3.0.1 Tendências do segundo choque

O futuro da rádio será uma «experiência»

A propósito de um acordo entre a Sprint  (operador móvel norte-americano) e a Google («Under a revenue-sharing deal announced yesterday, Sprint would provide the WiMax technology, a wireless Internet connection for laptop computers and other portable devices that offers DSL-like speeds over a range of miles, as opposed to WiFi's range of several hundred feet. Google, in turn, would provide search capabilities and its already popular applications such as e-mail, instant messaging and online calendars, on Sprint's WiMax network»), M Ramsey especula: «(...) In fact, as this new Google/Sprint deal suggests, the availability of audio entertainment wirelessly and in real-time will permanently alter the very experience and definition of radio. (...) It's all about empowering the consumer to control his or her listening experience and dramatically enhancing the experience of radio by mashing up radio with IM and TXT and social networking and interactivity and pictures and video and dozens of other capabilities yet to be dreamed of.
The future of radio is to be much more than radio. Not simply what's on the radio. The future of radio will be more interactive than passive, more customized than homogenized, more visual and visceral. The future of radio will be an experience, not just a station.» («The future of radio will be an "experience"»)

(intro) Universitários dos EUA vivem (dormem?) com a Internet

PERANTE ISTO, é preciso fazer alguma coisa...

Pergunta Mark Ramsey, em função destes dados agora revelados, relativos a jovens estudantes com 18 anos ou mais, dos EUA:

95% own a mobile phone  

78% sent a text message in the past week

75% own a music player, such as an iPod

55% own a video game device »

«If [Internet] it's so integrated into other routines, to what degree is your radio station - or your station's website - one of those routines?»

(Por curiosidade, eis as previsões para os próximos anos quanto à adesão à Internet:

) 

Mitos na geração iPod (avisos a ter em atenção)

«This generation of 18- to 24-year-olds is defined by technology. They are the MySpace generation, iPod generation, digital generation, PlayStation generation - sobriquets that evoke lives spent in a techno-maelstrom of blogging, uploading, text-messaging, file-sharing, flash-mobbing and instant messaging. But is the MySpace generation a media myth? A recent survey by the global market-research company Synovate, whose Planet Edge project researches youth lifestyles across Europe, paints a very different picture. Two thirds of 18- to 24-year-olds in the UK have never used MySpace; across Europe - Planet Edge surveyed at least 400 people in 11 countries - it's 76 per cent. Only one in ten of British 18- to 24-year-olds have ever blogged. There is a surprisingly conservative attitude towards online dating: 94 per cent of British young people say they don't do it, and their European cousins are only marginally more liberated, at 92 per cent. Another stereotype-smashing statistic is the 94 per cent of British youngsters who say they never download ringtones for their mobile phones. Perhaps the biggest surprise of all is their preferred source of new music - not MySpace, iTunes, MTV, nor even ripping their friends' music collections to their own hard drives. It turns out to be the humble radio, cited by 31 per cent of British teenagers, with the internet, friends and MTV on 20 per cent each. (...) The picture that emerges, then, is not of a generation unified by the technological revolution, but of one divided by it - with less than a third in the fast lane of the digital superhighway. And it appears that class is a significant factor. "We found that those from the middle class and above understand the value of the internet, and tend to have it explained to them by parents, by older generations and in school," says Rolfe. "As soon as you get underneath that, the knowledge is much less likely to be passed down at home, nor are they as likely to use computers in the workplace. And for many, IT at school is pretty basic."  Dr Paul Hodkinson, a lecturer in sociology at the University of Surrey who has conducted research into youth culture and technology, agrees. "My understanding of social-networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook is that usage is biased - although not exclusively so - towards the white middle class," he says. (...)The answer, of course, is that we don't know yet. "On one level, I want to say that all this talk of a MySpace generation is not as dramatic as everyone is making out," says Professor David Buckingham, of the Institute of Education at London University, who is an authority on young people and the media. "But we should be careful of saying, 'We've seen it all before' or 'Nothing has really changed'. Things are evolving very quickly. The issue is how lasting any of these innovations will be. We probably won't have MySpace in 10 years' time, although we will have something similar but different.»

fonte: «The myth of the MySpace generation» Telegraph.co.uk; 30/06/07 

Mark Ramsey: «I'd be interested in what these proportions look like stateside. If you have access to this research, please point me to it»; e «This is not to say that MySpace and its like are not important. After all, critical trends usually start at the fringes. But it remains important to understand the difference between where we are today and where we'll be tomorrow. Meanwhile it's also important to recognize that a great many supposed MySpace members created a page and left it for dead years ago»

