1. MGT 554 Rob Levy, Devon Smith, Meredith Trainor
:Vocalo - “YouTube for Radio”
Understanding the Product and Its Social Media Footprint
Background
Billing themselves as “YouTube for Radio”, Vocalo is a radio station, website, and online
community whose content is almost entirely user-generated. Vocalo enables users to submit
audio content and then (after some filtering by staff) Vocalo plays that content on air via their
Chicago-based radio station, WBEW (89.5 FM), and online nation-wide at vocalo.org. Their
website also enables a broader range of user-generated content (UGC) through blogs, audio
and video uploading, and connections to various social networking outlets, which are discussed
below.
Started in June 2007, Vocalo is a project of Chicago Public Radio (CPR) with the primary
purpose to expand the traditional public radio fan base beyond its largely white, upper-middle
class, suburban demographic into a younger, urban, and more racially and ethnically diverse
audience. Interestingly, the goal is not necessarily to drive new traffic towards traditional public
radio outlets, but rather to create a new forum for a new audience that can further public radio’s
mission-driven values of public discourse, education, outreach, and “democracy of the
airwaves.” Given this ambitious goal and its innovative (especially for public broadcasting) use
of online technology, Vocalo has received significant national attention and funding in its first
few years. It appears that many in the public radio field are looking at Vocalo as a potentially
replicable model should it prove successful.
Unfortunately, Vocalo has so far dramatically fallen short of its high expectations. Unofficial
estimates puts WBEW’s weekly listenership at just around 20,000 to 30,000 (for comparison,
CPR’s news station, WBEZ, had a weekly listenership of 575,000 during the same time period).
It remains hugely dependent on outside foundation funding as last fiscal year it only managed to
raise 1% of its annual budget of $1.7 million. In order to become self-sufficient, Vocalo
executives estimate that Vocalo must increase its combined radio and online weekly listenership
to 100,000 by 2012. 1
Consumers and Market Segmentation
Vocalo has several different audiences it seeks to engage:
Content Creators:
 Vocalo’s content creators are social media friendly early adopters, public radio
enthusiasts, and young people. A qualitative analysis of non-Vocalo fan pages on
Facebook reveals consistent support for community-level arts organizations including
local theaters, comedy clubs, radio stations, artists, and innovative radio projects.
For these audiences Vocalo likely represents a kind of democratization of radio that
pushes traditional Public Radio farther than has been done before, and integrates
Social and New Media in innovative and exciting ways. Content Creators are more
likely to be so-called ‘Digital Natives,’ and so are more capable when it comes to
expanding traditional radio interactions into the User-Generated sphere.
1
“FM, web audiences elusive so far for innovative Vocalo,” by Mike Janssen. Current.org. Jan
11 2010.
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2. MGT 554 Rob Levy, Devon Smith, Meredith Trainor
Content Consumers:
 Content Consumers represent a more diverse audience for Vocalo because they
identify with a more traditional relationship to radio than that of a content creator.
Consumers are passive, but interested in the radio project, and likely trend toward
being older, wealthier, and more of a mainstream Public Radio audience.
 Unique visitors lingered between 1,300 and 6,000 per month (avg) until October of
2009 (the last month for which there is available data), when it began a steep upward
tick to over 30,000 per month, likely based on the addition of a celebrity blogger
(Feder). Given the uptick around the time that Feder joined the broadcast (and the
amount of publicity around that shift), it seems likely that the majority of this 30,000
Unique Visitor datapoint is representative of the Content Consuming, rather than the
Content Creating, market segment.
Potentially Non-consuming/creating target audience:
 Vocalo was created, in part, to bring new and formerly unengaged market segments
to the Public Radio audience. Popular media articles cite these under-accessed
audiences as those which are both urban and minority-dominated, and situates
Vocalo’s creation in the context of Public Radio reaching out to these communities
across the board.
 Although site data (see appendices) seem to indicate a deficiency in connecting
Vocalo to the Non-consuming/creating target audience, Vocalo’s web traffic rivals, for
example, that of Ashoka.org, and its child organization, Changemakers.com,
nonprofit organizations with strong web presences and comparable web-based
interactive platforms and campaigns, despite Ashoka and Changemakers having
been available for a much long period of time. Vocalo, although perhaps not
successfully reaching the full breadth of it’s target audience, is still experiencing
success in finding an overall market of listeners.
