Those high-powered smartphones that can access the Web from virtually anywhere may be the best thing that's happened in years to one of the oldest and most beleaguered of traditional media: radio.

Local stations are racing to create software applications — called apps — and appealing talk and music programming to help them reach the burgeoning number of consumers who see their iPhones, BlackBerrys and Droids as portable entertainment devices.

With the help of apps, smartphone users can listen to live broadcasts from hundreds of radio stations as well as services such as Pandora that offer music tailored to the listener's taste.

"It's extremely meaningful," Clear Channel Executive Vice President Evan Harrison says. About a year after the No. 1 radio company introduced its iHeartRadio app for iPhones, phone users account for 10% of its digital audience.

"We expect to at least double that number" in 2010, he says. "That's a modest goal." Its app for Android phones comes out on Wednesday.

The company attracts about 28 million unique visitors a month, up 30% vs. last year.

CBS Interactive Music Group President David Goodman also is upbeat. "In the last seven months, our streaming audience has doubled," he says. "It's a rocketship in listenership."

Read more in USA Today >>>

While many marketers have been reluctant to embrace a channel that lacks proven use cases, an increasing number have begun to realize the “additive effect” of mobile on their other advertising and marketing efforts. As smartphones proliferate and marketers move beyond experimentation, budgets will steadily increase. eMarketer predicts that spending on mobile advertising will gain momentum over the next five years, reaching $1.56 billion by 2013.

A new study by Forrester Research shows that 10% of mobile phone users use their device to listen to music, up from 5% a year ago. According to a summary of the study by Mediaweek, texting and emailing pictures were also up, while watching TV or videos was flat, and checking the stock market was down (I wonder why!) Specifically, it is the under 30 year olds (18 to 29) that are leading the way, 22% of them use their phones to listen to music while only 7% of the older demographic do the same.

It's all good for Internet radio, as more and more people find their way to their favorite online station via their connected mobile device. Internet radio's audience is growing rapidly as it becomes more and more ubiquitous.

Read more in RBR >>>

Anyone who suggests iPods reign over internet radio should note the decline in year over year sales, as acknowledged in Apples’ quarterly earnings call.  As PC World wrote, “Traditional iPods are on their way out, eclipsed by a new red-hot generation of products: the iPod touch and iPhone.” As you know, this new red-hot generation of products supports internet radio streaming. Read more in PC World >>>

More and more people have access to the Internet on the go, with 225 million wireless broadband users worldwide recorded in March. Some reports predict there could be 250 million subscribers by the end of the year, and by 2013 there could be as many as 4.5 billion potential wireless subscribers with access to high-speed Internet on their mobile devices. Read more in GigaOm (via RAIN).

According to consumer info reported by The NPD Group, in Q1 with a 30% awareness level among the population of Web users age 13+, AOL Music had the highest overall awareness among online music sites (i.e., online radio and social networking sites with a music orientation). While awareness is extremely important and necessary building block for a site, consumer usage is often a better predictor of longer term sustainability, according to NPD's entertainment industry analyst, Russ Crupnick.

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By Bob Tedeschi

Last week, I was driving through town, listening to a song on the radio that I’d never heard. It was a slightly morose indie-rock track, so I hit fast-forward and got an upbeat Ryan Adams tune. I cranked the volume, then stopped to consider what I’d just done.

I’d fast-forwarded my car radio.

Internet radio fans have been doing this sort of thing for years on their PCs, thanks to Pandora, Last.fm, Slacker, Rhapsody and other online music services that offer users far more control over what they hear. Now, though, many of these services are available anywhere — provided you have a fairly modern handset and you’re in an area with adequate cellphone coverage. Sometimes you don’t even need that...

Read more from New York Times >>>

When the economy turns around, local mobile advertising is poised to be the next big advertising trend, especially spending on local mobile search.

The framework for the emerging ad market is finally in place, according to a forecast from The Kelsey Group, a division of BIA, which will present its findings later today (Thursday, May 21) at BIA's Winning Media Strategies conference in Washington, D.C.

By 2013, local mobile ad revenue is expected to reach more than $3.1 billion, up from $160 million in 2008. Mobile search will make up the lion's share at $2.3 billion, dwarfing SMS, which garnered $100 million in 2008.

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Ask 100 mobile marketers why a particular mobile ad works and another doesn't and you're likely to get a 100 different opinions. Unfortunately, there's no right answer. But with voice ads, we've discovered there are some things you can do, with both the art and the science, which can make the difference between good response and great. 
Read more about it in MediaPost >>>

Reston, VA. March 16, 2009 – comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today reported that the number of people using their mobile device to access news and information on the Internet more than doubled from January 2008 to January 2009. Among the audience of 63.2 million people who accessed news and information on their mobile devices in January 2009, 22.4 million (35 percent) did so daily; more than double the size of the audience last year.

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Like the cell phones that preceded them, mobile data services--in particular, mobile Internet--are becoming less a luxury and more a necessity among U.S. consumers. And the expanded use of those services (also including mobile email, multimedia messaging and photo uploading) could explode in the next two years.

Read more in Mediapost >>>