Tweason[1]: IHeartRadio

I am constantly amazed that adoption of new ideas depends so heavily on the limited knowledge of the adopters. (Not laziness or dumbness or anything like that, more just lack of time and knowledge, but those offering the services know that).

Case in point: IHeartRadio

Anyone who spends even a little time playing with Internet tuners has found a handful of places that provide thousands of radio channels so they can listen to dozens in the niches they enjoy (Live356 , tunein, Pandora, etc).

Yet IHeartRadio bills proudly proclaims they offer over 750 channels, and in their very hip hop best that they are better than Pandora. 

Well, they are not Pandora, they are something different. And who are they talking to? Conventional radio listeners who regard radio as a dead technology (even though it powers their wireless devices), and satellite radio listeners, who start salivating at the thought of paying for ear candy.

I think IHeartRadio is a great idea. It (and services like it) may just save "radio" as a concept in which a faraway stranger with a pleasant voice and interesting idea or song or story gets my attention for a while and advertisers tag along for the ride knowing I'm actively listening.

I will miss the old radio towers and radio antennas, but they will slowly be replaced with cell towers and wireless devices; that will take time, but it will happen; I think conventional radio will be here for a while, certainly for a couple generations, but by the time my grandchildren are contemplating their mortality as much as I do, that world may belong to the hobbyists, and most conventional radio will be local, short range, and most of it consumed online, like microbrews at specialty pubs. (How many people are getting only over-the-air digital TV? Some. Enough to support a business model? Probably not, or not very many.)

So the idea behind my tweet was that millions will be satisfied with 750 station in the palm of their hand because they've been told that's all they need and it's better than the next most popular app. Just like back in the day when millions turned on their computers and sat in front of AOL and said "Hey, I'm on the Internet," when in reality they never left the portal.

There are many that simply don't have the time or desire to sort through 1000's of stations to find what they want, and IHeartRadio suits them just fine. The time/money/entertainment balance is a fine one that can be tilted by many factors. Offering one flavor of ice cream at Burger King makes enough people happy to sell enough ice cream to make it worth the effort. Some want three choices and go to Mcdonald's, and get chills when they offer minty shakes at St Patrick's and egg nog shakes at Christmas. 

Like an infant galaxy, the Internet is slowly coalescing into clumps of recognizable structures; only instead of solar systems and nebulae, they are business models where content is being collected and collated and repackaged, some free, some for a price, for people who do not want to do the collecting and collating. From the farm to the grocery store, I guess. Once you're detached from the earth and no longer getting your hands dirty with mulch and fertilizer, it's difficult to go back.

[1]

The reason behind the tweet.