Month: March 2015

Categories
Mobile Apps

How Mobile Technology Is Affecting Public Transit

Purchasing tickets for any event or transportation in person is a thing of the past. I, for one, know that when I purchase a plane ticket or a concert ticket, I conveniently do so on my smartphone. It is fast and extremely easy, so what businesses wouldn’t want to jump on board?

According to GovTech.com, only a few transit agencies have embraced the technology so far. Since the mid ‘90’s public transportation has grown significantly from those who had to use public transit, to those who are making the choice to use it.  To keep what they are now calling “choice riders” coming back, they must offer a reliable ride that is also convenient. The way to do this is mobile ticketing.

TriMet is one of the first to use mobile ticketing for buses and trains. After a year, they have sold nearly 1 million mobile tickets. With the convenience of being able to purchase a ticket anytime, and anywhere, it is truly a win-win for riders, as well as the public transit agencies.

Categories
Mobile Apps

A Healthy Alternative

One of our custom applications, Food Tripping, was featured in a great article by Health.com entitled “10 Healthy Eating Apps This Nutritionist Loves”. From the brilliant minds at SHFT, their goal is to lead a more sustainable lifestyle through film, design, art, and food. This app is designed to help those in search of healthier food options nearby, integrating farmers markets as well as vegetarian and vegan restaurants. The author of the article, Cynthia Sass, MPH, RD, is a big advocate of the app, saying “I even found some new spots in my own neighborhood I hadn’t heard about yet, and I can suggest my own favorites that are missing. Love, love, love.”

Categories
Mobile Apps

A Taste of Apple’s New Patents

IMAGE: US PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE

Recently, Apple has acquired a slew of new patents that could eventually make its way onto the iPhone. According to Mashable, the U.S. Patent and Trademark office has approved the “Track My Friends” feature. This new feature would let users monitor others’ locations in real time. It will also work hand-in-hand with Apple’s existing “Find My Friends” tool.

What is really neat about this potential feature is that you can open a maps app on your device, and share the path you are travelling with a friend who might want to take the same route. This would be extremely convenient for those who are travelling together in multiple vehicles.

Apple was also approved for a patent related to a new phone camera. This would be for a three-sensor, light splitting camera. These types of cameras would result in a higher resolution, especially when it comes to video capabilities.

We are still unsure if Apple will actually use these technologies, but it was a smart choice to act on it quickly before someone else catches on to these interesting ideas.

Categories
Mobile Apps

A Taste of Apple's New Patents

IMAGE: US PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE

Recently, Apple has acquired a slew of new patents that could eventually make its way onto the iPhone. According to Mashable, the U.S. Patent and Trademark office has approved the “Track My Friends” feature. This new feature would let users monitor others’ locations in real time. It will also work hand-in-hand with Apple’s existing “Find My Friends” tool.

What is really neat about this potential feature is that you can open a maps app on your device, and share the path you are travelling with a friend who might want to take the same route. This would be extremely convenient for those who are travelling together in multiple vehicles.

Apple was also approved for a patent related to a new phone camera. This would be for a three-sensor, light splitting camera. These types of cameras would result in a higher resolution, especially when it comes to video capabilities.

We are still unsure if Apple will actually use these technologies, but it was a smart choice to act on it quickly before someone else catches on to these interesting ideas.

Categories
Mobile Apps

5 Non-Streaming Features You Can Use in Your App to Drive Listening

by: Bob Kernen

Mobile is a great way for your audience to listen to your station, but your app can be about much more than just access to your stream. Here are 5 non-streaming features of your app that you should use to drive engagement with your audience.

1. Social interaction – You can use the app to interact with your audience on social media. Most apps will display your Facebook or Twitter feed, and the best apps will enable your audience to not only read your posts, but post back to you. Why send them to the FB or Twitter app, when they can interact in your own app.

2. On demand listening – Podcasts are a part of people’s every day life. Ask any one of the 1.3M people who downloaded the Serial podcast. Take your content and make it available to your app users to listen to when they want to. Listening to your morning show during an evening workout (sponsored) is a great way to leverage existing content.

3. Upstream – Several popular station apps have features that enable users to record audio and send it to the station to use on air. Why not let your listeners send in their comments and questions this way? Or let them record a song or show intro. Everybody wants to hear themselves on the radio, but now you’re in control.

4. News feeds – Whether you’re a sports station, a music station or a news station, you probably have news content coming in to your website. That same XML or RSS feed can be ported to your mobile app. It’s the perfect way to tie something you’re talking about on-air to more information on mobile.

5. Promotions – Get your users engaged with the promotions they hear on-air by making sure you promote it on your mobile app. It’s the perfect place to give them the details you don’t want to waste valuable air-time on.

Categories
Mobile Apps

10 Years of Radio Apps

Radio apps have grown substantially since our friend, James Cridland, developed the world’s first streaming mobile app for a radio station back in 2005.  Back in the time where there were no app stores, no wifi for mobile, and data was extremely expensive. That time is long gone, and after 10 years, the mobile space has quickly evolved. We have learned so much about radio applications, and how people use them.

