5.4 Internet

A internet já é um hábito diário nos EUA

«Internet usage is becoming a daily habit. US Internet users spent 15.3 hours a week online last year.

eMarketer projects that this year there will be 193.9 million US Internet users, two-thirds of the population. By 2012, 217 million Americans will be online, about 71% of the population.

Those are huge numbers. But by breaking the US Internet population down and focusing on demographics—size, gender, age, race and ethnicity, income and education—this report will help marketers make better targeting decisions.

~fonte: eMarketeer «US online population, fevereiro 08,

Ler as notícias on line melhora a compreensão

Como fazer persistir a mensagem, tornando o consumo de rádio num mais acto primário: «(…) listening to news online improves both recall and comprehension of events. Participants were able to retrieve more details and understand developments of actions when they had more control over the pace of information (...)», conclui-se num estudo de Hesham Mesbah (2006: 188)»

Os sites das rádios têm o que os ouvintes querem?

«In our content analysis, we found that many radio station Web sites do not include the features most desired by Web site visitors. Radio station Web site visitors were asked to rate their interest in different features on radio station Web sites. As we can see in the table below, the most popular radio station Web site feature is the “ability to listen to the radio station”; however, less than 60 percent of the Web sites stream their audio and allow people to listen to live broadcasts. “Information about local concerts,” the second most wanted feature, was found on only half of the Web sites. A mere six percent of the Web sites gave the “title and artist of songs recently played on the station,” which is the third most desired feature.»

Rank of interest in each Web site feature* (% radio station Web sites with each feature)Ability to listen to the radio station 1 59 %Information about local concerts 2 50Titles and artists of songs recently played on the station 3 6To enter contests 4 49Listings of fun and interesting places to visit in local community 5 27Opportunity to vote on whether songs are good or not 6 13Information on local weather 7 44Schedule of programming 8 63Information on and pictures of DJs 9 78To contact or e-mail the DJs and personalities 10 53Traffic information 11 12Information on upcoming DJ and personality appearances in local area 12 43Listings of local restaurants and bars 13 10"Side channels" (Additional Internet-only audio provided on the site) 14 1Reviews and schedules of movies playing in local area 15 17Information on professional sports in local area 16 26Information on charity events in local community 17 25To print out coupons from advertisers 18 8Local shopping and merchant information 19 13To buy radio station clothing and other merchandise 20 11To see an advertiser's products 21 9To buy products or services (other than station merchandise) 22 14

fonte: ROSIN, Larry e SHUL, Janet S., Radio Station Web Site Content: an in depth look, (2000), Arbitron

A. Komarova (The content of music radio websites, by Komarova, Anastasia, M.A., University of Missouri - Columbia, 2004, 112 pages; AAT 1420925) lembra contudo que «what one most frequently finds there is information that is interesting from the point of view of the people working at the radio: DJ's bios with photos, music news, requests, and stations events» (pag 12)

O que é e deve ter um bom website de rádio

Dana Hall, Executive Editor da página/empresa Radio-Info.com, diz o que deve ter um bom site de rádio e dá tres bons exemplos:

«1. Consistent branding of your station.
2. Usable and effective advertising opportunities
3. Interesting and Interactive content for your Website user
4. Efficient and easy tools to use
5. Give them more than what they get on the air
6. Have a dedicated person to oversee and run the site
Three websites that I particularly like are CBS Rocker WXRK “K-Rock” New York, Radio One Urban WPHI “Philly 103.9” Philadelphia, and Clear Channel’s “alternative” Country KZPS “Lone Star 92.5” Dallas, each for different reasons. K-Rock is a great branding site, while WPHI’s advertising opportunities including effective advertorial, is impressive. Lone Star is simply a very non-traditional approach to a radio website (kind of like its format) and that’s what may make it so appealing to users. Check them out for yourself»

fonte: What makes a great radio station website?

 

A BBC vai começar a difundir video (streaming)

«The BBC's iPlayer web catch-up service will include video streaming for PCs and Macs when it is launched at the end of the year. The broadcaster is to use Adobe Systems' Flash Player software to deliver on-demand streaming, which will be accessible to users of Macintosh, Linux and Windows. The relationship with Adobe will also allow the BBC to standardise most of its streamed video and audio content on bbc.co.uk. The BBC is to launch the iPlayer as a downloading and streaming service to consumers in time for Christmas. The platform will also include radio. It currently enables registered users to download and view around 400 hours of programmes up to seven days after their TV broadcast, and to store them for up to 30 days. The BBC has also become the first UK broadcaster to make all of its online content available for free via wi-fi at 7,500 hotspots operated by The Cloud. Users will be able to access bbc.co.uk via an interactive video, highlighting a range of content available or via a BBC logo. A further deal with Telegraph Media Group will see telegraph.co.uk offering visitors the chance to click through from its TV listings to iPlayer to watch BBC programmes.»

