LoudVox Productions - Buzz - International Audience is Tuning In To Tacoma

By George Pica - Business Examiner

Tacoma, WA. February 5, 2001 - Whether it’s the death march of Internet stocks or the newest hip cyberculture jargon— like Pink Slip Parties and PBM (permission based marketing), the web still holds our fascination.

A 2-year old Puget Sound radio and webcast show—WebTalkGuys Radio—aims to provide a large weekly dose of high-octane, hi-tech talk on issues and technology that affects South Sound business. The show airs each Saturday from 11 a.m. to noon on KLAY-AM radio, but audiences can tune in for replays anytime, day or night, at webtalkguys.com.

The show skewers web news through the been-there, done-that eyes of Internet veterans, sometimes with sarcasm, sometimes rants, usually with snappy chatter between hosts Rob Greenlee, Mitch Ratcliffe and WebGirl Dana Greenlee. Through the course of each one-hour installments, they interview several dot.com leaders and CEOs.

Though western Washington has incubated a disproportionate wealth of these dot coms, WebTalkGuys is the only Puget Sound-based Internet Technology radio show and one of only a handful of such shows nationwide. Last month, it celebrated its 100th installment.

The show purposefully highlights South Sound-based Internet—Click Network, Wired City USA, Tribnet, Surphoria, Business Internet Services, Web-X, Contract Quest, Donation Depot, PayByCheck, LoanTek, ImprintStore and the Pierce County Special Prosecutor of Cybercrimes.

WebTalkGuys doesn’t just focus on South Sound, however. From tech politics with Maria Cantwell and Adam Smith to companies that have made it big then fallen, the archived shows at the website provide an historical perspective on the sometimes ironic high times of businesses such as now defunct Pets.com.

WebTalkGuys Radio Website at www.webtalkguys.com

“Topics and guests from across the United States and around the world, from Silicon Valley to Sweden, bring lessons to be learned to local tech executives and employees,” says creator Rob Greenlee. “The legacy I hope our show creates is that we are able to be a local resource that helped technology entrepreneurs become better.”

The webcast attracts global listeners. The site has been visited by listeners from Australia to Saudi Arabia and just about every country in between, including every state in the United States. The opt-in demographic survey reveals a WebTalkGuy listener profile that is 63 percent male with occupations as long-term professionals and managers in their thirties.

“What I like best about putting together WebTalkGuys each week is talking to interesting entrepreneurs and learning how they have put their businesses together,” Greenlee says. “I always try to glean from them the feeling of the ride—how they surfed the whitewater of the Internet boom to the low tide of the current dot.com reality check.”

Greenlee, who is vice chairman of the Tacoma Technology Consortium, has worked as director of marketing for Tacoma’s ShopperBox Networks, FreeInternet and Fortune 500 companies including Chiquita Brands, Conagra and the Florida Citrus Industry.

Ratcliffe is chief content officer at On24.com, the multimedia network of original streaming financial news. Despite the concept of virtual workplaces, Ratcliffe flies back to western Washington every weekend from On24 studios in San Francisco for the WebTalkGuy broadcast.

In addition to serving as the show’s producer/engineer, Dana Greenlee is president of Tacoma-based LoudVox.com.

Once considered a novelty for cubicle dwellers, today’s webcasts are claiming a fat chunk of digital bandwidth.

“Broadcast radio claims 10 hours of total listening time per week, compared with one hour for the Net,” according to Forrester Research analyst Jeremy Schwartz in the May report, The Self-serve Audio Evolution.

Arbitron Co. estimates that in the United States there are about 12,000 licensed radio stations, both online and off, and another 3,000 Internet-only stations. KLAY 1180 AM, which broadcasts WebTalkGuys, also streams on the web, thanks to Tacoma-based Stream Audio.

“When WebTalkGuys started two years ago, there really weren’t very many of what I call ‘combo-casts’—airing on traditional radio and on the web,” says Dana Greenlee. “We were able to start off with good recognition and one of the few listings at online channel guides like Yack, ChannelSeek, Real Guide and WindowsMedia Guide.”

About 45 million Americans — or 20 percent of the population — tuned in to webcasts online in 2000, up from just 6 percent in 1998, according to Arbitron and Edison Media Research in September.

“We see tremendous growth in Internet radio,” says Jason Hollins, director of survey research at Edison Media Research. “Its sound quality isn’t blowing anyone away yet, but with the trending we’ve seen—well, if you’re not on the net, you are going to be left behind.”

“The point is to not rest on your laurels,” says Greenlee. “If you don’t keep up on trends and wear your futurist hat, there are many ways to be left behind on the Internet.”