Click here to read James’ article about what we have learned after 10 years of radio apps.

Categories
Mobile Apps Radio

5 Ways to Promote Your App on-Air

by: Bob Kernen

We frequently get calls from our clients asking why nobody is downloading their apps anymore. Our response is always the same, “How are you promoting it?” Promotion. Obvious, right? But usually, the response is, “Oh, were we supposed to do that?” Typically a station promotes their app when it’s new, which makes sense, but it’s really something that needs to be done both creatively and on a consistent basis. In order to drive those extra listening occasions you have to regularly remind your listeners not just that your app exists, but why it’s useful to them.

In that spirit, here are some ways to promote your app on air.

• “Take us with you” – the best thing about mobile apps is that they’re, well, mobile. So it’s easy for your listener to take your station to places they might not normally think of. Let’s face it, people used to have radios everywhere. Not so much anymore. Whether it’s at home, in the gym, or on a run, lots of people don’t have a radio there. But you can bet they have their smartphone. So remind ‘em:

          o “Take us with you to the gym on our mobile app.”
          o “Drop your smartphone into your home listening system and pull up the <station name> app.”

• Create occasions for interaction and then talk about ‘em – Think of the listener’s smartphone as your custom tool for engaging them. Start a conversation and drive them to tweet you, or send a text. Post a piece of content on your app or to your Instagram account and send them there. Any chance to get ‘em to pull out that smartphone, use it.

• Listen on the road – If you have a signal that doesn’t get into every nook and cranny of your market, remind your users that if they can’t pick you up over the air, chances are, they can dial you in on their smartphone. And if you have listeners who frequently travel out of your broadcast area for vacation, remind them to take your station with you, whether it’s to the Hamptons, the lakes or Up North, your station can go with them.

• Content extras – Send your users to the app to get more content about what you’re talking about on-air. “Go see today’s rock girl,” or “Check the community calendar” or “weather when you need it on our app.”

• On-demand listening – Your listeners miss a lot! Most people’s commute won’t cover your entire morning show, so put that content into a podcast and put it on your app. Encourage your listener on-air in the morning to listen to the last hour of the morning show on the way home. Remind them exactly what they want to hear is there for them 24/7 on the app.

Categories
Mobile Apps Smart Home

IKEA Brings Qi into the Home

The Swedish furniture chain, IKEA, will soon be coming out with new pieces that will be incorporating Qi technology. With this, we will be able to place our mobile devices onto “charging pads” on the furniture, and in turn will charge our phones wirelessly.

According to Mashable, “Qi is a popular wireless power standard from the Wireless Power Consortium (WPC) that is available in many hotels, restaurants, coffee shops, airports, and other public locations.” IKEA wants to bring Qi into the home, and will be the first large furniture retailer to offer this technology in their products.

Although we will not have to deal with remembering where we placed our chargers, the furniture will still need to be plugged into a power source. According to The Wall Street Journal, IKEA will also be coming out with wireless charging kits that will fit into existing furniture.

Categories
Mobile Apps Radio

Reclaim your listening occasions!

by: Bob Kernen

The H&R Block man’s rallying cry is “Get your billions back, America!” Well, to borrow the tone, if not the content of his ubiquitous-this-time-of-year yawp, c’mon “Get your listening occasions back, radio.”

At one time, everyone had transistor radios, boom boxes, Walkmans, even stereos. Now most people under the age of 20 don’t remember any of those things. But those were the devices that made radio king. Wherever you went, a radio was near at hand, but not anymore. The car is the last piece of prime real estate that still has a radio, and even that territory is threatened.

But you can fight back.

Luckily, that demon iPod has been assimilated by the smartphone, and on that particular battlefield your station app has equal footing with any other audio content. Finally, a fair fight. To get your audience back on those oh-so-important listening occasions, you’re going to have to remind them that they’re there.

• That means driving your listeners to boot up your app when they’re at the gym.
• Reminding them that they can listen to you at home by dropping their smartphone into their Bose or Sonos dock.
• Opening your stream when they go for a run.
• Plugging the earbuds into their phone and opening your app at the office.

All places where radio traditionally provided audio accompaniment. And thanks to that ever-present, ever-more-central device, the smartphone, you can have them again. But you have to tell ‘em and tell ‘em again. New habits can be just as hard to break as old ones, especially when the new habits are so convenient. But you don’t have to concede anything.

For years we’ve heard from clients that streaming listening, particularly mobile streaming, weren’t optimal places for listeners. “What if a meter-holder starts listening the app with their earbuds in?” That last excuse to drive your user to mobile is going away courtesy of Nielsen who will begin measuring mobile listening via a special bit of software in your app later this year.

No more excuses. Leverage that smartphone to put your product in your audience’s ears wherever they go. You just have to give them the right reminders to “get your listening occasions back.”