(5.1) Quando a crise pode ser uma oportunidade

«The UK radio industry needs widespread regulatory reform and should prepare to switch fully from analogue to digital signals, the chief executive of regulator Ofcom, Ed Richards, said on Tuesday "Fundamental reform is needed. The status quo is dead," the head of the media watchdog told delegates at a radio industry conference in Cambridge. Richards said listeners had never had more choice with at least 25 radio services broadcast via television, more than 90 stations via satellite and the majority of the country's cities having at least 35 digital stations. However, multi-channel television, mobile phones and gaming, and broadband entertainment via services such as YouTube and MySpace meant commercial radio was facing possibly its biggest ever economic challenge. UK commercial radio revenues fell by 5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2006 from the previous year. (...)»

fonte: «UK radio watchdog calls for regulation revamp», Reuters, Jul 10, 2007

O glocal aplicado à nova rádio...

«O mundo dos media está a atravessar na extraordinária transformação, tornando-se glocal (transmitindo para o global e o local ao mesmo tempo), e encontrando economias de escala e sinergias entre os diferentes modos de expressão» (Castells, 2004: 226) 

Mais do que o conteúdo, o contexto

Ideias retiradas do texto «Web Content Models Need Context», tvtechnology.com, Tony Ware, April 20, 2007 , e ditas por Shen Tong, presidente da VFinity («Business success on the Web is dependent on mastering not just content but context»):

 - « the most challenging and important question for media business (...)  refers to massive growing interactivity.»

- «everything — from the Amazon model of users reviewing products and users rating reviews to actual internal production — will become a network of harnessing context tools and tags»

- «Now the key is in the filters, he said. Customers desire a self-service, self-correcting mechanism more than a dictated product. Manufacturers need to take note, offering a context-centric strategy with flexible metadata. Customers will dictate valuable content. “Gatekeepers are dead,” Tong said, stressing people as an integration point of creativity, community and software. “It’s not about how you can protect content, it’s about how easy you can get content to the context aggregate system.”»

- «“The power of social networking is available to everyone; it is not a threat,” Tong said.

«A banda larga vai ser a pedra basilar da indústria de media»

«A banda larga vai ser a pedra basilar da indústria de media. Será impossível que os 'players' controlem esta vaga e é garantido que deverão caminhar para no sentido de disponibilizarem na Internet todo o tipo de conteúdos que produzam, sejam eles de informação ou entretenimento» (Jonathan Taplin, in NOBRE, ADriano, «A banda larga vai ser a pedra basilar da indústria de media», Jornal de Negócios, 29/05/07).

Do mesmo professor norte-americano: «A era digital democratizou o panorama digital dos media. E graças a essa democratização foi possível retirar o controlo da distribuição de conteúdos da mão de um pequeno grupo de empresas (...)A partir do momento em que as pessas alteraram a percpeção do conceito de consumo de media e começaram a interagir com o objceto de consumo, tudo mudou».

Como é que a rádio pode aumentar a interactividade

«A key interface repeatedly referred to throughout the conference was “the red button,” an established concept in television here. During programs with additional/interactive content, viewers can press a red button on their remote to access the content. Speakers outlined proposals for the use of the red button as a conduit for personalized content provision and additional revenue generation, some of which is due to become operational later this year».

fonte: Lawrie Hallett, «Digital Show Faces Realities», Radioworld, 2006

«os ouvintes serão gradualmente os seus próprios programadores»

A propósito das funções/capacidades do iPhone, escreve Mark Ramsey:

«While the new iPhone does not literally contain a radio, it functions like an iPod (among many other things) and can thus fulfill that part of you that wants your tunes in a groovy cross-category package, albeit one with a $600 entry fee. Just as we are seeing more music consumers choose the singles they want (digitally) rather than the ones they don't want (by buying CD's), we will increasingly see those same consumers demand control over their passive music environment (i.e., radio) as well. Not by seeking out more choices but by controlling the nitty gritty of the choices they have. Actively or passively, listeners will gradually become their own programmers.When it comes to music, future radio will have to be much more responsive to the individual than to the collective. Closer to an iPod than a theyPod.»

O telefone será o receptor rádio de amanhã

Mark Ramsey: «the mobile phone of today will, in some meaningful sense, be the portable radio of tomorrow»

Novos meios versus velhos meios (sincrónicos e asincrónicos)

«But television is not dead, just television as we know it - a rigid, one-way medium delivered by networks that schedule programming according to their estimates of likely viewership. Those who view the Net as another TV channel have got it backward. Sometime early in the next century, television programs will become accessible through the Net. Rather than talking about TV versus the Net, we will talk about stored access of content versus real-time access. In stored (asynchronous) access, the user picks up previously stored content (information, music video, a drama, sitcom, news program) when convenient. In real-time (synchronous) use, people access content (a sports game, election reporting) as it is occurring.» (Tapscott, 1997: 27)

«The gap is highlighted by the fact that media panics over new forms of media are spread by old forms of media. That broadcast and print coverage of the internet in newsapapers and on television has often been so negative can also be explained through Drotners historical analysis of media panics. "Those who have invested most an accepted cultural capital," Drotner writes, "are also the principal victims in capital loses its currency"[Drotner, Kirsten (1992) Modernity and Media Panics. In Michael Skovmand & Kim Christian Schrøder (Eds.), Media Cultures: Reappraising Transnational Media (pp. 42-62). London: Routledge.. p. 57 ]. Since the Internet has been the primary means displacing time formerly spent watching television and has provided yet another option for information gathering in place of newspapers, Drotner's words have a special emphasis in our current media panic. Parents are worried about losing control of children while newspapers and television broadcasters are worried about losing their audiences and so each anxiety comes to fuel the other. This should not surprise us. People become hostile and defensive when threatened by something new and which they don't understand» (Tapscott, 1997: 49) 

A experiência da Chicago Public Radio com vocalo.org

É um novo site em que se pretende que os ouvintes/leitores tenham poder de decisão sobre os conteúdos:

«Here at Vocalo.org we welcome your participation at any level. Start by listening to our web stream. We’re piloting for just a few hours this week. You’ll hear a surprising mix of interviews, commentary, music and first-person accounts of life in our region.  (...) Sign-up and begin to interact with our hosts while they’re on the air. Take a poll, rate a video or photo essay. When you’re ready, start your own blog, upload your photos, audio, stories. Our hosts want to share the airwaves with you. And if you really care about a topic, help us keep the discussion going even after the broadcast, by inviting friends to join the conversation, adding tags to your topic and connecting with others to take it to the next level.»

De acordo com o Chicago Sun Times: «Chicago Public Radio opened a new chapter in local media history with the launch Monday of a unique interactive broadcast and online format. Vocalo.org inaugurated its Web site and began live streaming, billing itself as a gathering place that offers a mix of interviews, commentary, music and personal accounts of "life in our region." Over the air, Vocalo.org will be heard on WBEW-FM (89.5), based in Chesterton, Ind. The format's seven hosts are Bibiana Adames, Usama Alshaibi, Ayana Contreras, Darlene Jackson, Brian Johnson, Jesse Seay and Dan Weissman. At the outset, they're taking turns hosting one-hour shifts from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Vocalo is a made-up name formed from the words "vocal" (for voices) and "zocalo" (which is Spanish for town plaza). Chicago Public Radio continues to air its traditional news, talk and information format on WBEZ-FM (91.5).»

As novas tecnologias estão a mudar a forma como se ouve rádio

««One in three people now listen to radio via the internet, according to new research from Sony. Not only are millions listening to radio in new ways, but new technology is changing what people listen to. Some 15 per cent of people now use the internet to listen to shows and stations outside their terrestrial broadcast areas. Another 18 per cent of people have used the internet to listen to a radio show after it was broadcast by downloading from a radio station website.»

fonte: «One in three listen to radio via Internet». UTalk.Marketing.com, 01/05/07

A fidelidade a uma estação

«(...)a gradual change in who listens to the radio. People don't listen to a type of music because they like a particular station; they listen to a particular station because they like the type of music being played.

fonte: «Ipod, changing demographics changing future of radio», 01/04/07, Midland Reporter-Telegram

A solução passa pela aposta em musica nova?

«Fewer young people are listening to the radio these days. Why should they? They all have iPods now. Obviously, not everyone has an iPod or a similar device, but enough young people do that it is making an impact on way this culture listens to music. After all, why should someone subject themselves to seemingly endless commercials and songs they don't particularly care for when they can play all of their music on command wherever they are? Whether it is at school, at the mall, or even on the job, young people everywhere are taking advantage of this new technology. Thus we arrive at another conflict that killed 95X. It was attempting to serve up alternative music in a format that was quickly becoming more and more irrelevant to those who are most likely to be fans of alternative music -- young people. The iPod hasn't killed radio, and it won't for a very long time, because radio still serves a function. Twenty-three year-old Daniel Johnston, for example, says he listens to the radio, "Whenever, I get tired of listening to the songs on my iPod for the 1,000th time." Radio has always been an important way for listeners to discover new artists, and it will continue to do that far into the iPod age.»

fonte: «Ipod, changing demographics changing future of radio», 01/04/07, Midland Reporter-Telegram

 

Atingir a geração iPod (com publicidade)

