Can you guess?

~~~

My friend, Allan Hotlen, who I regard as a “techie” because he always has and uses the very latest gadgets, sent me an article last week. You can read it HERE.

The headline says: THE NEXT BOOM IN MOBILE DEVICES IS THE CAR.

I must admit I had never actually thought about cars as mobile devices until I saw that, which is pretty funny.

The article quotes the President of AT&T’s Emerging Devices business: “5% of cars are connected today. Three to five years from now, 100% will be connected. You’ll see diagnostics, calls when the airbag goes off, real-time traffic reports, entertainment in the back seat.”

Ignoring the fact that the back seats of cars have been used for “entertainment” for generations, constant connectivity will create challenges and opportunities for Radio.

One of the frequent complaints I hear about traffic reports on radio is inaccuracy, so if I have a video screen that gives me spoken alerts about traffic in real time and offers me re-routing options, why do I need to listen to your station for traffic?

If my personal music library is always available, in the cloud, and I can call up songs or artists or playlsits I want to hear just by saying it out loud, why do I need to listen to your station for music?

If my car interrupts me to advise me about severe weather, why do I need to wait to hear your weather reports?

What will your station offer that no other alternative can?

If your station is just a commodity, like dozens, hundreds, thousands of stations I can hear on command, why will I listen to yours over any other?

We’d better be working on this with some urgency. 2014 is just around the corner…