Category Archives: Business & Marketing

Best vet blog

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A good blog is: personal, informative, timely, passionate, focused… and, yes, I do have an example in mind. Following excerpt is from yesterday post on Your Pet’s Best Friend:

“When we welcome a new client to our practice, part of the process is a questionnaire about their pet’s health history and environment. The last question is: “Do you consider your pet to be a member of the family?” and most people answer “Yes”. The human-animal bond is very strong. It’s very common for people to say that the pet is like a child to them. Cat-lovers often say that the cat owns them, rather than the other way around. Certainly many (most?) of us consider our pets as companions, as opposed to property. Thus it would seem that referring to ourselves as the “guardians” of our pets is just a nice way of saying how we really feel. [Trade Secret: the real key question is “Where does your pet sleep?”]”

If you come across what you believe is a better vet blog, send me the link.

Commercial radio…without commercials

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“Facing increasing competition from satellite radio and iPods, Clear Channel Communications is trying something radically different at a commercial radio station in Texas: getting rid of the commercials.

As of today, KZPS in Dallas — on the dial at 92.5 FM or online at lonestar925.com — will no longer run traditional 30- or 60-second advertisements. Instead, advertisers sponsor an hour of programming, during which a D.J. will promote its product conversationally in what the company calls integration.” — New York Times

Google will sell ads on Clear Channel

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Google has broken into radio with a multi-year advertising sales agreement with the largest U.S. broadcaster, Clear Channel Radio. Clear Channel said it has agreed for Google to sell a guaranteed portion of the 30-second spots available on its 675 radio stations in top U.S. markets, in a bid to expand the universe of local radio advertisers to Google’s online buyers.

A Clear Channel executive said Google has access to less than 5% of the radio broadcaster’s overall inventory of advertising air time. The U.S. radio industry generates $20 billion in annual sales. [USAToday]

One hundred million iPods sold

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“Apple today announced that the 100 millionth iPod has been sold, making the iPod the fastest selling music player in history. The first iPod was sold five and a half years ago, in November 2001, and since then Apple has introduced more than 10 new iPod models, including five generations of iPod, two generations of iPod mini, two generations of iPod nano and two generations of iPod shuffle. Along with iTunes and the iTunes online music store, the iPod has transformed how tens of millions of music lovers acquire, manage and listen to their music.”

BusinessWeek: Don’t quit your day job, podcasters

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Good article in Business Week about how difficult it is to make a living as a podcaster. Seems I am one of about 35,000 daily listeners to Keith and the Girl:

“Keith Malley and Chemda Khalili, the couple behind Keith and the Girl, an engaging, sometimes raunchy Howard Stern-like podcast, have cultivated a devoted online audience. (Six fans have already had Keith and the Girl tattoos done.) The show, which has 35,000 daily listeners, is just one part of the brand. Just as important to fans are the online forums and MySpace.com (NWS ) pages where they gather to talk about the show and their lives. As a result of this devotion, the audience last year was willing to snap up about $80,000 worth of T-shirts, key chains, and other merchandise.”

Some would argue that $80K ain’t bad for just shooting the shit for an hour a day. But, as a regular listener, sounds to me like they’re working damned hard and earning every penny.

By the time you need a blog, it’s too late

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One of my blogging sermonettes is the importance of having an established blog (and readership) before you need it. Once the shit has hit the fan, you can’t run down the hall to the IT department and shout, “Quick! We need a blog!”

If you have a credible blog in place, you can respond to and comment on topics as they arise. A good example of this is “Your Pet’s Best Friend,” a blog written by my old Kennett buddy Dr. T. Everett Mobley.

Like vets all across the country, his clients are concerned about contaminated pet food. He’s been posting short updates with links to other websites and just generally letting his readers know what’s happening.

Everett is not our vet but I know him and trust him and I’ll be checking his blog to get his take on this situation. As far as I know, none of the Jeff City vets have blogs. Missed opportunity.

iTunes adds Major League Baseball video highlights

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On Friday, Apple announced they’ll be offering Major League Baseball video highlights for the 2007 season on the iTunes Store. MLB video on iTunes will include a daily 25 minute MLB.com Daily Rewind highlight show and two weekly Games of the Week, featuring full versions of the best games from the National and American Leagues.

Customers will be able to download individual episodes of MLB.com Daily Rewind and each Game of the Week for $1.99, or purchase a Multi-Pass for a month of Daily Rewind shows for $7.99 or a Season Pass for every Game of the Week at just $19.99. [Podcasting News]

I’m not a baseball fan but I do love highlights (of almost any sport). And I’ll probably invest $1.99 just to see how these look on the Apple TV. (“I just don’t know what you’d watch on that Apple TV thing.”)

Regular readers know the company I work for has the multi-media marketing rights for 32 college athletic programs. I sure hope somebody is working on something similar for our schools.

Blog lemonade

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VirginaThe “West Virginia” printed on the shirts players wore after winning the NIT title with a 78-73 victory over Clemson on Thursday night is missing the last “i” in “Virginia.” WVU sports information director Shelly Poe said the NIT printed the shirts.

Embarrassing? Maybe a little for the NIT. But certainly not for West Virginia. Their accomplishment is in no way diminished. But it will get a little ink for a day or two.

If I were the Resident Blogger for West Virginia Athletics, I would be having some fun with this.

  • Invite fans to send in videos of themselves wearing the T-shirt and explaining the misspelling.
  • Post an explanation loaded with typos.
  • Have a fake professor (with British accent) explain how the spelling on the shirt is –in fact– the original, “correct” spelling of “Virgina”

Blogging lemonade.

Disclosure: The company I work for handles multi-media marketing for Clemson.

Google Audio looking better to radio groups

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“Google is finding some friends. There are plenty of critics of Google’s foray into radio — but we’re slowly seeing some group heads come out and say there may be a place for the Internet giant in radio sales. Regent tested the service in two markets and CEO Bill Stakelin says they sold “a tremendous amount of inventory” and the results “far exceeded our expectations.” He says the issue that remains to be worked out is pricing.

While Emmis CEO Jeff Smulyan says “if Google has the advertiser that we’re never going to call on at rates that make sense … then it’s business that we want to take.” Smulyan says Google’s efforts are especially welcome in “transactional” markets like New York and L.A. where radio has done a “marginal job” at attracting new advertisers.

Meanwhile — Border Media Partners CEO Tom Castro says many folks are focusing on HD and streaming. But the real technological breakthrough will come on the sales side. Castro says “it’s not very sexy — but it’s where we are going to make a lot of money in the future.” — INSIDE RADIO report from the Kagan Radio-TV Summit: