CBS has announced that it plans to experiment with a new approach to radio, dispensing with traditional DJs and crowdsourcing the DJing, instead:

CBS Radio will debut on June 28 the industry’s first 100 percent user-controlled, on-air radio program using a new social Web service called Jelli. Every Sunday between 10 p.m. and midnight on KITS-FM (LIVE 105) in San Francisco, listeners will take over the airwaves.

Using Jelli, listeners will create the playlist via Web-based voting. If a song sucks, listeners will also be able to vote to pull it off the air instantly.

“The real-time Web represents a huge opportunity to engage with both online and traditional media audiences,” said CBS Interactive’s Michael Marquez. “Jelli is creating a bridge between digital and traditional broadcast experiences, creating something completely new and fun.”

Call me a pessimist, but crowd-sourced DJing is likely to be more successful as a cost-saving measure than an audience-building one.

People are turning away from commercial radio because stations are getting rid of DJs with unique musical perspectives and programming to the lowest common denominator. Crowdsourcing the playlist is likely to lead to conservative, greatest hits programming.

What do you think? Can crowdsourced radio be more than a cost-saving measure?

Image: Smeerch

Media analyst Clay Shirky has some interesting thoughts on the steady stream of photos, Twitter posts and videos coming out of post-election Iran:

I’m always a little reticent to draw lessons from things still unfolding, but it seems pretty clear that … this is it. The big one. This is the first revolution that has been catapulted onto a global stage and transformed by social media

I’ve been thinking a lot about the Chicago demonstrations of 1968 where they chanted “the whole world is watching.”

Really, that wasn’t true then. But this time it’s true … and people throughout the world are not only listening but responding. They’re engaging with individual participants, they’re passing on their messages to their friends, and they’re even providing detailed instructions to enable web proxies allowing Internet access that the authorities can’t immediately censor. That kind of participation is reallly extraordinary.

Shirky goes on to suggest that microblogging service Twitter has made the most impact on the events in Iran and their coverage:

One thing that Evan (Williams) and Biz (Stone) did absolutely right is that they made Twitter so simple and so open that it’s easier to integrate and harder to control than any other tool. At the time, I’m sure it wasn’t conceived as anything other than a smart engineering choice. But it’s had global consequences.

Twitter is shareable and open and participatory in a way that Facebook’s model prevents. So far, despite a massive effort, the authorities have found no way to shut it down, and now there are literally thousands of people aorund the world who’ve made it their business to help keep it open.

While Twitter has been huge in the last few days, YouTube videos, like the one embedded above, and the images coming through sites like Flickr are incredibly important, too, because they let you see the scale of what’s happening.

Iran’s military is warning online media of a crackdown over coverage of the country’s election crisis. The country is trying to block access to social media sites, and said that Iranian Web sites and bloggers must remove any materials that “create tension” or face legal action.

At this point, though, it looks like the only way to cut off the flow of citizen media in and out of Iran is to eliminate access to the Internet itself.

See Shirky’s full comments at the TED site.

The current Kindle book readers are technological wonders – but some are beginning to recognize that the device is a bit of wolf in sheep’s clothing. The Kindle looks like it should be a new media platform, but it’s primary focus is old media.

PSFK, a popular design, technology and media site, has been testing out Amazon’s publishing platform for the device, and they report that the Kindle’s not working:

PSFK has finally received the first two weeks sales figures of their version of PSFK.com on Kindle. We’ve discovered that a whole one person subscribed to the ‘trial version’ of PSFK.

These sales figures surely prove statistically that Amazon’s technology is a failure when it comes to blog publishing and readership. It’s crazy to read that the tech media continues to be deluded about Kindle’s success when even with a 14 day free trial and massive awareness among our readership we can’t muster more than one $1.99 a month subscription.

Sure, the Kindle will remain useful for a group of people but in its current format it will remain small.

