miRoamer, a Melbourne-based online radio aggregator and Blaupunkt, a large German car radio manufacturer unveiled a prototype of Internet car radio during the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.
Although 30,000 stations are offered, the product is not attractive as the radio is expensive to buy ($399), expensive to own as it entails a monthly subscription fee of $15 and a high-capacity cellular data plan.
However, we believe these issues will be resolved soon since the price of successful consumer electronics devices usually fall quickly and miRoamer can perhaps try ad-funded programming in combination with pay-per-hear content such as premier podcasts.
More importantly, we see an intriguing possibility - Google android powered car radios. This opens a great advertising channel for Google - a large population of car radio listeners. This is specially beneficial to Google since they can own the content, commercials, the software platform (android) and the user data just by partnering with (usually willing) mobile network operators such as T-Mobile.
In fact, Google has been interested in placing audio ads on terrestrial radio broadcasts. They acquired dMarc for the same exact reason. To their disappointment, radio stations refused to work with Google.
Now it is a different game. Broadcasters may not be able to stop Google. Soon AM, FM and HD Radios could be replaced by gRadios.
2 comments:
This does seem to be bad news for HD Radio and SIRI - HD Radio has plans to install RadioGuard subscription service
(which will obsolete all current HD radios) for the HD channels, so HD Radio will eventually cost consumers, too. As Mark Ramsey has predicted, ubiquitous in-dash Internet access will become an eventual reality, and automakers that are offering HD Radio migh as well be offering a dinosaur and be left in the dirt:
"Chrysler announces wireless Internet access in 2009 models"
"As long predicted in this blog and elsewhere (okay, everywhere), it is inevitable that every new car driving off a showroom lot will eventually be high-speed Internet enabled. And the consequences for the radio industry - both good and bad - are profound... Fourth, that tiny whimper you just heard was the final gasp of HD Radio. Time to move on to the real challenges, radio."
http://www.hear2.com/2008/06/chrysler-announ.html
One other thing - optional HD Radio, offered by automakers, usually costs $300 - $500. I wonder, which one consumers will opt for - a limited number of HD channels with lousy programming with dropouts, or thoussnds of world-wide Internet Radio stations.
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