In both the business and consumer press, one of the hottest buzz topics of the moment is the wonderfulness of personalizable Internet radio apps now available on the iPhone.

But as you read these articles, I’d urge you to stretch your imagination a little bit further and think what this will mean a couple of years from now.

Keep in mind that what an iPhone can do today, most phones will be able to do in the not-too-distant future. Millions of those phones, for example, will be based on the Google Android development platform, and you’ll see them start to roll out in December.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg (which is actually a better metaphor than the canary in the headline (although a camel’s nose in the tent would also be good)). These features and capabilities will make their way to mass-market phones, into home stereo receivers, and into car dashboards, too.

Radio broadcasters could be leaders in this space, but except for the AOL/CBS partnership, none cuurrently are. The problem is, radio broadcasters will have to develop new products and services appropriate for consumer needs and tastes in this new environment, and that means more than straight AM/FM simulcasts.

It means offering a broad spectrum of genres of music, offering playlist options that can be, at the consumer’s demand, very tight or very wide, offering other personalization options that are brand-specific, and, to compete effectively with the AOLs and Pandoras of the world, not trying to deliver 12 minutes of commercials per hour.

But it’s worth doing, as some of those who catch this wave will, in a few years, be sitting on the top of the world!

So the trick that I’m proposing today is for you to try to think beyond today. For example, if you’re my age, when you first saw a cable TV box, with its 10 or 12 channels, did you think, “Hmmm, eventually most people will have these and they’ll have 30 or even 50 channels?” and think through the implications of that?

Think beyond today.

Comment

1. Did I just hear a great idea for a industry wide competition or think tank? How we as an industry might pull collective brains together to innovate and grab this opportunity? As an iPhone owner I’m beginning to understand the potential positive and negative impact. It’s not a phone – it’s the symbol of a revolution. If we could only jump on this.

   — Jim Taszarek · Jul 28, 02:51 PM · #

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