I've been thinking about that very thing for the last several hours. The question in my mind is, what is going to happen next? So Mr. Softie hooks up with Broadcast.com, that is huge. It gets the ball rolling. It's gets internet radio broad exposure. It also raises questions about the bcst/msft connection. What is the exact nature of the arrangement? Where is MS gonna go from here, are they going to continue to pay licensing fees to BCST? Are they going to buy them out? Microsoft is not likely to buy Broadcast.com in my opinion. They will use them, like they used RealNetworks, and copy the technology, or they will buy a smaller less expensive company like NETR (or some other) and MAKE them the defacto standard. Another question is, now that MS has made their move, what is Netscape/Aol gonna come up with? Or Yahoo? or Amazon? you get the picture.
My point is, Internet Radio is about to enter the tornado. Microsoft's HUGE move in IE5 makes Broadcast.com the first house ripped from its foundation and sent careening dangerously down the Wall Street road to riches.
So where does that leave our baby NETR? In my opinion it leaves us squarely in the path of an oncoming tornado. Momentum is gathering quickly, other houses will either be passed by, picked up quickly, or completely smashed to bits. Sometimes a house can sit right between two houses that are completely decimated, while the house in the middle continues to stand, eerily untouched. Other times a tornado will suck up literally everything in its path, it can be blocks wide and over a mile long leaving nothing but a bare dirt path behind it.
NETR is about to get swept into the maelstrom. The outcome, I think, will mainly depend on how management approaches this. They can take the bunker mentality, go deep into a hole somewhere and hope the danger blows over; basically trying to protect themselves, their company and their golden parachutes. Or they can take a more novel approach, to perhaps realize that NAVR/NETR was BORN for this. That the NAVR/NETR house will never fulfill it's true destiny, that the young men and women of the NAVR/NETR corporate community will never test their real potential, that the true temper of the great American entrepreneureal spirit that founded this company will never be fully tested, unless and until they are swept, utterly and completely, into the uncertainty, the danger, the horror, that is....THE INTERNET RADIO TORNADO.
Hope this helps, Mike |