fonte: «BBC iPlayer to include video streaming»,Robin Parker, Broadcastnow, 16/10/07 

«Rádio na internet: potencial é grande, ouvintes, poucos»

«Spring 2007 data shows less than 1% of diaries contain listening to Internet radio. But when listeners do tune-in online, they seem to favor local stations. In Fall 2006 66% of diary-keepers went to a webcast from a station they could also hear over the air. But they’re not replacing FM or AM with online —78% say they listened to the station via both mediums. According to Arbitron, 45% of stations are now streaming»

fonte: «Internet radio: Potential is great, listeners are few» Inside Radio 9/10/07
 

Ramsey: «(...)are you as alarmed as I am that so few radio stations actually have an online stake in their future? Granted, streaming the audio is not the only way to plant a flag online. But if distributing your content online isn't a main reason to BE online, then you need to go back to square one.»

«Estamos cegos para o futuro e ele está à nossa frente» (MRamsey)

«Right now our industry is bigger than any of those competitors. And that means we should be investing heavily in alternative windows to reach the ears of our audience. When was the last time you heard of a radio broadcasting company buying an Internet firm in the business of audio entertainment or information? Instead, Yahoo or Google buy them. AOL buys them. Sprint and Verizon do deals with them. We are blind to the future and it's right in front of our eyes.» (Ramsey, 2005: 89) 

A internet ao serviço da rádio (2005)

«Internet radio has certain social strengths, because it is possible to create services even for very small and scattered groups all over the world without large initial investments. Although it has become the main delivery system for thousands of web-only radio operators and an important supplementary platform for practically all radio broadcasters, it has still problems with copyright  issues. When compared to broadcasting, perhaps the main economic disadvantage of Internet radio is that every new listener means more expenses for the program operator. This is why BBC is probably going to prevent foreign users to listen its domestic channels over the web. (Laven 1998, 6-8; Bagharib & Tan 2004, 2; Ala-Fossi 2005, 40-41; Colker 2005) Another disadvantage of Internet radio has been it's weak mobility and portability. While mobile phone approach may still be too expensive to use, a wireless broadband network with fixed rates can become a practical solution for listening live or streaming Internet radio outside of your home or office.» (Ala-Fossi, 2005: 23-24)

O nascimento de um novo meio (McLuhan)

«"The hybrid or the meeting of two media is a moment of truth and revelation from which new form is born. For the parallel between two media holds us on the frontiers between forms that snap us out of the Narcissus-narcosis. The moment of the meeting of media is a moment of freedom and release from the ordinary trance and numbness imposed by them on our senses." » (Understanding Media, pág. 55)

«(...) what podcasting represents, and it is a moving trend rather than a finished product, is ‘hybrid energy’ – as McLuhan would term it – when one medium, radio crossing into another, the Internet. In this case it moves beyond the classic Internet radio forms, live-streaming, which simply used the Internet as a distribution platform and allows the meeting of radio and the Internet to create something new through a software marriage. The RSS is the facilitator or enabler which is allowing old media, whether newspapers, radio or television, to become something new in the Internet.» (Shaw, 2005: 15) 

Um exemplo de como as rádios podem diversificar a sua oferta na net

Mark Ramsey elogia a nova criação da Clear Channel: um portal para vender e comprar carros, chamado DFWAutoplex.com:

«(...) it is an example of a new form of connection linking a station's audience to that station's advertiser so as to generate revenue results and happy customers without depending solely on a station's airtime in an ever-more-cluttered ad marketplace.

This is exactly the type of Internet-based, off-air "connection mechanism" we're going to see a LOT more of in the future, especially when it comes to sales categories of critical importance to the radio industry. It's exactly the kind of stuff I've been talking about on this blog over the past few months. As a radio station, your strength isn't that you have spots. It's that you have listeners.»

fonte: «You're not in the "Radio Business," you're in the business of hand-delivering leads», Hear2.0, 20/08/07

A rádio de mentalidade analógica!

Sempre foi uma das questões com que os animadores das rádios musicais portugueses lidaram mal, a apresentação das canções que se seguem ou se seguiram (genericamente, mais por desleixo do que por incompetência).

Ou não apresentam, deixando os ouvintes pendurados, ou apresentam de uma forma incompleta, ou apresentam todas seguidas, como se tivessemos um lápis para assentar e ficar à espera (e, claro, às vezes apresentam bem!).

