BY KURT HANSON
Those of you who've been reading RAIN for the past few
months will recall that last summer we assigned our crack team
of interns the project of 
building
their own Internet radio station, in hopes of helping them gain
a better understand of the issues we're covering in RAIN.
(If you missed the earlier installments in this series, you can
catch them here,
here,
and here.)
In previous installments, RAIN's interns have selected
a format, "ripped" music from CDs onto hard drives,
encoded those big ".wav" files into smaller ".wma"
files for streaming purposes, set up a database of those titles,
and designed the look of a player via which those titles could
be played.
Today, we reveal the fruits of their efforts: A commercial
free (so far) Internet-only radio station called, creatively enough,
"RAIN Radio!"
If you'd like to try listening to RAIN Radio,
you'll need to be using the Windows operating system (Macintosh
support coming soon) and have Windows Media Player installed on
your system (Real version coming soon).
If
those two criteria are satisfied, you can listen to RAIN
Radio while you read RAIN simply by clicking on the
image on the right, or on the player below.
Here are some of the issues that RAIN's crack team
of interns had to address to get RAIN Radio to its current
state:
Fortunately, a couple of RAIN's
interns last summer had good programming and coding
skills and were able to design a customized "shell"
to Windows Media Player to give our station a unique look. (With
Internet radio, a lot of the "stationality" for which
traditional radio programmers use audio
can be expressed visually
in the player design.)
By building a shell for the Windows Media software that
already exists on your computer, we got the advantage of having
our own unique presentation (plus the "skip" button
and CD cover art) without forcing listeners to download a custom
player.
In our "jukebox" approach to Internet radio,
each listener hears a different, randomized list of song titles.
We did, however, add two techniques to make RAIN Radio
sound more like real radio: (1) We established a ten-song artist-separation
rule. (2) We created a few "power" records by putting
the same song into our playlist database more than once.
Among the features intended to give RAIN Radio a unique
look, we decided to display album covers for the last three
albums played. To implement that feature, we had to build a file
of album cover art, either by scanning the CD covers we owned
or by grabbing the graphics from a source like Amazon and shrinking
them to size. (An unresolved question is this: If one of our goals
is to encourage the listener to click the image, go to Amazon,
and buy the record, is this
"fair use" of the artwork? It seems like it should be.)
We tried to add enough artists to each format to honor the
rules of that act -- e.g., making sure that
the same artist doesn't come up more than four times in a three-hour
period. But Congress didn't address the question of whether whether
"Wings" and "Paul McCartney" are the same
artist or two different artists.
(And how about "Jefferson Airplane" vs. "Jefferson
Starship"? The same artist or two different ones? Then how
about "Bruce Springsteen" vs. "Bruce Springsteen
and the E Street Band"? How about "Dan Hicks and his
Hot Licks" vs. "Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks"? If
Congress is going to get into the business of regulating music
programming, Congress needs to get down to specifics!)
Of course, there are lots more issues left to address,
and we'll get to some of them in the next installment of this
series. Aside from reaching an agreement with the RIAA, we'll
cover the topics of selecting a streaming provider, adding both
banner and streaming audio ads, adding production elements like
sweepers, signing up with a ratings service, and developing a
marketing plan.
But until then, we hope you enjoy RAIN Radio!
From the press release: "
America
Online announced that Kevin Conroy, a former top executive
with BMG
Entertainment, has been named head of AOL Music. Conroy will direct
AOL's digital music strategy, including the company's online relationships
with major record labels and the roll-out of its digital music subscription
service.
"He will also coordinate all of AOL's online music properties,
including
Spinner, Winamp,
and the AOL Music Channel. Conroy will report to AOL Senior Vice
President and General Manager Jonathan Sacks.
Read the press release
here.
From the press release: "
MeasureCast
announced that former MTV Networks - Latin America research director,
Evan Oster, has joined the company as vice president of research.
"Oster has more than 14 years experience in U.S. and
international research and management, including extensive experience
as a supplier/developer and user of research panels. Most recently,
he led all market research work for MTV and Nickelodeon cable television
networks and their associated on-line media businesses in Latin
America."
Read the press release
here.
|
Have
an opinion on this article? Share it! Simply click
the headline at left to bring up a convenient "Submit"
form. |
This is in reference to the guest essay by Cablemusic's
Dale Smith, RAIN January 10 here.
 |
"The
majority of them will go away and never come back..."
|
I just finished reading Dale Smith's column, and
sure enough, his player looks easy to use. Unfortunately, to listen
to anything, visitors first have to register. Cablemusic requires
the visitor to enter a unique user name, password, email address,
age range and gender before they'll let them listen to anything.
I don't care HOW simple the website is...if you force visitors
to register before they can even determine whether or not they like
the music you play, the majority of them will go away and never
come back.
|
"I
can go to the website but that's all I can do..."
|
I have a question on how to listen to the 97.1. I
can go to the website but that's all I can do. I'll apreciate if
somebody can give me step by step procedure on how to work this
out.
| |
--
"Deep background only" |
| |
If you're not streaming,
listeners figure it's THEIR mistake! They assume
you are and they just can't find the right place to click!
-- KH |
|
|
"RAIN
should not pay attention to the 'Top 25'..."
|
Your MeasureCast ratings reports are very misleading.
So far, MeasureCast is ONLY measuring Real Broadcast Network streaming
sites - not those streamed by Akamai, Yahoo Broadcast, Activate,
iBeam, Intel and others.
Not one Windows
Media streamed station is included! It's the equivalent
of limiting Nielsen ratings to one TV network. Until MeasureCast
expands its ratings universe, RAIN should not pay attention to the
"Top 25."
This
is in
regards to
RAIN December
13
"Expert
Says DMCA Could Make Stations Give Up on Streaming"
here.
|
"My
only access is the computer..."
|
As the mother of a DJ, I want to continue to get her
station via the Internet "streaming" radio . She works for
KRNA
in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. I live approx. 180 miles away from their
tower in Iowa City, in Paris, MO. There are days when I can not
receive their signal, and my only access is the computer.
|
|
Simply
click the headline at left to bring up a convenient pop-up
form -- or click here
to use your own e-mail software. |
| xxx |
 |
|
Try
it out! Explore the wide world of
Internet audio by clicking the screenshot above.