Based on PSFK’s experience, supporting and promoting the Kindle is a waste of time for bloggers.

Microsoft’s Zune sites are offline today to allow for maintenance.

According to a message at Zune.net:

Zune services will be down for scheduled maintenance starting Tuesday, June 16, at 12:01 a.m. PDT, for up to 24 hours.

During this time, you will not be able to access the Zune Social, Zune.net forums, or Zune Marketplace.

According to Microsoft’s Zune Insider, users shouldn’t expect any new features as a result of the downtime:

As you may have heard the Zune and Xbox systems are coming closer together and this service maintenance is to prepare for some of the recently announced Xbox LIVE features that will be available later this year.

It is important to note when the service returns, you will not have any new functions or features. This is for scheduled maintenance only.

Audio gear maker Samson today released its latest digital recorder, the Zoom R16. The recorder offers 16-track playback and simultaneous recording of up to eight tracks, using Secure Digital (SD) memory.

Samson representatives are promoting the Zoom R16 as “three production tools in one device“: a multi-track recorder, an audio interface and a control surface. The R16 runs on six AA batteries. Recording onto SD memory allows for up to 32 GBs of audio files, and lightens the weight of the recorder. The R16 connects to the user’s computer via USB, and comes bundled with Cubase LE audio software.

“We have learned a great deal from the success of our H2 and H4n as well as HD8 and HD16, our past multi-track recorders,” says Masa Iijima, CEO of Zoom Corporation. “With the R16 we have brought the most important capabilities from each of these product lines into our design to make a unique and versatile music production solution.”

Product features include:

• Digital recorder with 16-track playback and 8-track simultaneous recording  utilizing SD memory
• 16/24-bit/44.1kHz linear PCM recording in WAV format
• Built-in stereo condenser microphones
• Included 1GB SD card and with support for up to 32GB SDHC
• Allows simultaneous recording on up to 8 tracks
• Battery operation for remote recording
• USB power for audio interface and control surface operation
• 8 mic inputs / 2 outputs (8 x 2)
• 8 combination XLR-1/4-inch inputs
• High-definition 24-bit/96kHz recording capability using digital audio software
• 100+ built-in studio effects coming from advanced DSP which can additionally be used as outboard effects
• Hi-Z input for direct connection of guitar or bass
• Included preamp with phantom power on two channels
• Mackie control emulation via USB for popular DAW software including Cubase, Logic, Digital Performer and more
• Amazing guitar amp and effects models
• Professional quality mastering effects including multi-band compressor, normalizer and more
• Operates as USB storage device for quick data transfer
• Connect two R16s via USB for synchronized operation and 16 tracks of simultaneous recording
• Undo/Redo functions
• Comes with Steinberg Cubase LE 4
• Supports Windows XP/Vista, Mac operating systems

Finally, the R16 can be connected with a second R16 unit via USB; one can be designated to function as the USB master and the other as the USB slave, allowing synchronized transport operation and recording on 16 tracks simultaneously.

The Zoom R16 will be available in stores “in the next few weeks,” according to a company representative, and will retail for $399.

iHome has introduced iConnect, a new USB keyboard that features a built-in iPod dock.

Features:

• Illuminated touch sensitive media keys let you shuffle your playlist and control your media.
• 2 rotating USB 2.0 ports offer quick and easy access for connecting digital cameras, printers, thumb drives, mice and more.
• One touch functions keys allow you to launch iTunes iChat Mail Safari iCal and Front Row.
• The rubberized wrist rest allows you to work or play in complete comfort.

iConnect looks pretty sweet, but the $149 price tag will put it out of the range of a lot of buyers.

iHome’s iConnect is available for Windows and Mac.

Your living room television is the next new platform for developers.

And, while Apple is squandering its Apple TV lead by treating Internet television as a “hobby”, Boxee is opening the platform up to developers, offering an API and kicking off a developer challenge.

