From VentureWire: "Soundbreak.com, which develops music Web sites, has shut down operations, according to Acacia Research, an incubator that invested nearly $10 million in Soundbreak.

"Soundbreak CEO Paul Ryan said in a statement that the company was unable to raise additional capital. He added that Soundbreak will return remaining capital to shareholders.

"In March of 2000, the company raised $19 million in its Series C from investment banks, private equity funds, and individuals."

The struggling company had already pinkslipped half of its 50 employees earlier this month, according to Internet Stock Review Online.

In January 2000, Soundbreak announced their impending launch (see RAIN coverage here) and the appointment of radio and MTV veteran Mark Goodman as VP/Music Programming. In August the company made news again when they broke from the pack of online music sites in arbitration with the record industry to determine a fair payment structure for streaming music, and set up their own deal with the RIAA (RAIN coverage here).

At that time, then-CEO Lisa Crane explained that cutting the deal with the record industry was the right move to make, in order to progress with their business plans. The company had hoped to make music available for download, and expand into other music-related e-commerce opportunities that would require record label cooperation.

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BY PAUL MALONEY
We're pretty sure "Die Hitz im Netz" means "The hits on the 'Net." Luckily, German is close enough to English (and the context of an Internet radio website is sufficiently familiar) to allow us to figure out almost everything else on the site.

We're referring to dasWebradio.de, an MP3/Quicktime streamer from Berlin. The site combines an upbeat, Top 40-type musical mix, high-energy personalities, and a simple (yet elegant) interface design. The site also seems to be set up as a type of news and lifestyle portal for dasWebradio visitors.

The music mix we heard seemed to drift from almost solely material familiar to Top 40 and mainstream Urban listeners in the U.S. (Ricky Martin/Christina Aquilera, Will Smith, Lil' Bow Wow), to stretches of electronic/techno, and then a clump of artists more familiar to fans of Europe's pop scene. At 3pm CST (10pm local), they go to a techno mix specialty show.

The site offers a Top Ten list of the week's biggest "Hitz," and clicking the "Playlist" link shows the currently playing song, the preceding, and the next selection (artist and title, a DMCA "no no" in the U.S.) -- all with associated photos and links to purchase and vote on the music (man did we stick it to Matchbox 20!). There's also a handy little "Now Playing" window in the lower right anywhere else you might wander on the site.

We heard some well produced sweepers and what sounded like (unsere Deutsch ist nicht so gut) short promos -- but no commercials. The hosts, called "Moderatoren," seemed personable, upbeat, and enthusiastic. While you'd have to know German to understand the "webjays," the produced promos, and all the written elements of the site -- as we mentioned, most of the music is familiar to American ears.

No matter how often we're exposed to European radio, especially pop music radio, it always seems a little strange to hear so much English-language music. Of course, that's just the nature of things, and most folks probably never give it a thought. But the European listening experience just seems so foreign (sorry) to us here in the U.S. Imagine listening to a radio station from your hometown on which half (or more) of the music is from another continent, of another culture, with lyrics in another language.

Going beyond the music, dasWebradio seems to aggregate more news than typical American radio websites. Clicking the "News" selection on the left-hand menu brings up six separate news areas, undoubtedly stocked with syndicated or other "third-party" items. There's music news, 'Net news, gossip, web tips, and their own "Webradio.newz," featuring special events on the site, like artist interviews. Also, never more than a click away, are links to all of dasWebradio's partner sites: portals, a dating site, an ISP, a chat service, and info on Munich's huge annual drag queen parade -- you know, all the usual stuff.

The language barrier made it a little tough to figure out what exactly dasWebradio is doing with the "Home4Bands" section. It appears to be a resource for unsigned bands to get their music exposed, and for enthusiasts to hear new sounds. Visitors can choose to hear :30 song clips by artist name or genre (we checked out a band called Naked Eskimo). And if you "machen" your own "Musik," you can get your art exposed by uploading the files to the site.

Again, you can listen to the stream with an MP3- or Quicktime player. Unfortunately, the stream's only at 28kbps, so the quality isn't great (our main complaint with the site -- that and the overly-long "Flash" intro at the beginning). Nonetheless, with the music, presentation, and pleasant graphic design, dasWebradio makes for an enjoyable visit, no matter what your mother tongue.

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From CNet News.com: "Setting its sights beyond the PC, RealNetworks said Wednesday that it partnered with digital technology company Wavefly to develop a way to stream files via common, home electronics.

"Under the deal, the two companies will fold RealNetworks' digital player, RealPlayer 8, into products based on Wavefly's wireless technology -- dubbed Wavefly Convergence Platform (WCP) -- which allows PCs to zap Net media files into a television or stereo...

"A future channel for the planned digital media player could be a set-top box connected to the stereo that could pipe audio from the PC to the device, RealNetworks said. Listeners could then tune into an Internet radio station or play MP3 files from their stereo, for example."

Read this story here.

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From CNET News.com: "Undeterred by industry uncertainty, a national group of television stations is starting to test services designed to beam high-speed data such as software programs, music or video directly into homes using TV signals.

"Dubbed iBlast, the service is being tested for the first time at five stations in California, Arizona and Florida, although it won't be available commercially until late 2001. The coalition of stations ultimately hopes to persuade consumers that gaining access to movies, music, games and software through their service is easier than through the ordinary Internet, since it avoids the Web's bandwidth bottlenecks.

"The service, along with similar offerings from rival Geocast Network Systems and smaller competitors, has the potential to provide a fast new way of sending digital content to consumers that could ordinarily take hours to download even over a high-speed connection. Although the technology won't provide nearly as many options as ordinary unfettered Web connections, the services will make up for it in speed and convenience, their creators hope.

"The 'datacasting' business that iBlast aspires to be in is not designed to be as interactive as the Internet. In essence, a computer or set-top box would become a television receiver, picking up data that will be sent using a TV signal. This data, such as a video, would then be stored on the computer's hard drive."

Read the entire story here.

February 21-25, 2001	The Gavin Seminar 2001, Miami, FL
February 26-28, 2001	Broadcasters Website Sales Conf. 2.0, Tempe, AZ