Jump2Go Ramps Up Its Tagging Offerings

01.28.2010

Allen Hartle, the longtime advocate of RDS and tagging as tools to help radio stations generate new revenue, is promoting the “next generation” of “datacasting” tools from his company Jump2Go.

The RadioTag Plus radio tagging system is Jump2Go’s offering to help a station interact with its audience via iTunes and Zune Tagging.

“With iTunes Tagging-capable radio receivers such as the new iPod Nano, listeners simply press a button to save information about the songs they hear and like — no pen or paper required. The iPod Nano stores the song information and when the iPod syncs to a computer, iTunes builds a tagged playlist so listeners can preview, buy and download those songs.”

Stations can earn commissions on songs sold; each song that a station refers to an iTunes Tagged playlist qualifies for a commission, paid if the customer purchases the song.

Jump2Go sells a box, the JumpGate, that comes with one or three serial ports and an Ethernet connection. This box runs an RDS application and talks to automation systems, iTunes and Jump2Go’s data center. It processes RDS song tagging, tags commercials, generates RT+ and interfaces with Ando Ad-insertion and streaming audio encoders. “Say goodbye to .ini files, e-mailing config files to vendors and standing in a noisy rack room for hours on end,” the company states. Hartle says more than 600 radio stations in the United States and Europe now broadcast the Jump2Go Tagging protocol to enable iTunes & Zune tagging.

The new RTmessenger uses RT+ to create content-specific presentations; Jump2Go says it can power up the way stations use RDS and HD Radio text displays. “Now that it’s possible to have unique messages for every song, ad and day-parted general station message, your sales department will waste no time capitalizing upon ways to monetize these new information streams.” Stations can charge advertisers a premium and have specific text messages display when their ad plays, or sell a block of messages that play during a particular day part. “You can even sell a message that will play a specific number of times and then expire.”