Competition
Large multiplatform organizations/media aggregators with well-established brand
identity:
 You Tube – Although Vocalo is not competition for YouTube, YouTube is perhaps
the most obvious competition for Vocalo.org, what with the presence of media
creation and sharing space, the opportunity to rate and rank favorite media pieces,
and a multiplatform setup which could be easily expanded into other offerings
(including radio)
 Rival PR Stations – The Chicago Public Radio market is the third largest in the
country -
o Although other Public Radio stations are not in direct competition with Vocalo
(and even though CPR and Vocalo deliberately deemphasize their
relationship), Vocalo is a project of CPR intended to help the station to tap
into under-accessed markets, and as such is competition with other PR
stations which are currently doing similar work to explore nontraditional forms
of radio
 Google (Buzz, Wave, et al.) – Although Google does not currently offer a UG radio
platform, consistently expanding multimedia offerings create the opportunity for the
company to expand in that direction. Vocalo cannot directly control or respond to this
potential at this time (as it may remain unrealized) but it is beneficial to Vocalo to be
cognizant of such a possibility
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3. MGT 554 Rob Levy, Devon Smith, Meredith Trainor
Small start-up organizations with User Generated (UG) radio offerings
 Podcast Alley – (http://www.podcastalley.com) – Podcast Alley is a website which
offers creation, uploading, and sharing of Podcasts, in a way not dissimilar from that
of Vocalo. Podcast Alley has limited multimedia capabilities, however, no advertised
intention to expand, and only a single staff member
 Last.fm – (http://www.last.fm) - Last.fm is a radio site which integrates user feedback
and preferences about songs into both those that the listener hears and those that
are available and made accessible to others. It offers an online community, review
space, Flickr, Twitter, and blog links, as well as opportunities for customization.
Last.fm is one of Vocalo’s strongest possible competitors.
 Goom – (http://www.goomradio.us) – Goom is a UG radio creation website which
offers capabilities comparable both to Vocalo and to Last.fm – users can create,
modify, rank, rate, share, and arrange music on the site, and has announced it
intends to develop technology to allow users to create and upload their own radio
content. It, along with Last.fm, is one of the strongest potential competitors for
Vocalo.
 Your Red FM – (http://yourredfm.com) “User Generated Radio” allows users to sign
up and create their own radio shows and content, with dedicated mediastreams for
interested listeners.
Strengths and Weaknesses of the Product:
Strengths
 User-generated
 Urban –speaks to new demographics not usually listening to Public Radio
 Quick on its feet/Adaptable
 Incorporates new technology (cell phone call in)
 Multi-platformed
 Innovative
 Like a wiki – multiple contributors also monitor content for quality
 Very youth friendly
Weaknesses
 Chaotic feel to website
 Lack of obvious filter options to sort through less interesting material to the more
desirable content – hard to know where or how to find such content
 Little advanced/long-term/consistent programming
 Difficulty ascertaining how many consumers are also content creators and how many
content creators seek to listen to others – this affects the realized size of the
audience/reach.
 If more consumers are on the content consuming side than the creative side Vocalo
risks becoming a more traditional passive radio consumption format, and therefore
will be compelled almost by default to compete with traditional Public Radio outlets,
including its mother program (Chicago Public Radio).
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4. MGT 554 Rob Levy, Devon Smith, Meredith Trainor
Vocalo’s Social Media Footprint
Vocalo’s 3 major conversation hubs are on its blog, Twitter, and Facebook Fan Page.
Blog (http://blogs.vocalo.org)
The Vocalo homepage is built on a Drupal Content Managmenet System, while the Vocalo blog
is built on an embedded WordPress CMS. The original mission of the homepage was to make it
as easy as possible for content creators to upload new content. Now that the homepage has
gained a substantial listener base, it needs to focus on user-friendliness, as well as search
engine optimization.
However, both the blog and homepage have an impressive number of social and digital media
opportunities (listed in Appendix I), and unique visitors have tripled in the past 3 months with the
addition of blogger Robert Feder. Significant features include2:
• Integration with the broadcast system at the radio station for syncing on-air playlists and
schedules with the website and allowing hosts to easily broadcast user-generated audio
on the air.
• A cross-browser, AJAX-enabled media library allowing users to seamlessly upload
images, audio clips, video files, and media from 3rd party sites like YouTube into an
online WYSIWYG editor with a drag-and-drop interface.
• Telephone podcasting which allows users to call a hotline and record audio content
directly onto the site using only their telephone.
• A full palette of online community features including social networking, private and
instant messaging, and folksonomy.
