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Creating or partnering in a community portal can help your Internet presence |
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By Steve Sullivan of Radio World
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When it comes to picking a restaurant or finding movie times, most people don't always think of radio as their first choice for information. However, a session at this year's show is geared to helping your station change that perception. "Radio + Internet Portal = Super Localism," today, 3-4:15 p.m., will examine how creating or partnering in a community portal can help your Internet presence stand out among the billion plus pages on the Web. "When people want to pick a restaurant or a movie, they usually look in the newspaper or call the restaurant or theater for information," said Rick Ducey, president of BIA Data Management, a unit of BIA Financial Services. "Even though the Internet is the World Wide Web, most people spend the majority of their time and money locally. There are about two billion Web pages on the Internet right now. People need to have that reduced to something they can deal with. And that creates the market for local search engines and portals." Standout From The Rest Ducey, who is moderating the session, said he will examine some of the local portal models. "The radio station's home page could serve as a portal on its own," he said. "Instead of just being a representation of what the station is, the site could also represent that station's role in the community in terms of community information, public interest and civic and social issues. "The other model is that rather than the station doing everything by itself, it might choose to join a community site that also includes the local newspaper, television stations and other sponsors." This allows for the combination of complementary resources, which makes a community-branded portal a lot more powerful than a station-branded destination, he said. Session attendees will get a practical view of what is currently developed with community portals, and what tools are available to turn Web sites into dynamic database-driven Web sites. Finally, a strategic academic view of how the Internet will figure into radio's future will be provided. Panelists are Jonathan Bachman, of PlaceLinks.com, which has developed a searchable local yellow pages product; Lawrence Amaturo, of New Generation Media, which operates the UncleWebster.com community sites; and Cheryl Evans of Northwestern Oklahoma State University who recently interviewed some of the brightest minds in radio on how they see the Internet's role in the industry. "Radio stations are very interested in capturing local consumers into their over-the-air audience," Ducey said. "But it's also about creating a relationship between the station and its audience members to provide something that the audience member want. It could be programming, but it can also include other services. And if you can do that with a local portal, that's great." ###
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