Audio4cast

It doesn’t take a crystal ball to know that the web is moving to mobile devices. The US mobile web audience grew by 1/3 in a year, according to Nielsen Online. Pandora’s Joe Kennedy recently revealed that Pandora sees half a million listeners a day just on its iPhone and BlackBerry applications, tuning in for an average of an hour and 45 minutes a day. Bill Goldsmith, founder of Radio Paradise, another online station with substantial following, said 8 to 10 percent of his station’s audience is listening on mobile devices.

The new battlefield of online radio is streaming to mobile devices, according to Vincent Grenier, VP of Marketing for Stream The World. With a mobile app, you can build a new environment around your brand and leverage new ways to monetize says Grenier.

Recent studies have shown that consumers are interested in receiving location based advertising on their mobile devices. Restaurants, weather, clearance sales, and pizza all qualify as items consumers would like to hear about on their mobile devices. Delivering locally relevant ads is a perfect fit for radio, says Grenier. “Stations should become a reliable source of information … by providing on-time, on-place advertisements as SMS, direct messages, and displays….delivering mobile alerts as a service. It’s a perfect fit for your local advertisers.”

It’s important for stations to have mobile platforms in place that can deliver audio programming, interactive elements, and advertising. As the mobile audience surges over the next few years, mobile web spending will outpace online ad spending. Radio – particularly online radio, is poised to grow exponentially as a medium that is as mobile as the devices themselves. It’s never been more important to have a mobile strategy to take advantage of this imminent growth.