In an exclusive interview with WebProNews, the company’s CEO tells us why he thinks another entrant into the Internet radio space matters.

On what Raditaz doing with social and location different than other products, CEO Tom Brophy tells WebProNews, “Raditaz enables users to discover music the way they want to discover music…we give them several options all tied to location, popularity, trending, friends and/or personal interests. Stations are anonymous so users have no inhibitions about sharing.”

“GPS coordinates are automatically assigned to each station that is created and it is posted onto the Raditaz Music Map for anyone to discover,” he explains. “Want to see what’s playing nearby or anywhere in the US or what your friend’s listen to, just peruse the Music Map, discover and listen to any station.”

“Filter the map to show trending, popular, new, my, other and/or all stations,” he says. “This makes it easy to pinpoint the type of station that you’re looking for.”

“We rate stations so users can discover music based on what’s trending or what’s popular in various regions around the US,” says Brophy. “Trending stations are part of the ‘Stations’ section of Raditaz and can also be found in Explore on the Raditaz Music Map.”

“Users can discover music by searching on tags,” he explains. “Users personalize their music by adding ‘tags’ to their stations in order to organize their music and to make them discoverable. For example, if you are going for a run, you can search tags for “running” and discover music for running.”

“We will soon be integrating with The Echo Nest’s Music Intelligence Platform giving us the ability to create a station with up to 5 artist and/or song and/or genre inputs,” he tells us. “We also will be able to display similar artists when users are creating a station and when they are listening.”

Here are the things Echo Nest is able to provide:

With quite a few services, such as Pandora and Spotify out, one might not feel a great need for another. On this note, Brophy tells us, “There are 241 million broadcast radio listeners in the U.S, 93% of whom listen weekly, they average 15 hours of listening per week, and this category represents 80% of all listening. The industry is huge and many people are now just beginning to actively listen to Internet radio. The majority of these listeners want a personal experience without a lot of effort, more of a lean back experience. Pandora was the first to make listening simple. Discovering and sharing also needs to be simple. That is where Raditaz comes in, we generate high quality stations with over 14 million songs, enable users to discover music by tags, trends, location (music map), and all these stations are available independent of the user’s personal information.”

On what the radio landscape will look like in 5 years (Internet or otherwise), he says: “There is a major transition underway in the music space, and in particular, in the way people listen to music, mostly driven by technology.”

“Services like Raditaz are able to stream music to smart phones, tablets, computers, Internet enabled TVs, autos and lots of other devices and equipment,” he adds. “As connectivity continues to improve over the next few years, the user experience will get better and better. The growth of smartphones is and will continue to drive the growth of Internet radio for the foreseeable future. Users can effectively walk around with 14 million songs in their pockets. We’re excited about the future of radio, and believe that lean back listening will dominate time spent listening for many years to come.”

Here’s what some people who tuned in to watch the interview had to say about it on Twitter:

Let us know what you thought of the interview in the comments.

As part of their @Google Talks program, which features assorted cultural figures discussing “their recently published books and capturing the popular and intellectual zeitgeist of the day.” Beckham doesn’t have a book coming out or anything like that so I guess Google’s just interviewing him because he’s a pretty well known international celebrity (and, fine, soccer player).

Of course, if you happen to have better things to do on Thursday, January 19 at 9AM PST (like working), you can always watch the video later on YouTube. What you won’t get to catch at a later time is the opportunity to hangout with Beckham because will also be participating in a Google+ Hangout with his fans immediately following the interview at 10:30PM PST

People who want to pose questions directly to Becks can post on Google+ with the hashtag #googlebeckham. Or, if you could just go to his Google+ account and post the questions there, too. Variety is the spice of Beckham.

The announcement on Google’s official blog, which is full of canned soccer jokes with attendant links to explain the humor to American philistines who are unfamiliar with the terms, included the following video that offers more details:

In fact, if you Google “google interview questions” (in quotes, to get better results), you get 1.75 million results (in 0.19 seconds). Books, articles, blog posts and comments galore have told the tales of interviewees who limped away from Googleplex, eyes glazed over and drooling, thanks to the stumper questions they were pitched in the interviews.

William Poundstone wrote the book “Are You Smart Enough to Work at Google: Trick Questions, Zen-like Riddles, Insanely Difficult Puzzles, and Other Devious Interviewing Techniques You Need to Know to Get a Job in the New Economy“. In it, he recounts some of the tales that have been passed around on the Interwebs about google interviews, and analyzes their significance in how interviews are conducted in many other industries. The upshot, in terms of Google’s questions, is that Google asks such questions to see if you are a good fit for Google. He says that those questions have no further significance and should not be used by other employers as though they were somehow magical and could ferret out poor prospects.

But, in response to a Wall Street Journal excerpt from Poundstone’s book, Google Senior Software Engineer Colin McMillen posted an article to his Google+ account. In it, he challenges the very existence of these famed “Google interview questions”. McMillen asserts that these are mostly apocryphal, at least in the Engineering Department.

“Don’t worry about figuring how to escape from a blender, or dividing treasure among infinitely-rational pirates, or why manhole covers are round. Instead, study the things that might actually be useful in your job: algorithms, data structures, medium-to-large-scale systems design, testing, debugging, parallel programming, operating systems, and most importantly how to code.”

He recommends Google interviewees read a 2008 blog entry from Google Engineer Steve Yegge. In it, Yegge says that the best way to get through a Google interview is to simply know how to do the job for which they are being interviewed. He does offer many more specific areas to bone up on to be qualified. And, he offers tips like:

“Some interviewers will not ask you to write code, but they will expect you to start writing code on the whiteboard at some point during your answer. They will give you hints but won’t necessarily come right out and say: ‘I want you to write some code on the board now.’ If in doubt, you should ask them if they would like to see code.”

He further suggests that you bone up on how to relate the fact that you know this by having a friend interview you. In the end, they together insist that Google simply wants people who know how to do their jobs.

And isn’t that what they all want?

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past couple of weeks, you know that Penn State has been embroiled in a huge scandal involving allegations of child abuse and rape – and Sandusky is the focal point of those allegations. Eye witnesses claim to have seen Sandusky engaging in sexual intercourse with underage boys, a charge that Sandusky currently denies.

Evidence so far points to a cover-up within the Penn State program, and the fallout has hit legendary head coach Joe Paterno, as he was fired late last week.

Last night, Sandusky appeared on the program for an exclusive interview with Costas, and the results were pretty shocking. The interview began with Costas pushing Sandusky to declare his absolute innocence –

BOB COSTAS:
Innocent? Completely innocent and falsely accused in every aspect?

JERRY SANDUSKY:
Well I could say that, you know, I have done some of those things. I have horsed around with kids. I have showered after workouts. I have hugged them and I have touched their leg. Without intent of sexual contact. But – so if you look at it that way – there are things that wouldn’t – you know, would be accurate.

Sandusky continued to deny the charges and refute eyewitness accounts that point to his guilt. Eventually, Costas articulates what most people were thinking at the moment:

BOB COSTAS:
How could somebody think they saw something as extreme and shocking as that when it hadn’t occurred, and what would possibly be their motivation to fabricate it?

JERRY SANDUSKY:
You’d have to ask them.

BOB COSTAS:
It seems that if all of these accusations are false, you are the unluckiest and most persecuted man that any of us has ever heard about.

JERRY SANDUSKY:
I don’t know what you want me to say. I don’t think that these have been the best days of my life.

And the transcript really doesn’t do the interview justice. Costas was masterful. He tackled a delicate issue with class, but he didn’t back away from the explicit details of the allegations. He pushed Sandusky to volunteer more information at the right times, and he presented logical followups to some of the unbelievable things coming out of Sandusky’s mouth.

I can’t declare a man guilty from a interview. Sandusky will get his day in court. He is innocent until proven guilty. But man did that interview fail to help his cause. The written transcript doesn’t show how bad it was for Sandusky. He sounded awkward, hesitant, and made critical pauses before answering questions. You can check out the full interview below:

It’s truly tough to watch.

Twitter provides some good commentary, as people everywhere were shocked at what they were hearing:

Many from the sports and broadcasting fields praised Costas for his work during the interview:

Costas appeared on the “Morning Joe” program on MSNBC this morning to discuss the interview. He said that it was a last minute thing, that he was supposed to be interviewing Sandusky’s lawyer only. Right before the cameras started rolling, Sandusky’s lawyer asked Costas if he wanted to talk to the man himself.

Costas said that he was thinking that wasn’t a great idea. ‘I wonder from your standpoint whether that’s the smartest thing to do, but at the same time, sure,’” Costas said. “…We pivoted and made it an interview with Sandusky.”

As far as the court of public opinion goes, Sandusky did little to help his cause. What do you think? Let us know in the comments.

Believe Entertainment uses social media channels as venues for talent to engage conversations with fans, as well as events and promotions they say help them extend the life of original content, and they’re pretty excited about Facebook’s new Open Graph announced at f8 last month.

“Facebook’s Open Graph has implications that reach far beyond the music industry, which is currently driving the conversation,” the company tells us. “Through Open Graph’s sharing and discovery capabilities, platforms like Facebook present new opportunities for consumers to discover content through their friends and share it in inventive ways.”

We had an email Q&A with co-founders Dan Goodman and Bill Masterson. Following are their joint responses to a few questions.
 
How will Facebook’s Open Graph impact the discovery and monetization of online video?

“Open Graph will hopefully allow content producers like us the opportunity to further engage with the enormous fan bases behind our high-profile talent partners, including LeBron James and DJ/producer Tiësto and create a two-way conversation between the talent and their audiences. The platform has the opportunity to provide an added level of exposure to our content which is already being pushed through sites like YouTube, Hulu, Twitter and talent’s sites and social media tools. This extra dimension of engagement and discovery would in turn increased exposure for brand partners, therefore driving monetization.”
 
How do Facebook’s most recent announcements improve this, compared to Facebook’s earlier platform offerings?

“Prior to the Open Graph announcement, we leveraged social media platforms as a venue for talent to engage in a two-way conversation with their audiences – through mediums like post-episode conversations, offline events and promotions/giveaways. Now, given the opportunity to share and socially engage in fan activities on the same site, groups like Believe will be able to extend the life of original content and fan conversations.”
 
What advice do you have for brands looking to utilize Facebook’s open graph to improve their video performance?

“The best way to utilize any platform, whether it is Facebook, Hulu or anything else is to produce quality content with great audience value. The benefit of these platforms is that they allow content producers to experiment with different ways of engaging audiences and creating communities. Hopefully, Open Graph and social networks will continue to drive media consumption and increase the audience for original content.”
 
Is Facebook now more important than YouTube to video success?

“Every social media platform is critical to digital video success. Our success has come from utilizing multiple platforms – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and fan sites – to reach talents’ fans wherever they are and invite them to interact with talent and other fans. One platform isn’t necessarily more important than the other; taking advantage of what each offers to link fans and talent is key.”

How can brands leverage the huge fan bases already established on the Facebook Platform?

“Our strategy is simple but effective: create quality content with top talent that draws a large, built-in audience. Then, we provide meaningful ways for brands to get involved. For brands that already have a fan base established on Facebook, it is absolutely pivotal that they engage with those fans, create an interactive environment and make fans feel like their opinions and feedback matters.”

“Engaging with fans is also pivotal to our model. For example, after each episode of The LeBrons is released on YouTube, LeBron James himself invites fans into conversation with prompts on all his social media platforms. Believe Entertainment Group intends to leverage Tiësto and Jennifer Lopez’ Facebook fan bases in the same way when their projects launch.”

The former Tea Party candidate for the U.S. Senate from the state of Delaware made an appearance on “Piers Morgan Tonight” last night. And by make an appearance, I mean a brief appearance, as O’Donnell cut the interview short and walked out on the host.

Her 2010 campaign for the Senate will probably be remembered for her “I’m not a witch” ad that flooded the internet and television and spawned numerous parodies.

On his HBO show Real Time, comedian Bill Maher aired a clip from his previous show, ABC’s Politically Incorrect, that featured O’Donnell saying, “I dabbled into witchcraft – I never joined a coven. I hung around with people who were doing these things, we went tot a movie and then had a little midnight picnic on a satanic altar. And I didn’t know it.” That generated a lot of buzz in the media and prompted this now infamous ad –

Last night, O’Donnell appeared on Piers Morgan’s show to promote her new book, “Trouble Maker.” She didn’t like the persistence that Piers showed on his questions about gay marriage and “don’t ask don’t tell.” O’Donnell said she wanted to discuss the book, and Piers claimed that he was discussing stuff that was, in fact, in the book. After calling the host “rude,” she abruptly ended the interview. Check out the video below –

O’Donnell asks, “Don’t you think, as a host, um, if I say this is what I want talk about – that’s what we should address?” To which Piers Morgan replies, “Uh, not really, no.”

