This is the future of Radio

I am telling it to everyone who listenes, podcasting is the future of radio. Sounds a bit far out for some, but now NPR proved my point. Mix your own is a system (via RWW) where you can mix together your own podcast right on npr.org, then subscribing to it via iTunes or whatever. Sure, people could do that themselves by subscribing to several small podcasts but what NPR does is so much better.

But one step back. Why is podcasting the future of radio? Radio sucks. I get in the car and the news is already over, I missed my favorite 1 minute comedy, and just this one day only sucky songs are on. It would be much better if I got into my car and it just played what I wanted to hear, freshly synced. All this is actually not a real problem if you think a few more years out. There is no reason that every radio will not be equiped with a 3G connection to sync in at fixed times. Sure you can do that with your iPhone/iPod, but that’s not the point and just not easy enough for the general population. Once everything can sync there is no problem anymore to not have the right podcast on the device at any time.

Of course there is still stuff like last.fm, but I am talking about the future of Radio not the future of consuming music, and I am actually more specifically meaning the future of Radio stations. I am very happy to have the right guy give me new and old music to listen to. I am very happy to get the right show from the radio on my device. Radio Stations should filter stuff for me, just like newspapers, but I want it right when and where I want it, not when they are sending it out. And this is exactly what NPR does with their system. I go on there and tell them what I am interested in and I get just that, at the time I want.

We already know that the focus is going to the consumer, and the focus is going to internet connected media. Paper newspapers will die a death by thousand stabs, if they don’t open up to things like the the Kindle where I can get my stuff from their trusted source. Same goes for radio. Open up, remix, mash up, integrate. The NPR system also allows for integrating ads and I wouldn’t mind.

Rock on NPR. Thank you for an innovation that hopefullly many will follow.