Twitter (@vocalo)
Vocalo’s Twitter presence is smaller than on Facebook, but more active (detailed in Appendix
II). Vocalo was an early adopter of Twitter (joining in November of 2007), and tweeted on
average twice per day in the past month. In the last 9 days, their 16 tweets generated 193
mentions by other twitter users (a 12 times conversion rate). Vocalo’s follower count velocity
continues to pick up, increasing number of followers by 10% in January 2010. Vocalo’s followers
are primarily men in Chicago, 85% were active on Twitter in the last 10 days, nearly 50%
consider themselves professional artists, and have on average approximately 200 followers
themselves. Assuming no overlapping networks, Vocalo has potential second order reach of
over 14,000.
Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/vocalo)
Vocalo’s Facebook Page has over 1,100 fans, 2% of whom engaged with Vocalo in the past
month (detailed in Appendix III). Vocalo primarily posts links and responds to fan’s comments,
and fans engage via wall comments and likes. In the past 31 days, Vocalo posted 45 pieces of
content on Facebook, and 28 fan engagements are captured on their wall, for a paltry
conversion rate of less than 1. Vocalo’s fans demonstrate interest and affinity towards public
radio in general by subscribing to other pubmedia fan pages. Engaged fans tended to be White,
Male, Chicagoans, in their 20s, but several Hispanic enclaves around the US also appear on the
follower density map. Vocalo’s second order reach from engaged fans in the past 31 days is just
over 8,000 Facebook users.
2
Drupal.org case study on Vocalo’s creation (http://drupal.org/node/288658)
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5. MGT 554 Rob Levy, Devon Smith, Meredith Trainor
Lesser used Vocalo conversation hubs include, in descending order, its:
1. YouTube Channel (vocalo and VocaloDotOrg)
2. MySpace Profile (VocaloDotOrg)
3. StumbleUpon (Stumbler: Vocalo)
4. UStream (Vocalo.org)
5. Delicious Bookmarks (created by others)
6. LinkedIn References (created by others)
7. Google Search (created by others)
8. Vimeo Videos (created by others)
9. FriendFeed Mentions (created by others)
10. iTunes Podcasts (vocalo.org)
11. Flickr Photostream (vocalo and VocaloDotOrg)
12. Wikipedia (Vocalo.org)
13. Yelp Reviews (Vocalo.org)
14. Foursquare Location (WBEZ)
Further details on activity levels of each platform can be found in Appendix IV.
Vocalo’s communication strategy up to date does not seem strategic nor very intense. Their
Twitter account is updated via Facebook status updates. Facebook is only checked every few
days. Most news articles referring to Vocalo are actually negative. Their webpage is incredibly
challenging to navigate. Due to concern about tarnishing the brand reputation of Chicago Public
Radio (Vocalo’s founder and parent organization), the two brands are never linked in advertising
campaigns. Vocalo’s blogs’ popularity stems mainly from a celebrity blogger, and not the
average user. While a lot of buzz is generated around Vocalo, they’re not actually engaging with
users.
And yet, Vocalo continues to be awarded multi million-dollar foundation grants year after year
because the model is so different from other radio stations, and everyone in the public media
system wants so bad for them to be successful.
