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By Steve, October 29, 2011 10:00 am

New York Times columnist David Pogue does a bang-up job of sharing the awesomeness of Dropbox. He goes into great detail about how Dropbox has helped him write his latest book. It’s worth a read because I know from personal experience it can change the way a busy radio personality works.

If you don’t have time to read all of David’s review, here are two quick reasons to download the Dropbox program: 1) It’s free; 2) It’s magic.

I use Dropbox dozens of times a day, usually without even thinking about it. For example, every issue of our premium show prep service, InterPrep/PRO, is saved to Dropbox. Every time an edit is made the latest version is saved in my computer’s Dropbox folder, then to the Dropbox server, and then to a notebook PC in my office — all within seconds. (The notebook also runs the Dropbox program.)

Using Dropbox as a documents folder is smart for many reasons, the two biggest for me being instant off-site backup and the ability to grab my notebook computer and head to a coffee shop without having to copy files to a USB key.

But Dropbox really shines for “live” remote broadcasting. Recently I had the opportunity to fly to Washington D.C. with 75 World War II veterans on an Honor Flight. (You can learn more about Honor Flight here.) I was part of a two-person team recording hourly updates that were sent back to radio studios in Champaign, Illinois. Using iPod Touches, the iTalk recording app and a 3G mobile Internet device it was super simple to do interviews and ship them, via Dropbox, back to our producer in Champaign. After recording each segment iTalk lets you ‘share’ your audio using Dropbox. We shared our files to a Dropbox folder that our producer 715 miles away had access to. Over the course of 8 hours we sent 16 high-quality audio reports without a single problem.

As I said, day in and day out I use Dropbox dozens of times, often for my morning show. A copy of the program is on a main studio computer, which means I can ‘drop’ audio files and show prep into a shared folder on my home computer. When I arrive at the studio in the morning I know the files are waiting for me.

I don’t just recommend Dropbox, I urge you to use it as a super-simple backup solution and a wonderful radio tool.

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By Steve, March 8, 2009 11:43 am

Jango, a music streaming service which claims 6 million monthly listeners, is selling paid placement to labels and artists through a program it launched last week called Jango Airplay. For as little as $30, a band can buy 1,000 plays on Jango. Each song has links to buy the song at Amazon or iTunes.

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By Steve, March 7, 2009 11:01 am

From ComputerWorld:

The majority of radio listeners still do it the old fashioned way: They turn on the radio in the car, for example, and just listen to whatever is playing locally. But over time, more people will discover and use cell-phone-streamed radio. And the cars themselves will grow that capability.

All of this raises a serious question: When Joe in Nashville is listening to New York City’s Z100, when Carla in New York is listening to Miami’s MEGA 94.9, and when Paul in Miami is listening to Nashville’s Big 98 WSIX, what does the “local” in “local radio” mean?

… It’s time the so-called local media opened its eyes to the new reality: Nothing is local anymore. And it’s a huge opportunity. The new mantra should be: Cover local events exclusively, but for a global audience.

Read it all…