Boxee’s move is resulting in an explosion of content on the platform, including:

• I Can Has Cheezburger
• OpenCourseWare
• UK’s Open University
• The Weather Channel
• HotForWords
• FaceBook Photos
• The White House
• BBC Live

This is just scratching the surface, but it’s clear that Boxee has captured the new media mojo.

Boxee is becoming the iPhone of Internet television.

I’d still like to see what Apple could by opening up Apple TV – but an open and open source Boxee may end up being even better.

Do you think Boxee is going to become the de facto platform for Internet television?

Summer weather puts me in a mood to listen to upbeat music. It makes a fitting soundtrack for all my outdoor activities. With that in mind, I thought I’d share several electronica/trance/dance music podcasts that I’ll be listening to this weekend.

Dutch superstar DJ Tiesto (pictured, right) has a podcast of his weekly radio show, Tiesto’s Club Life. Readers may remember him from his live set during the Parade of the Athletes at the official opening ceremony of the Olympic Games when the games were in Athens. I could do without the annoying talking in the middle of the podcast, but the trance music is great.

Armin van Buuren is another Dutch trance music celebrity with a pretty good podcast. Among his projects is the music for television spy drama “24.” “State of Trance,” van Buuren’s two-hour weekly radio show, is edited down to a half-hour (ish) podcast.

Not exactly a trance artist, but electronic music veteran Paul Oakenfold launched a podcast earlier this year. Perfecto Podcast (opens iTunes link).  Oakenfold has done music for such movies as Collateral, Swordfish, The Matrix Reloaded, Pirates of the Caribbean, Die Another Day, Planet Of The Apes, The Bourne Identity and (strangely enough) Shrek II. TV credits include music for Alias, Big Brother and Las Vegas. His weekly podcast is about an hour long.

These three artists are people whose albums we’ve bought for a number of years. It is great to have these weekly podcast opportunities to hear new material more frequently.

Photo: www.tiesto.com

VIdeo search company SnapStream this week unveiled its new search tool, TV Trends. The new TV Trends utility tallies and graphs mentions of any term uttered on national U.S. television.

TV Trends users can enter up to five keywords, and gets back a graph showing you the relative frequency of mentions of those words on “mostly-news programs” on ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, MSNBC and CNN. Graphing capabilities let the user zoom in and out to look at the past day, week, month, year of network TV mentions.

TV Trends graphs can be embedded into users’ websites, to graphically display trending topics for readers.

Current “hot” and “cold” terms of the day are available for view at the TV Trends site. It is also possible, at the TV Trends site, so check out excerpts of stories at selected points along the curve. Users can filter the results by network (look at mentions of “Obama” on Fox (yuck) or MSNBC) and by genre (show me mentions of “Palin” on comedy programs).

SnapStream TV Trends is powered by SnapStream’s TV recording and search technology, which enables organizations to record “LOTS of TV,” and then search within those shows for mentions of the terms relevant to their brand. A cross between a DVR and a search engine, the SnapStream hardware allows recording of up to ten video streams at once, up to thousands of hours of TV, and then search inside those recordings.

Current SnapStream TV Trends monitoring users include E!’s The Soup, XM Radio, NBC, Current TV, the U.S. Senate, University of Southern California, University of Texas, City of Austin, and the City of Chicago.

WordPress has announced that a new release of its popular blogging and podcasting platform, WordPress 2.8.

2.8 is more of an incremental update than 2.7. Here are the highlights:

• New drag-and-drop widgets admin interface and new widgets API
• Syntax highlighting and function lookup built into plugin and theme editors
• Browse the theme directory and install themes from the admin
• Allow the dashboard widgets to be arranged in up to four columns
• Allow configuring the number of items to show on management pages with an option in Screen Options
• Support timezones and automatic daylight savings time adjustment
• Support IIS 7.0 URL Rewrite Module
• Faster loading of admin pages via script compression and concatenation

You can get the full details at the WordPress site.