The Pleasure of Personalization (v2)

Dramatic presentations changed in many ways when they leapt from the distribution mechanism of live theater to the distribution method of the movie screen.

Theoretically, a movie could be nothing more than a play filmed by a fixed-position camera set in fifth row of the theater. However, film opened up new possibilities: Scenes could be filmed outdoors and on location, directors could use techniques like the close-up and the montage, and so forth. Soon, a film that was simply pointing a camera at a stage play became a rare exception (e.g., Alfred Hitchcock's "Rope") rather than the rule.

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Similarly, radio is changing in many ways as it expands from the distribution mechanism we call "broadcast" to the distribution method of the Internet.

Here's a great example: Because the technological ability of Internet-delivered radio to display "Now playing" information visually (not just title and artist, but also album, composer, label, year of release, and CD cover art) virtually eliminates the need for a DJ to do frontsells or backsells.

Similarly, because the Internet is a delivery mechanism that sends a separate stream of data to each listener, it logically follows that it can be not only a separate but a different stream of data to each listener. And that opens up a vast array of new opportunities.

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These new opportunities into a prevelant cultural phenomenon that I call "The Pleasure of Personalization." It's seen in one's ability to order an iced venti quad two-pump-vanilla soy latte at Starbucks; it's seen in one's ability watch this week's episode of "Heroes" on NBC.com at any time of the day or night.

In radio terms, it can be exemplified by one simple feature that you see on many Internet-delivered radio stations: The "skip" button.

When a consumer is listening to one of the dozens of channels of Yahoo! LAUNCHcast, or one of the hundreds of channels of AccuRadio, or one of the zillions of channels of Pandora, there's a programming intelligence selecting the music -- either a human being or a computer algorithm designed by human beings -- but the programming selections do not always precisely correspond to every consumer's tastes at every given moment.

The beauty of the "skip" button is that the consumer doesn't have to sit through four minutes of a song he doesn't like. (Nor does he have to change stations.) He can simply click a little button and move on to the next song, please.

It's a phenomenally valuable improvement in the radio listening experience! (I believe it's akin to the improvement in movies of the close-up.) But the "skip" button is just a simple example -- a mere bellweather of what's possible.

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Since the late '90s, for example, LAUNCHcast has allowed you describe your tastes in music (classic rock, yes, and within that, Eagles, yes; Black Sabbath, no). It then factors in that information when delivering a stream of radio programming for you.

When we launched AccuRadio in 2002, we designed a more direct approach in which you select a genre (e.g., Jazz) and a subchannel within that genre (e.g., Saxophone Jazz) to listen to. Then, once we launch the player, we display a list of the artists played on the channel and allow you to "deselect" those you don't want to hear (e.g., depending on your tastes, either pop artists like David Sanborn and Kenny G or avant-garde artists like Ken Vandermark and Albert Ayler).

More recently, Pandora has allowed you to type in an artist name or song title, and it will access a vast database of song characteristics (tempo, instrumentation, etc.) to put together a string of similar tunes, which you can then fine-tune with "thumbs-up" and "thumbs-down" votes.

And remember, in all three cases, if the webcaster doesn't happen to match to your tastes at the moment with a given song selection, there's that "skip" button.

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As more and more radio listening moves to the Internet method of delivery -- to PCs in the workplace, to cell phones, and via WiMAX into the car dashboard -- personalization will become an increasingly important part of the radio listening experience.

While a simple simulcast stream of your terrestrial station may be valuable to some of your listeners, it will become even more valuable to more of your listeners once you allow some personalization elements.

For example, your oldies station, when delivered via the Internet, could let listeners choose the range of years they'd like to hear music from -- e.g., in my case, I want to hear nothing from before 1965 and nothing more recent than 1974. You could also add features such as allowing listeners to select which of your air personalities is heard voicing the sweepers.

Another approach might be to work by genre rather than by year. You could, for example, invite your listeners "Build your own Oldies 107.9" by giving them the opportunity to mix together their choice of doo-wop, British Invasion, Motown, girl groups, surf music, bubblegum, folk-rock, and psychedelia (any or all).

Similarly, in the world of all-news radio, I'd like to be able to tell Newsradio780.com that I have a particular interest in state politics, tech news, restaurant reviews, weather forecasts for both Chicago and Honolulu, and traffic on the Edens expressway, inbound in the morning, outbound in the evening, and then get a personalized stream that reflects my interests.

All of this is technically feasible -- it's just a matter of thinking of your radio station as a set of audio files and an intelligence that mixes them together, and giving your listeners access to you at that level, rather than at the "final mix" level you currently offer.

In the not-too-distant future, that the majority of radio listening will be to Internet-deliverd personalized streams. And once that era arrives, the one-stream-to-everyone approach (e.g., making me listen to traffic conditions on every expressway in town when I only care about one) will be seen as quaint -- like watching a movie that's nothign more than a play filmed from a fixed-position camera.


































LEFTOVER THOUGHTS:

NBC.com doesn't even OFFER a stream of live NBC.

And if my oldies station plays Ed Ames's "My Cup Runneth Over," which is admittedly from 1967, or if the state politics news item is one I've already read about it in the newspaper earlier in the day, guess what? I'd like to be able to hit the "skip" button.