Next Wave of the Web:
Building the Perfect Radio Station - Page 4
January 29, 2001
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The Perfect Radio Station lets users build totally personalized
programs, using any audio or video content available anywhere on
the Internet. It follows the user's schedule, and can be listened
to anywhere. It is not limited to music. News, financial and
sports information, and even movies and other video content can
be included in a personalized program that can be enjoyed any
time, anywhere.
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To demonstrate the capabilities of this ultimate personal
entertainment tool, here's a typical day in the life of Joe, an
up-to-the-minute wired dude:
7:00 am The speakers by Joe's bed begin to play soft
selections by Joe's favorite acoustic artists. If he doesn't get
out of bed by 10 after, a friendly but insistent voice informs
him that it's time to get up, growing steadily more strident
until he does.
7:15 am As Joe shaves, showers and coffees, the speakers
in the bathroom and kitchen deliver an update on local weather
and traffic conditions.
8:00 am On the way to work, Joe's in-car sound system
plays random selections from Joe's favorite artists, interspersed
with the latest news. Joe is interested in current events, and he
likes to get both sides of the story, so he hears not only the
official line on Time-Warner's morning news program, but also a
couple of independent news programs from the likes of Pacifica
and the local college radio station.
9:00 am - 5:00 pm Joe finds classical music to be
soothing and not distracting, so throughout the workday the
speakers in his cubicle (yes, cubicles still exist in this
particular future, sorry) play a classical station at low volume.
5:00 pm For the drive home, Joe prefers uptempo rock and
roll, and reggae on Fridays. The PRS selects peppier numbers than
it does for the morning program. To keep things from getting
stale, it occasionally throws in a new song that Joe hasn't
heard, but that the PRS's artificial intelligence has surmised he
might like. Of course, if Joe ever decides he doesn't want to
hear a particular selection, he can skip it at the touch of a
button. If he wants to hear a particular song, he just asks, and
it is cued up instantly.
Now, obviously most people won't take as much trouble to fine-
tune their daily entertainment schedule as Joe has, but don't
dismiss him as a media-obsessed aberration. The "need to be
entertained" has joined the hierarchy of human needs. Who hasn't
complained that, even with a hundred cable channels, there's
never anything good on TV or the radio? With the Perfect Radio
Station (PRS) — Personal Media Solution if you prefer — anything
you want to listen to or watch is on any time you want it to be.
Now How Much Woudja Pay?
So, where can you get this life-changing, world-shaking, must-
have gadget? Er, well...you can't. Not yet. Although most of the
pieces of the puzzle are technically feasible enough, it will be
a long time before some of them reach that "critical mass" needed
to make a new medium start to take off. Furthermore, there are
certain legal issues that need to be worked out before the
Perfect Radio Station can become reality.
As long as we're speculating, why call it a "radio station" in
the first place? As has so often happened, a technological term
has come to define a certain way of delivering information, even
after the original technology has become irrelevant. An "album"
originally referred to a vinyl record in a folding cardboard
case, but now symbolizes what turns out to be an excellent unit
of audio product — a group of selections of around 45 minutes in
length, often with some type of common theme. Long after LPs, and
even CDs, have disappeared, pop artists will probably still be
releasing their works in groups of 10 or so 4-minute songs, and
still calling them albums.
Likewise, the various popular formats for radio programs will
always be around. A disc jockey (human or virtual) playing a
variety of music from a playlist, a talk show with call-in
guests, a dramatic radio play — all of these are time-tested ways
of delivering information.
The current system of terrestrial radio transmitters, however, is
a transient technology that, like vinyl records, will eventually
be obsolete. Today's geographically-limited radio station is
inefficient, as each local station must duplicate production
facilities, transmitters and so on. It also severely limits the
programming available, as bandwidth limitations mean that each
geographical region can have only a few dozen stations, while
market considerations mean that smaller "metro markets" will have
a mere handful.
The concept of Internet radio, or "Webcasting," does away with
both of these limitations. Setting up as an Internet broadcaster,
while not for the newbie, costs far less than setting up a
traditional station. And the variety of programming available is
rapidly starting to resemble the sum of all human knowledge.
The underlying technology of radio transmission, of course, isn't
going away. On the contrary, our Perfect Radio Station will be
delivered wirelessly more often than not (how ironic that a
technology that was called "wireless" in its early days later
became "radio" and has now become "wireless" again). Cell phones
and other modern wireless gadgets depend on the same principles
of FM radio as do radio stations. The differences are these:
A traditional broadcaster:
- Transmits a sequential program, encoded as an analog audio or
video signal.
- Transmits over a comparatively wide area, within which the
broadcaster has an exclusive license to use a particular
frequency.
Modern wireless (cellular) technology:
- Can transmit any type of data, including audio and video, as
a digital packet.
- Transmits through a network of overlapping cells, using
various digital tricks to squeeze much more information into the
finite frequency spectrum.
The superiority of the second method from a programming
standpoint is plain. Mass media, which must cater to the ill-
defined tastes of the majority, is replaced by Internet-style
media, which makes it feasible to produce programming for even
the most narrow and specialized of audiences. And geographical
considerations vanish, making it possible (for example) to listen
to European radio stations in America and vice versa, or to
listen to a favorite local radio station anywhere in the world.
Contents:
The Audio-On-Demand Genie
Perfect Radio Station, Imperfect World
Meanwhile, the Pick and Shovel Sellers Cash In! - Page 3
Next Wave of the Web
The Audio-On-Demand Genie - Page 5
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