Radio is going where tv is

I'm sitting here before singing and piano lessons composing this blog while listening to Radio Total from Romania (where I was born) http://www.radiototal.ro . I'm streaming through the internet and it works quite nicely. This whole Internet thing may be here to stay ... not the fad I thought it would be:). It definitely brings me back and it's a good feeling ... until they play Back Street Boys!! AAGHH ... wish I could skip forward ... but of course I can't because it is a radio station. The motto is "Muzica buna se imparte cu prietenii" which translates roughly to "Good music must be shared with friends".

I guess you can't account for taste. Somehow the Romanian DJ, sitting in some building in Bucharest doesn't seem to know what I like. Shocking!!! Just for fun, do some searches for internet stations being broadcast from different provinces, states or countries and listen in a bit just for fun. This is especially cool if the station is based in a place you have some ties to. There are so many of them, it is incredible and overwhelming. Getting to any decent ones that actually work properly and that are good takes forever and it is frustrating but it is pretty neat to listen on all these different societies and get a totally different experience ... I'm going to try to listen in on some Jamaican stations to see how that goes ... should be interesting.

So where am I going with this?

As you start to exploring what the world has to offer on line, you realize how much great stuff is out there. My daughter walked in to my office the other day and listened in on one of the songs that was streaming through pandora. She said, with surprise "I've never heard that song before ... it is really good!". We've all gotten so used to radio pushing us the same stuff over and over, it is a surprise when we hear something new! I used to fill in surveys from Chez 106.9 The Bear (Ottawa Station) but now that I'm checking out different streaming services and radio stations from around the world, I'm literally pissed off at the local stations (except for Live 88.5FM ... a breath of fresh air). They are doing a crappy job of filtering stuff for me. I imagine satellite will do a better job but 150 channels is still a puny drop in the content bucket ... and it is still filtered.

TV went through this phase several years ago. It had a few generic free channels and then came cable with the subscription fees and hundreds of niche channels. That was a welcome improvement as is satellite radio for many people. However, we've already entered the TIVO/PVR world and Video On Demand (VOD) that allow us to have much better control of what we watch and when we watch it while even adding some mobility with portable video players. Radio is following a couple of steps behind. If you want to figure out where radio is going, look at where tv is. A major disruption is happening and earcandy will play its part.

BTW, incorporation has begun.

Before I go, I promised you something cool. Check out http://www.jajah.com/, potentially the next skype.

Cheers,

Allan Isfan
Engineer with an Iron Ring

Is this legal?

Remember when you used to record radio? That was a long time ago ... at least for me ... but this fad is coming back. In the search for free music, it is amazing what amazing tools people will come up with.

A number of MP3 players with FM tuners allow you to record the radio to your local memory. This is interesting but not necessarily that exciting at first thought. However, some of the legal tools that have popped make this a potentially very useful way to get all your music for free.

I recently downloaded a trial version of a product called Replay Music from a company called Applian http://www.applian.com. The product can record the music you are streaming on the net, determine the song and artist, clip the beginning and end so that you get a neat and tidy mp3 of all the songs, complete with artist and song info! It even asks you if you want the songs added to your iTunes library!!! I tried it and was amazed by how good a job it did. With the quality from many streaming services being pretty decent, this is an amazing way to huge quantities of music for essentially nothing (except for the S/W) and all legally so far. They also have many other cool products, such as a Radio TIVO recorder.

It don't know if that's just me but this is huge once it hits the mainstream. It could certainly impact the operation of streaming services in major ways. Hints of changes are already coming. Creative recently removed a feature from their mp3 player that prevents you from recording from the built in FM tuner. This of course is pissing off lots of their customers that bought the player specifically due to that feature. Fortunately, you have to apply a "patch" for this improvement to take place. Naturally, the patch includes things some people may want so some may get suckered. There's lots of banter on the net regarding what caused Creative to pull this feature? Was it pressure from the RIAA (radio cops)? Quite likely. This is the same reason satellite radio players don't have a record function.

Before all hell breaks loose, I'm grabbing as much music as I can legally before someone shuts this down. Have fun.

Some start up stuff now. I continue to have discussions with many people, with some of the discussions being at very high levels (CEO, Chairman, VP, President, VC partner ...) and I keep being amazed about the positive feedback regarding the concept I'm shooting for. It is extremely encouraging. I will continue to have these discussions but I already know we just need to build it.

So here we are ... quit job in April ... consult on the side... dream up ideas for months ... hang by the pool with family and friends ... get serious in September ... nail down general concept in October ... get friends to help ... and start building. Seems simple doesn't it? That's the easy part, but you have to start somewhere. There is no better way to raise money than to actually build something and use that in your pitch instead of just powerpoint. Seems obvious I suppose but it wasn't obvious to me months ago.

If you are interested in start-ups, here is a great link several people forwarded me recently from a blog written by Paul Graham (I quoted some of his stuff in an earlier post). The article is entitled "The 18 Mistakes that kill startups" http://www.paulgraham.com/startupmistakes.html

Since many of you on this post come from companies developing broadband, I thought you might like the analysis I've copied below from "The New Yorker". The full link to the story is http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/articles/061016ta_talk_paumgarten

"In the church, he presented meticulously researched, technically correct, but completely ridiculous charts and graphs. He compared various data-transfer systems: ISDN, ADSL, Wi-Fly (that is, pigeons). Then he showed a slide of a snail hitched to a tiny chariot with DVDs for wheels. If each disk contains 4.7 gigabytes of data, and if the snail (chasing a scrap of lettuce) travels at 0.000023 metres per second, the snail-system performance rate is over thirty-seven megabits per second. That blows ADSL out of the water. (There are flaws, however. As Vardi noted, “In some regions, most notably France, culinary habits may pose a denial-of-service problem.”) Dubno rang a bell and shooed Vardi from the stage."

crush crush crush!

Do you remember that "Kids in the Hall" skit in which Mr. Tyzik would crush people with his fingers? It still makes me laugh!

I've been dealing with people asking me "why won't Motorola, apple or any other Goliath crush you"? A very valid question which I have asked myself many more times than others have.

This brings up many important questions for a start-up, but two key ones keep me up at night ... not with worry but to figure out the answer. The questions are:
1) have all good ideas been thought of already? If someone has thought of your idea, are you screwed?
2) if your idea is more of a concept rather than a technology, how do you defend it?

Let's tackle the first one. You come up with what you think is an awesome idea. With the giddy excitement of a child on Christmas morning, you type in your key words with shaky fingers into google .... and 100 links come up in 0.01 seconds!!! SON OF A BEEYATCH!. All good ideas have already been thought of, with some associated patents in and many websites describing your great idea. Radio TIVO? Done. MP3 player with WiFi. Done. With all the smart, motivated people out there, this is bound to happen.

Of course this is not true. However, it is wise to assume this is the case so that you can build a truly defensible product or service. If you assume you're the only one that thought of a particular way of doing something and that is your only foundation, the false sense of security makes you extremely vulnerable. New concepts fail or don't get implemented for many reasons (two of many are highlighted below).

Execution is key. The last $100M/yr product I was a major contributor on was not that novel. In fact, a major telecom equipment vendor had teamed up with a leader in DSL at that time and came up with what turned out to be a complete catastrophe. Our solution was so much better, it's not even funny. We were in a life and death situation where the whole company depended on the success of the product. We set very high goals, hired people with balls, executed with unbelievable focus. Failure was not an option and it showed. Our second product didn't fare so well.

Incumbents don't care. Big companies need big revenues and need universal appeal to hit their numbers. Even big companies have limited resources. Can you imagine if Apple came out with the next iPOD and it only sold 100k units per month. Heads would be rolling. BTW, they sold 14M iPODs in the last quarter. If we could sell 100k units/month, we'd be snorkeling in a pool of champagne (I wonder how much that would cost?)

Lots more to be said but best move on. Ok, so what if your idea is more of a concept, such as a service, rather than a magical technology, how do you defend it?

Everyone is looking for the secret sauce or that one ingredient that makes the sauce secret. I remember going to restaurants, trying to guess how they made the sauce so I could make it at home. I came close a few times but mostly didn't quite nail it. The trick is to mix ingredients such that they build on each other. Each one brings out the elements of the other. You see where I'm going with this. Amazon doesn't just have access to huge inventory and low storage costs. Their recommendations, often contributed by users, help people find other stuff. I often buy books two or three at a time to minimize shipping charges. Amazon often doesn't store items in their own warehouse. They just serve as a storefront and products get shipped directly from someone else's warehouse to you ... $0 cost to Amazon. Freaking genius. Nothing secret here.

Few people believed in search when Google was pitching. A site for crazy, user generated content called YouTube? Well ... we now have GooTube which controls an absolutely ridiculous number of eye balls and the equally ridiculous ad revenues.

Ye must have faith ... and balls.