As explained in this Your Tech Weblog post, you simply sign up online for the free Nabbit service, program your phone, and you're off: anytime you hear a song, ad or anything else on the radio you'd like to tag, you simply press the key on your phone that corresponds with the station you're listening. Later, you log in to your personalized Nabbit portal to see song titles, artist info, lyrics, concert dates, and the option to download the song through iTunes, Napster or other online music services. If you've "Nabb'ed" an ad, you'll get more information plus promotional offers and ecommerce site links.
You can also check out this podcast (see November 5 entry) about Nabbit in RealAudio, MP3 or iTunes format.
How this could change the world: it's a value-add for radio stations, providing "trackability" for radio ads somewhat similar to online ads. This could bring a whole new class of advertisers into the radio market. It also makes life easier for radio listeners (and it's cool).
The biggest challenge: the people behind Nabbit have already overcome the two biggest hurdles: cost and ease of use. Nabbit is a free service, and it's as easy as programming your speed dial. Now the company simply faces a chicken-and-egg challenge: consumer adoption is likely to be limited unless there are a lot of radio stations signed up, but the stations won't sign up without an addressable market.
What could kill it: Someday, someone (Sirius, and GM with OnStar, are likely suspects) could build this capability right into a radio: you hear a song you like, you press a button on the radio, your account is automatically debited 99 cents or whatever and the song is downloaded automatically to the hard drive in your vehicle. You plug your iPod or other MP3 player into a jack on the radio and grab it from there. It's feasible—maybe—someday.
But for now, Nabbit looks like a free, easy-to-use, extremely convenient way to tag radio content rather than forgetting it or dangerously trying to scribble a note while driving.
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