ConvoCast is easy to explain to anyone who uses social networks and listens to the radio. It’s a sort of widget for a radio station web site, that lets a radio show listener go to a radio station’s web site and talk with the host and other audience members by leaving audio comments over the phone, or written comments.
In fact, it doesn’t look so different from Facebook’s interface, as you can see from the example below — a test the company made for a New England sport show.
Los Angeles-based ConvoCast’s idea is that there’s a large number of people who want to respond to radio shows, who can’t get through on the call-in phone lines.
The way ConvoCast works is that a radio station owner installs the company’s social network widget on its own site, on the homepage of a radio show. The widget and the site data is hosted on ConvoCast’s own servers. To counter abusive users, it also provides an administrative section, so a station can pull down offensive content. More here.
The big difference between this application, and say, a podcast, is that the radio station has an established listener base, and a sales team that already has connections with local advertisers. The ConvoCast widget includes space for banner advertising, that a station’s sales team can sell to local advertisers, which may also prove valuable as a component of a larger radio advertising package.
A number of radio station owners and affiliated companies are interested in the offering, Convocast tells me. It is working with a number of undisclosed local radio partners to test the service out. It is also looking at offering Facebook applications, in order to attract Facebook users to radio shows.
