever, it's just none of it comes from that tall tower on the horizon.  Sorry.  Figure it out boys.  The audio medium is stronger than ever.  As I heard Om Malik say the other day on an audio podcast, as I was doing yard work outside, anyone dealing with this real digital disruption, should be looking forward, not backward or you're going to run into something and have a serious accident.

Or maybe you already have.

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