It’s that time of year! I do Movember every year for their support of mental health. I suggest and those i love suffer. And let’s be honest Men don’t speak up, and we should.
I like to keep people on their toes and mix up the how to watch along. I try to not bombard with daily feeds, but I also think it’s fun to see the progress over time. This year, I’m using pixelfed.
I was privileged to be in a meeting with some radio execs working on a project and there was a phrase that popped out at me:
“Are you looking for a digital strategy or a radio one?”
The keyword in this if you couldn’t tell is “or”. This one word is perhaps radio’s biggest problem – thinking in or’s.
It shouldn’t be one or the other. It shouldn’t be over the airwaves or online. It shouldn’t be mic on or mic off. It shouldn’t be the website or twitter or facebook. It shouldn’t be digital or radio. It should be and.
I was listening to a podcast ( I won’t name which one ), and the engineers were explaining what RadioDNS is. 30 minutes later everyone was confused.
Because DNS ain’t that special for the web, let me explain.
Think of your friend Tom’s phone number.
What just happened? You translated Tom’s name into a number. Easy right? Well, if you have thousands of numbers what do you do? You add it into you phone or a better name you “Rolodex”. Remember those? the big spinning wheels of paper?
Well for the web, it’s no different. When you type in a domain name, DNS hunts through the rolodex to find the phone number. And returns it. Voila! You have dialed up the right computer and have a web page.
What makes DNS a littler different, is imagine being able to share rolodexes and make copies of rolodexes? Well, DNS does this all the time. They share lists throughout the word. So when it doesn’t have a number for the domain you’ve typed, It’ll should out, “hey, does anyone know www.ethernick.com?” Someone will answer and again, Voila again! You have dialed up the right computer and have a web page.
RadioDNS?
With mobile phones and car radios there is more opportunity to combine the web and the radio broadcast. So RadioDNS got the great idea, let’s translate your radio station into a website with the same rolodex system.
RadioDNS translates radio to website address, DNS translates website address into computer phone numbers.
The website address can then be displayed in any number of ways.
Why should you care?
I want to say, because it’s cool, but that’s not good enough.
What if, while someone is listening to your radio station they can get a one time coupon to a restaurant. Or how about seeing a map with the location of the promotions team. Or how about a custom contest, or survey or feedback, or latest tweet or latest blog post. Maybe while you announcer is talking about something they could put up a picture, or direct link to a website. Or maybe…
You get the point.
Adding the web to your existing radio broadcast has loads of opportunities. And RadioDNS could make it happen.