Esta manhã, antes das 10, na Antena 3 passou uma música que já tinha ouvido, com a qual simpatizei, mas de que nada sabia. Fiquei à espera, mas no final, Raquel Bulha disse apenas «Closer». Porque o refrão dizia isso mesmo, percebi que se tratava do nome da canção. Mas quem a canta? Felizmente existe hoje a internet e uma busca simples por «Closer» não demorou muito a fornecer uma resposta: «Closer», de Travis.

Não sou dos que defendem a pureza da complementaridade entre rádio convencional e internet, como se elas pudessem coexistir tranquilamente. O que me parece é que quanto mais a rádio convencional desiste de servir o seu cliente, dando azo a que ele procure noutro lado, menos tempo o cliente passará a ouvir a sua rádio. Veremos...

 

Uma excelente definição de Internet (para perceber melhor o que está em causa)

«A Internet é o tecido das nossas vidas. Se as tecnologias de informação são o equivalente histórico do que foi a electricidade na era industrial, na nossa era poderíamos comparar a Internet com a rede eléctrica e o motor eléctrico, dada a sua capacidade para distribuir o poder da informação por todos os âmbitos da actividade humana. E mais, tal como as novas tecnologias de geração e distribuição de energia permitiram que as fábricas e as grandes empresas se estabelecessem como as bases organizacionais da sociedade industrial, a Internet constitui actualmente a base tecnológica da forma organizacional que caracteriza a Era da Informação: a rede» (Castells, 2004: 15).

«A Internet (...) não é apenas uma tecnologia: é o instrumento tecnológico e a forma organizativa que distribui o poder da informação, a geração de conhecimentos e a capacidade de ligar-se em rede em qualquer âmbito da actividade humana» (Castells, 2004:311)

«A Internet é um meio de comunicação que permite, pela primeira vez, a comunicação de muitos para muitos em tempo escolhido e a uma escala global. Do mesmo modo que a difusão a imprensa no ocidente deu lugar ao que McLuhan denominou de 'Galáxia Gutenberg' , entramos agora num novo mundo da comunicação: a Galáxia Internet.» (2004: 16)

A rádio não está a tirar partido da internet (EUA); podia ser cá

«Taking radio to task for not delving more rapidly into the digital space, Zenith Media's Matt Feinberg, who oversees the company's Radio and Interactive divisions, said radio is missing out on money that is increasingly being funneled to digital media. Digital is everywhere," he said at the June 28 Interep Radio Symposium. "There is a digital wave and everyone wants a piece of it, but radio is not there. People want pure digital buys, and radio is not there. Radio is a line item, a nuisance. It's a pain in the butt right now." With a couple of notable exceptions, he also said that radio groups aren't doing enough in the online space, either. "It's not that they're bad at it, they just haven't really done it," he said. "Citadel and Clear Channel have done some good things, but radio hasn't stepped up to digital frontier en masse. There is alack of understanding at the high levels, and they don't see the reasoning for the investment. I believe that wholeheartedly."

fonte: Radio Ink, Radio 'A Line Item' For Agency Rep, 01?/07/07

EXcesso de informação nas páginas on line

Um novo paradigma pressupõe saber como lidar com uma nova - e estranha - realidade.

As rádios procuram colocar conteúdos nas suas páginas on line, que prendam a atenção dos seus «ouvintes». Mas qual é o limite quantitativo para essa informação?

Mark Ramsey, assustado com os 150 links da z100 de Nova Iorque, lembra que o Google tem 17 ligações na sua pagina de abertura. E conclui, como os japaneses, que mais pode ser demais: «Before you craft a web page designed to overwhelm and turn off your audience, before you suggest to listeners that when they visit your site it's unlikely that they'll actually find whatever they're looking for, post this note over your webmaster's PC: "Hara hachi bu." (ou seja, «Japanese have a great expression concerning healthy eating habits: Hara hachi bu, or “Eat until 80% full.”)

A propósito do dia de silêncio na internet (EUA)

Kurt Hanson explica porque é que vários grupos com responsabilidades nos EUA não aderem:

«First and foremost, some groups believe the death of Internet Radio is a blessing. They feel that the less Internet radio there is, the better off they will be. In fact, if all Internet radio stations disappeared tomorrow such that terrestrial stations could shut down their streaming efforts, I'm sure many would be glad to do so. (...) Radio will, in other words, be victimized by its lack of vision. Because not only will this rate hike, if it's approved, come back to haunt radio by setting a precedent for what "fair" compensation is, not only will it cause many broadcasters to abandon their streaming efforts (if they had any to begin with), it will also kill most small webcasters leaving room only for the folks with deep pockets and a long view of the future»

 

Para além da legimitação empírica da Internet

A Internet não precisa de ser legitimada cientificamente, dirão, porque todos nós sabemos que a usamos.

