BOOK TODAY FOR THE “RAIN LAS VEGAS SUMMIT!” New speakers are announced today for the “RAIN Las Vegas Summit,” the year’s premiere gathering of both broadcast and Internet-only webcasters — see Kurt’s blog at right. There are still great airfares to Las Vegas available from most cities, and the town seems to have plenty of reasonably-priced hotel rooms still available too. Last year’s RAIN Summit registration was $120 in advance, $150 at the door, but 20 complimentary registrations are available TODAY, furnished by RAIN Summit sponsor Ando Media — just be one of the first 20 people to write us today at summit@kurthanson.com.

RBR ON WI-FI RADIOS: TAKE YOUR STATION GLOBAL RBR.com has published an “intelligence brief” on desktop, Wi-Fi radios, making the point that they’re as easy to use as conventional radios, yet there’s no comparison when it comes to programming choice. RBR writes, “With all of the free WiFi Hot Spots, WiMax and just plain unprotected wireless internet clouds in neighborhoods across the nation… WiFi radios are able to act like a traditional radio — grab a signal and play music. They have URL presets, scanning, an antenna and speakers, of course. The steps needed to stream on a laptop or PC are eliminated. Just push the power button on and your favorite station begins to play. With 10,000 choices organized by format, call letter or location, one gets the sense real quick these are the radios of the future.” Bob Vinikoor, CEO of Koor Communications, in New London, NH, told RBR, “It puts our stations on a level playing field with the BBC to name just one of the 10,000 stations that are carried on these radios… It also takes a lot of the wind out of the sails of XM and Sirius who can only boast 200 channels and charge $12 a month. WiFi radio is FREE. We need to get behind this technology and make it fly.” Read the entire paper here.

FLYTUNES ADDS TO WIRELESS CONTENT OFFERINGS Wireless content distributor FlyTunes has announced that it is now offering over 160 channels of music and talk radio programming for mobile devices, including Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch. New channels include Radio Paradise, SmoothJazz.com, RauteMusik.fm, and 53 music channels from 181.fm. In the talk category, FlyTunes has added NPR, TheScore.com, and local weather in the top 15 U.S. markets. FlyTunes says their average user listens eight hours per month. Read more from FlyTunes here. And, you may want to see what AccuRadio Lead Developer Ralph Sledge wrote about the current state of streaming to wireless devices in RAIN here.

“ALL YOU CAN EAT” iTUNES PLUS HOME DEVICE WOULD BE ULTIMATE NET RADIO, WRITES BUSINESS WEEK Following up on rumors of an Apple iTunes “all you can eat” subscription service (see RAIN here)… Business Week writes that if Apple were to introduce such a service in conjunction with a home audio hardware device, the company would have “the ultimate Internet radio right out of the gate.” Columnist Arik Hesseldahl writes, “The idea is that the user buys a piece of equipment with a ready connection to an online music store and then pays a monthly subscription fee for unlimited access to many or all of the songs. Apple wouldn’t be the first to try to make this work, but it could possibly do it better. I’m imagining a shelf-top audio system that would contain what you’d expect: an iPod dock, a conventional AM-FM radio, and perhaps HD Radio, or the option to add on the satellite radio service of your choice. But it would also connect to a home network, via both Wi-Fi and Ethernet.” Read the column here.

WARNER HIRES GRIFFIN TO HEAD ISP MUSIC FEE PROJECT Digital music veteran Jim Griffin is now working for Warner Music, and will head up a project which would charge ISP customers a monthly fee for unlimited access to music. Griffin is to “develop a model that would create a pool of money from user fees to be distributed to artists and copyright holders. Warner has given Griffin a three-year contract to form a new organization to spearhead the plan,” reports Portfolio.com here. “We want to monetize the anarchy of the internet,” said Griffin. “We hope all of the rights holders will come in and take ownership with us, and Warner will not control it. Our goal is to create a collective society for the digital age.”

LAST.FM EXPANDS INTO GERMANY Last.fm is reportedly to expand its music networking and discovery service into Germany and Northern Europe. The company has hired ex-Google executive F. Scott Woods as Senior VP and Managing Director for the region, to be based in Hamburg. Last.fm also recently forged integration deals with German publications Spiegel Online and Bild.de.

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