«(...) Stritch, like many colleges and universities, is targeting Generation Y, the collective term for the 71 million Americans born between 1980 and the late 1990s, that is notoriously difficult for advertisers to reach. They shun their parents' brand loyalties, consume traditional media in smaller amounts than previous generations and are skittish of being directly marketed to. But Stritch, which is in Fox Point, and some other Milwaukee-area advertisers have found several key strategies they say are reaching the iPod set. Tools like podcasts -- broadcasts for iPods and other MP3 players -- and Web logs -- better known as blogs -- are popular because they combine technology in which students are versed with a more subtle marketing message. (...) Katie Fleming, a search marketing specialist for Germantown Web site developer Trivera Interactive, said Generation Y doesn't appreciate gloss and filters. "They just want to know the truth," she said.

fonte: «Advertising for the iPod generation», October 13, 2006, The Business Journal

Ter o controlo do conteúdo sobre os conteúdos

«In the Lind and Medoff (2001) study, respondents reported being fairly satisfied with Web stations as they were exercising great control over the pages. Listeners' control over the pace of online audio news is, hence, expected to yield deeper levels of information processing, whereas traditional radio news presentation are not expected to be equally effective. This comparative cognitive effectiveness of both traditional and online radio news needs to be examined empirically».

fonte: MESBAH, Hesham M. The Impact of Linear Versus Nonlinear Listening to Radio News on Recall and Comprehension, Journal of Radio Studies 13(2), 2006, 188 

 

Apanhar os ouvintes onde eles estão (agora)

A propósito desta notícia «Rádio nas consolas de jogos», a RWOnline acentua uma tendência da nova «rádio»: «Get Your Listeners Where You Find Them»

»Agregar» e partilhar

«(...)"Young people don't think in terms of radio stations, they think in terms of aggregation." That is, they think in terms of the playlist, the "stations" that are created by them and their friends - some of whom are the taste-makers in their crowd. Those playlists are shared in the same way a radio station shares its playlist. Most of the online radio resources have the ability to share any playlist you create. And it's hardly uncommon for kids to share the contents of their iPods with their friends.

Music radio used to be about listening. In the future it will increasingly be about sharing. This is an interesting perspective which certainly explains why younger male audiences (in particular) are drying up for radio.  It also suggests that when a radio station is all about music and only music, your program director creates just one of many playlists that a college age audience will enjoy. And it's not nearly likely to be the best one.» Mark Ramsey, «"Sharing" the future of radio», 5/04/07

A MTV também procura na net recuperar audiências

«NOVA YORK (Reuters) - A MTV Networks, que controla os canais MTV e Comedy Central, adotou uma nova e arriscada estratégia para a Web, a fim de reconquistar os espectadores jovens que a trocaram por sites como o YouTube e o MySpace. A rede, que já tem 150 sites operando em 162 países, planeja criar literalmente milhares de outros, na expectativa de atrair espectadores permitindo que assistam, contribuam e até reeditem seus programas de TV. "As pessoas tendem a encontrar conteúdo na Internet por milhares de portas, e não uma só", disse Mika Salmi, novo presidente da divisão digital da MTV Networks, subsidiária da Viacom."De certas maneiras, estamos em posição melhor do que a maioria das empresas de mídia, ocupamos o lugar que elas desejam", disse. O canal MTV no passado era sinônimo de cultura jovem, mas redes sociais de grande popularidade, como o MySpace, da News Corp., e o site de vídeo online YouTube, do Google, atraíram número considerável de seus espectadores. A nova estratégia da MTV Networks é parte de um esforço da Viacom para atingir uma audiência mais ampla, que passa tanto tempo na Internet e jogando videogames quanto dedica à televisão, e não quer mais se incomodar com quando e onde um programa será exibido. O objetivo é construir sites relacionados a cada personalidade e aspecto de seus programas, esperando atrair espectadores quer pela Internet, quer pelo celular, disse Salmi em entrevista.O grupo criou três mundos virtuais --Laguna Beach, para adolescentes; Nicktropolis, para crianças; e Virtual Hills, para adultos-- e diz que os novos sites podem ajudá-la a promover programas e personalidades específicos de maneira mais ampla. (...)Nos próximos meses, Salmi disse que a companhia planeja abrir mais seus arquivos, permitindo que internautas publiquem vídeos em seus próprios sites e também reeditem alguns deles. "Os consumidores querem controle", disse o analista Richard Greenfield, da Pali Capital. "Lutar contra essa tendência não é uma estratégia vencedora... Eles estão indo na direção certa agora."»

fonte: «06/03/2007, MTV Networks reforça ação na Web para reconquistar espectadores», Por Kenneth Li