By: Karim Mostafa Research Shows Wide Consumer Adoption To Come
Newspaper Web site editors may have a headache from the constant mantra - "mul-ti-me-dia, mul-ti-me-dia." But jazzing up your site with audio may not be so painful.
While most newspaper sites are forgoing bandwidth-hogging video for now, they would be wise to consider adding audio features sooner. Forrester Research's "Streamies" study released in May said 41% of the general population will listen to personalized, on-demand audio content at least once a week by 2005.
The study dealt mostly with people who listen to and download music from the Internet. But there could be some lessons for news sites too.
Self-serve audio and new portable devices will change the listening habits of consumers, Forrester says. For example, if I wake up late, I can still listen to National Public Radio's Morning Edition, except this time on my MP3 on the subway, instead of on the radio blaring while I'm in the shower.
Commuters who drive will also have audio choice. Forrester predicts that by 2005, wireless radio will be available in automobiles, allowing consumers to pick what music or news programs they want, when they want.
Another study shedding some insight on audio content is the Arbitron/Edison Media Research Internet V study which surveyed 17,708 people. The research found that Streamies pay more attention to banner ads than non-Streamies. But even more interesting, Webcast listeners pay more attention to streamed online commercials than to banner ads. Audio ads got 46% in the "frequently/sometimes pay attention to each ad" category, between videos ads' 52% and banners' 40%.
The bottom line is that Streamies are far more interactive and more responsive to advertising, according to the research. If the advertising community embraces this notion, it will hasten the demand for audio features on news sites.
Among the companies that can add audio to your news site are Audible.com, Audiobasket.com, Everstream, and the newest, Voquette. (Audible.com was covered in Steve Outing's most recent column; link below.)
Everstream has provided streaming music on newspaper Web sites for a while now, and recently started creating local audio news stations, the first being AZLiveWire.com for AZCentral.com, the Arizona Republic's Web site. Stephen McHale, CEO of Everstream, said that nowadays a great digital studio can be built for less than $10,000. Everstream will record content for you, but they'll also give newspaper sites all the specs needed to build their own recording studios if desired.
Everstream was considering adding video to its client offerings, but for now the company is concentrating on audio and licensing its back-end servers to clients. As for the video content, McHale said, "We could launch video tomorrow, but the business model doesn't work."
The Financial Times built its own studio to record audio content for Audiobasket.com. Audiobasket.com offers personalized audio to users, allowing them to compile stories on one company, such as Motorola, from its news partners, which include the likes of FT.com, WSJ.com, and Bloomberg.
Based in San Francisco, Audiobasket has launched several other services in the last two weeks. First, The Wire is a daily e-mail alert service, sending aggregated audio content to inboxes. It includes a summary of news stories and links back to the sites that produced the stories.
Audiobasket.com also launched a QuickStart program, with Homestead at its first client. QuickStart is Audiobasket.com's introductory version that allows users to get a sampling of what type of news they carry by simply clicking and listening. On Homestead, users can click and drop Audiobasket's QuickStart program onto their personal Web sites.
More importantly, Audiobasket.com recently launched its ad server. The server targets ads according to demographics, content selected, and which Web site users are coming from. The company's Ad Client Analytic Services allows advertisers to check the effectiveness of their advertising and change where the audio ad is played. Kim Fisher, CEO of Audiobasket.com, said that advertising on their network sells at three times the rate of banner ads, in the $60 to $200 range which varies according to targetability and the type of ad selected. Audiobasket.com is offering banner, audio, and text ads through its audio content and e-mail service, The Wire.
A company betting on portable devices is Voquette, based in San Mateo, Calif. This company, which is still beta-testing its myVoquette feature, allows Web sites to place a widget on their home page from which users can personalize audio content for downloading onto a portable device.
Voquette has a new software, called Voquette Media Manager, that handles different formats. It also has a text-to-speech audio software that allows users to take text and have it converted to audio. Voquette hosts co-branded pages for sites that partner with it for audio content.
Karim Mostafa (kmostafa@editorandpublisher.com) is associate editor for E&P Online.
Related stories:
Steve Outing's Stop the Presses Column: OK, It's Time To Get Serious About Audio (11/01/00)
STARTUP LAUNCHING 'AUDIO' NEWSPAPERS (07/24/00)
EVERSTREAM PROVIDES AUDIO TO BELO (07/19/00)
AP RADIO TEAMS WITH AUDIOBASKET (06/02/00)
Copyright 2000, Editor & Publisher.
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