Keith Fiore's Blog

With all the hoopla about the Pioneer WiFi car radio – see Mashable Pioneer to bring Pandora to the car – I would welcome a WiFi car radio. This should have happened a long time ago, 2007 latest. With most if not all radio stations streaming their broadcasts online, what is the holdup? Ok – you are saying bandwidth? … like the cable companies are starving or something. This can be achieved, and should considered.

Availability? Most cable providers are also providing WiFi within cities, search keywords Cablevision Optimum WiFi. Where could this exist? Everywhere!

Bring it already! It would work, even in the “hills.” Satellite is wasting billions. The reception from a satellite radio station is OK, but not ideal. Start-up costs, overhead and the overwhelming amount of space junk means that the satellite format is junk.

Both the cable companies as well as the radio stations would be the benefactor of our convenient WiFi mobile capabilities. The money WiFi would generate for the two aforementioned companies would be astronomical. Targeted Advertising is a clear winner here, and for all three – that of the company advertising on the radio, the cable provider, and the radio station.

How would this be “targeted advertising?” Think about a company that was controversial yet financially successful in the late 90s to today who was the global Internet advertising solutions company who specialized in digital marketing technology and services. Did you think Doubleclick?

How does Doubleclick work? By tracking a user’s past surfing habits, or clickstream. Whatever website or web page you visited previously online, say Sears.com for appliances, and then visited a web directory such as Yahoo, a advertisement for similar appliances would appear somewhere within the directory page (such as a banner ad).

How would this look for the WiFi radio? With a solid state equipped flash chip in the WiFi radio receiver with as little as 128MB to 512MB, tracking is very possible. The cable companies could legitimately track what each cable subscriber listens to, as well as the possibility to track where each subscriber travels. The “tracking” would be stored onboard the chip, and would not be any different than the cookies that are stored on your computer from the websites you visit.

When you visit a website, a text file is stored on your hard drive. When you return to the website, the website can analyze your surfing habits – such as what time you visit the site, as well as how long you stay on the website. Obviously this can be transferred to your web based car radio. With this specialized tracking, advertising can be specific and transform your listening habits into your spending habits. Your individual usage – such as the station(s) you listen to during the day, as well as where you are listening, where you make those stops – such as the early morning java stop, gas for the car, the lunch break, movie theater, and the mall or outlets where you buy cloths. Why would you not mind this? Because the more you use it, the more personalized those coupons and special perks will be. These could be delivered to the email address you were provided from the cable company, or even snail mail.

Do you have a Gmail account? Have you ever noticed those advertisements above the email you are reading – suspiciously similar to the email contents of subject? Well that is because Google bought Doubleclick in 2007 for $3.1 billion — If you have a Gmail account, sign-in and open a email. Let me know what you think about the advertisements that match your email – especially if you did not notice prior to reading this article! Do you think that Google has invaded your privacy?

Could this be a reality soon? Absolutely! The advantages far out way the disadvantages. Advertising, now specific and targeted, would be a tremendous cash cow! A multi-billion dollar industry – and advertising that is targeted for you wouldn’t be all that bad, or would it?

Tell me your side – leave a comment!

Sources:

• http://mashable.com/2010/01/06/pioneer-pandora-partnership/
• http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=40173
• http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/04/02/gallery/space-debris-540×380.jpg
• http://www.optimum.net/WiFi/Find
• http://money.cnn.com/2007/04/13/technology/google_doubleclick/index.htm
• http://www.wifiradioreview.com/news/1155/In_car_WiFi_radio_may_kill_traditional_radio_listening.html