Piers tweeted about the incident pretty much all night. Check out some of the best tweets –

Piers retweeted this –

Christine O’Donnell also had some interesting things to say on Twitter –

O’Donnell said this about walking out on Piers this morning (courtesy of My Fox DC) -

Well first of all I want to set the record straight, it wasn’t the question on gay marriage. He had a decidedly inappropriate line of questions leading up to that, that many people – bloggers, are saying was just border-line creepy.

And, I’m trying to move away from it, you know, I’m not a 20-year-old on MTV right now, so let’s get back to the political issues that I lay out in the book – and he wouldn’t let up.

I was not there to talk about sex – and he would not stop trying to talk about sex.

What do you think? Should he have continued to press her on the issue? Let us know in the comments?

Last night, ABC aired her two-hour interview of Jaycee Dugard, the now 31-year-old woman who was kidnapped when she was just 11-years-old. She was taken near her home in South Lake Tahoe, California in 1991 and held captive by convicted rapist Phillip Garrido and his complicit wife Nancy.

Jaycee was discovered in 2009 after Garrido suspiciously emerged with Jaycee and the two girls that he had fathered with her over the course of her abduction. Authorities became suspicious when the two girls referred to him as “daddy” at the parole hearing, as they were under the impression that he had no children.

After hours of questioning with Jaycee Dugard, who was identified as “Alyssa” by Garrido, the truth came out and Garrido and his wife were arrested. Convicted of kidnapping, false imprisonment and rape, Garrido was sentenced to 431 years in prison and his wife 36 years to life.

The whole ordeal enthralled the nation, and last night Diane Sawyer sat down for the much anticipated special with Dugard.

She announced on Friday in her first tweet that she would be live-tweeting the special –

She then kicked off the live-tweeting of the interview, which was taped earlier this weekend, with this tweet –

Here are some of the 40 or so tweets from Sawyer during the airing of the interview –

Sawyer mostly sent out original tweets, but she also interacted with other Twitter users, answering their tweets throughout the interview. Due to her live-tweeting of the special, Sawyer has grabbed up over 11,000 followers in a matter of days.

The interview relied heavily on information that’s a part of Jaycee Dugard’s new memoir “A Stolen Life.” The book doesn’t hit shelves until Tuesday but has shot up to #1 on Amazon thanks to the Diane Sawyer special last night.

Here’s a clip of the interview –

In  fact, according to Yuchun Lee, CEO of IBM’s Unica, less than 10 percent of software spend is going toward cloud solutions, and Unica is seeing adoption more on a department-by-department basis as it is. "It’s amazing, but most companies I’ve talked to…there’s no standard processes for marketers," says Lee. "There’s no standard organization structure, no standard technology, so this need for standard, I think, will greatly benefit the whole industry of marketing." 

Watch our interview with Lee from the Inbound Marketing Summit:

More WebProNews Videos

Small businesses don’t always think they have the resources to have the online presence they have, when in fact there are many tools at their disposal, via the cloud, that might be more cost-effective than they think. In fact, this was something of a running theme at the summit – there are simply so many tools online now (with more being developed seemingly everyday), that you can put together effective marketing campaigns for next to nothing. The same goes for managing marketing. 

The cloud offers opportunities that make it so businesses don’t have to invest their own resources as heavily, to develop the online presence that they want. 

"A company should focus on, strategically, what they’re good at, and what’s core to their business, and sometimes managing computers and hardware may not be the core for some of these companies, so the cloud’s a great option," says Lee. 

Do yourself a favor and explore the cloud options that are out there. Last week, we talked about Appmatcher from RackSpace, which aspires to be something of a Match.com for business apps. That might be a good place to start. That’s not an endorsement, just a suggestion. I’d figure out what you’re really setting to accomplish and do some searching. 

"If your organization is interested in being part of the discussion, we welcome questions from you and your members," says Kristie Mun with the Google Grants Team. "You can ask BP questions about accountability, the clean-up plan, recovery efforts in the Gulf region, environmental impact, the status of the relief well drilling, the role of the U.S. government, the future of offshore drilling and of BP as a company, or any other topic on your mind."

You can submit questions via Google Moderator on the CitizenTube YouTube channel. The top questions will be asked in the interview.

It starts at 3:30 Eastern, and portions will be showing tonight on PBS (and will be available on YouTube). PBS’ Ray Suarez will moderate.