Motorola Looking to Redo Radio

Motorola just won an award for its still-not-released digital radio service, iRadio, from judges at the Digital Entertainment and Media Expo.

Specifics on the service are still sketchy for us mere mortals, but here's the basic breakdown: Motorola is combining Internet streaming radio with Bluetooth and a very smart service layer to give users an entirely customized radio experience. With these tools you can choose which radio shows and music types you'd like to listen to from Motorola's library of 300 channels (at last count) as well as your own personal library of tunes.

Better, you can set these up to run in sequence and even follow you around using high-speed EVDO-style Internet service and Bluetooth technology, apparently using compatible (and still unreleased) cell phones as both listening devices and media hubs. So contact is maintained via the cell, but your music can follow you from your home stereo onto your car stereo for the ride to work into the parking garage and elevator for the walk to the cube and then back onto your PC or office stereo so you can drive your employer nuts.

If this works as advertised it's going to make your basic iPod look chintzy. Maybe this is what they had in mind for the ROKR all along.

And if this sounds like a cool business opportunity, check out Motorola's iRadio "Get Heard" site. This is a recruiting site for new radio shows the company will play over its network. Maybe we should setup a TechFilter Talk show. Anybody want to volunteer as a DJ?

And, no, there's no official word yet on availability. But if it's winning awards, I'd say it can't be too far off. Probably just at the lawyer part of the deal-making phase, so figure two or three years tops.