AudioBoo may be proving popular with Web 2.0 folk and radio presenters who enjoy going to air without a producer, but it’s still got a fair way to go to become a business.
Now it’s taking on James Cridland, a former audio and music head with the BBC’s online wing, as a part-time adviser to try to drive business custom from radio broadcasters.
AudioBoo wants to be a classic freemium service, with the majority of uploads contributed by users of its free service and industry clients paying for extra features.
The service already claims dozens of professional media users and has been courting premium users for some months but, so far, only the Royal Opera House, Open University, co-investor UBC Media and an unnamed fourth client are paying for the extra features, which include pre-moderated audio uploads. But Mark Rock, CEO of AudioBoo parent BestBefore Media, reckons Cridland might help change that…
“We have a feeling that it could prove immensely useful to radio stations in terms of user-generated content,” he tells paidContent:UK. “That’s where the whole idea came from whilst working with Channel 4 Radio (AudioBoo was conceived on C4’s aborted DAB effort). However, we haven’t got a clue how the radio industry works, its challenges and workflows, as well as what kinda devices are going to pop up in the next few years. That’s where James comes in, since he’s been thinking about all these things for years.”
Cridland is a radio geek who, prior to joining the BBC, was the online director running Virgin Radio’s pioneering and well-respected digital efforts. Since leaving Auntie in August, he appears to have been having a whale of a time touring radio stations around the world, whilst knuckling down on his own MediaUK.com side project.