Mas há dados que mostram que a Internet não é como ver televisão ou ouvir rádio. «Num estudo efectuado em 2002/ a Datamonitor, uma multinacional especializada em estudos de mercado e líder na disponibilização de informação onine, apurou que a Internet demorou menos de dez anos até ser utilizada por cinquena milhões de indivíduos, enquanto a televisão precisou de aproximadamente quinze anos e o rádio cerca de quarenta». (Chaves et al., 2007: 29)

Esforços na GB para valorizar o streaming

«The RadioCentre Player features 12 preset stations, including the national services, Classic, Virgin and TalkSport; other big stations such as Heart and Capital, and a few smaller regionals from Channel 103 FM to Lincs FM. The selection of the preset list is not based on audience or any other consumer measure but on who sits around the RadioCentre board table, hence the bizarre mix.

Putting such political nonsense to one side, the player gives access to every single station in the UK, either in an alphabetical format or by group ownership basis. This means that you can listen live, in real time, for free, to any station in Britain. Whether you are a record plugger wanting to assess a music format (or, more importantly, find out whether a station really is playing your artist's song), or a media buyer checking out the target audience, this is a brilliant tool. It is quick - almost every station buffers and streams live in less than 10 seconds - and there are fewer clicks than going on to the BBC website to "listen again".

This brings me to the BBC, and where some commercial radio executives start to get uneasy. The player features a "search" button, which brings up all of the BBC's national, regional and local stations (http://www.bbc.co.uk/imp/). So imagine if you are tuned to Magic, and the breakfast presenter Neil Fox promotes the RadioCentre Player URL. Listeners are instantly transported to a place where not only can they hear all of Magic's commercial rivals, but the BBC as well. Chris Moyles is just three clicks away.» (http://media.guardian.co.uk/mediaguardian/story/0,,2094429,00.html)

fonte: «This is the future of radio - and new music», On An Overgrown Path, 08/06/07 

A internet não pode ser um custo para a rádio!

Diz Mark Ramsey (e aplica-se a muitos dos responsáveis por rádios portuguesas):

«Even in 2007 it's not uncommon for the average radio station to view their website as a cost, and usually a nominal one at that. To most stations even today, it's a billboard in cyberspace (remember that term?). A repository for boring details about your personalities, your music, your events, and tons of non-contextual banner advertising, occasionally bonused with a live stream. (...) Your website is a destination for enriching the experience of visitors in ways that entertain and involve them such that your brand is enhanced, usage is stimulated, page views are maximized, and revenues are generated. Start thinking about your website in those terms and recreate your site from ground zero. The trap in our industry is the norm. I can't count the number of times I'm asked for "a good example" of this or that on other radio stations. The best examples of websites for radio stations are generally not on radio stations. (...)The trap in our industry is the budget. Too many stations have volunteer webmasters if they have any at all. Your web effort will soon be as important as on-air programming effort. In fact, I would suggest you picture your website as an entirely separate radio station and budget accordingly. I can easily - easily - foresee your website attracting a larger audience than your radio station. »

fonte: Hear2.0, What your website is, 01/05/07

Audiencias da rádio via net (um em três ouvem)

«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.Internet listening is most popular in the 35-44 age group (41 per cent of whom listen this way), and in the 24-34 age group (40 per cent). The ICM poll also found that internet listening is more popular among men (36 per cent of whom listen via internet) than women (25 per cent).

Other findings include:

- 42 per cent of people listen via their television reflecting the growth of digital TV - 36 per cent of people listen via a digital radio (DAB) radio set, meaning more people use a TV than this service - 21 per cent listen via an MP3 or other digital music player, despite many consumers' devices not having an integrated radio tuner - 12 per cent listen via a mobile phone with built-in tuner, as more and more have this facility - 82 per cent listen via a conventional analogue radio set; Steve Dowdle, MD, Sony UK, said: "Internet radio is no longer the preserve of technology enthusiasts. This research shows that it is hugely popular among millions of people from a wide range of ages. “We can see just what an impact the internet is having on radio, changing how millions of us listen, and even changing what we listen to and when. He added, “This trend will surely continue, meaning great news for the millions who love radio, and further opportunities for the many talented people who work in it."Studies of young people found they now listen to radio via television sets, and via DAB digital radio sets. The research also found that a third of young people now listen to radio via mobile phones. (...) The research was released to coincide with the Sony Radio Awards which took place in Central London last night.»

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

Nomeados para os Webbys 2007 - melhor site de rádio

(os vencedores são conhecidos na terça-feira)

Nominees	Agency/Credited Organization
BBC Radio 1 http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1	BBC
CBC Radio 3 http://radio3.cbc.ca/	CBC
iCat fm http://www.icatfm.com	CCRTV Interactiva
NPR.org http://www.npr.org/	NPR
Virgin Radio http://www.virginradio.co.uk/?pid...	Virgin Radio