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6. MGT 554 Rob Levy, Devon Smith, Meredith Trainor
Appendix I: Vocalo.org Metrics
Homepage Total
Registered Users 1,900
Pieces of content 24,000
Monthly Unique Visitors 30,303 (note: tripled in last 3 months)
Site Visits 56,323
Search Engine Optimization
Top Search Terms Robert Feder Blog, Teen Living, Vocalo, Chicagoans
Top Referral Sites Facebook, Google, Boardhost, About.com, Convio.net
Top Destination Sites Facebook, WindyCitizen.com, Google, Boardhost, About
Homepage features Facebook Connect
Drupal CMS
Streaming Content
UGC Upload Ability
Most Recently Uploaded List
Merchandise eCart
Shout Box
Share This
UGC Tags
User Profiles
Filtered Search
Discussion Groups (55)
Wordpress Blog (embedded)
Podcast RSS
Blog Features Recent Comments
Subscribe by Email
Twitter badge
Facebook badge (CPR)
Flickr badge (CPR)
Homepage badge
RSS Events Feed (CPR)
Blogroll (1)
Blog Metrics Total
Blog RSS Subscribers 94
Average blog posts per week 56.7
RSS Feeds 10
Podcast RSS Subscribers 2
Podcasts posts per month 1
Blog began Apr-08
Blog Authors 71
Blog Categories 71
Posted Today 12
Comments Today 157
*65% of comments from 1 post
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7. MGT 554 Rob Levy, Devon Smith, Meredith Trainor
Appendix II: Twitter Metrics
Twitter Metrics Total
Followers 725
Following 711
Founded 15-Nov-07
Lifetime Tweets 1,514
Tweets in Last 31 Days 64
Listed 44
Lists 1
Favorites 3
Platform Facebook
Engagements 9 DAYS END 2/10
@vocalo 1
#vocalo 39
Link: vocalo.org 95
Vocalo’s tweets 16
RT @vocalo 4
RT #vocalo 29
Foreign 25
TweetMeme 7 Days
Stories via blogs.vocalo.org 10
Retweets 206
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8. MGT 554 Rob Levy, Devon Smith, Meredith Trainor
Facebook Fan Page Metrics
Page Content Total
Total Fans 1,126
Favorite Pages 3
U-Stream App 1
Notes 10
Events 17
Photos 28
Photo Albums 3
Photo Comments 12
Fan Photos 1
Links 100
Discussions 2
Discussion Posts 3
Content Type Last 31 Days
Link 17
Response 17
Phote 4
Event 2
Song 2
Vocalo
Comment 2
Video 1
Response 14
Like 9
Comment 3
Fans
Video 2
Vocalo 45
Total Fans 28
ROI =F/V 0.62
Content Intent Vocalo Fans
Request/Question 15 0
Promotional 12 9
Informational 11 5
Affirmative 3 3
Give Away 3 0
Spam 2 0
Creative Content 1 0
Total 47 17
*"Likes" are excluded from this analysis
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9. MGT 554 Rob Levy, Devon Smith, Meredith Trainor
Engagement Drivers Like Comments
Request-Photo 1
Request-Photo 4
Request-Photo 7
Informational-Link 1
Informational-Link 1
Promotional-Link 1 2
Promotional-Link 3
Promotional-Link 1
Creative Content-video 1
Creative Content-video 1
Demographics Last 31 Days
Total Fans Engaged 20
Gender
Male 13
Female 6
Page 1
Age
20s 11
40s 3
30s 2
Unknown 3
Ethnicity
White 9
Hispanic 6
Black 2
Unknown 2
Location
Chicago 15
Indiana 3
Unknown 1
Total Fans' Friends 8152
Average Fans' Friends 543
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10. MGT 554 Rob Levy, Devon Smith, Meredith Trainor
Appendix IV: Other Social Media Platforms
YouTube Vocalo VocaloDotOrg
Channel Views 1552 51
Total Upload Views 6623 791
Joined 22-Mar-07 17-Mar-09
Last signed in 2 hours ago 4 months ago
Subscribers 16 4
Channel Comments 1 1
Uploads 28 10
Most viewed video 3085 323
Most viewed video's comments 9 1
Subscriptions 37 0
Friends 22 0
Favorites 4 0
MySpace Total
Profile Views 6,657
Last Login today
Member since 5/8/07
Friends 487
Comments 95
Last comment made 8-Feb-10
Contents: Blog, upcoming events, embedded music player, photo stream
StumbleUpon Total
Views of Vocalo.org 123
Favorites 38
Subscribers 3
Reviews 2
Tags 28
Subscriptions 0
Last Seen Today
U Stream Total
Followers 4
Total Views 1825
Joined 6/26/09
Last Broadcast Nov-09
Contents: Twitter stream embedded
Delicious Total
Others Bookmarking vocalo.org 146
Tags for vocalo.org 30
Bookmarks tagged vocalo 87
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11. MGT 554 Rob Levy, Devon Smith, Meredith Trainor
LinkedIn Total
Work(ed) at vocalo.org 41
Groups 0
Companies 0
Google Search Total
Google Page Rank 5
Google Indexed Pages 12,300
Search results for vocalo.org 583,000
Links to vocalo.org 563
links to blogs.vocalo.org 882
First relevant mention 1998
Most recent relevant mention Today
Vimeo Total
Videos (created by others) 3
FriendFeed Total
Mentions Today 85
iTunes Total
Podcast episodes 15
Reviews 0
Ratings 0
iPhone Apps 0
Flickr VocaloDotOrg Vocalo
Uploaded 1 1
Wikipedia Vocalo.org
Discussions 1
Categories 6
Contents: History, References, External Links
Yelp
Reviews 1
Stars 4
Foursquare Vocalo WBEZ
Check-ins 0 4
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