TEN SCOOPS IN TEN DAYS! We've got a LOT of excellent, exclusive material in the queue. Look for original reporting on brand-new stories involving radio and the Internet virtually every day for two straight weeks in RAIN!

BY KURT HANSON
One of the most unique domain names on the Internet is about to get repurposed, as Internet-only radio broadcaster WWW.com changes its company name to OnAir.com and allows its current domain to be used by a soon-to-debut portal, CEO Scott Purcell has confirmed to RAIN.

Purcell told RAIN that the current domain has become a destination site for Internet users -- "It's in the MediaMetrix 500," he noted -- but that his company's new business model of building Internet radio stations for other business websites ("B2B") does not require a destination site for consumers. "We're an infrastructure and hosting company," Purcell explained.

As a result, the company plans to provide hosting, technology, and the domain to a company that's building a new consumer-oriented site "which will be heavily focused towards entertainment, but with some portal features," Purcell revealed.

Purcell acquired his unique domain name from "four guys in Hong Kong" last November, he said, adding, "I knew I could do something with it." But now, "Our customers think we're competing with them, which makes the initial discussions a little tough."

WWW.com provides custom-branded radio stations with over 200 channels of music to a variety of websites. WWW.com's clients include Levis.com, CBSSportsline.com, and HardRock.com, Purcell said.

The firm recently began taking steps to launch a commercial-free "pay radio" version of their product (see RAIN story here).




Radio programming veteran Andy Friedman, who last month resigned as News Director of Infinity-owned WBBM-AM/Chicago, has resurfaced as News/Talk Content Manager for the Clear Channel Web Services Group.

Friedman is a 16-year veteran of the industry, starting right out of college as a reporter and eventually Assistant News Director of KFI/Los Angeles while getting an MBA at night from USC. In 1996, he became News Director of KTAR/Phoenix, working with legendary programmer Todd Wallace. He moved to Chicago to accept the News Director position at WBBM-AM last summer.

"I'm excited about this unique opportunity to work with an outstanding group of people to help create innovative and compelling content for Clear Channel web sites," he told RAIN. "I think the convergence of radio and the Internet will be one of the big developments in New Media over the next few years and I'm thrilled to be a part of it."

Friedman actually began with Clear Channel last month, he revealed, working from the Web Services Group's Northfield, IL office. He joins previously-announced Rock Content Manager John Duncan (see RAIN story here).




BY PAUL MALONEY
A visit to Morfeo.com is a cultural and musical education. As much as it's an opportunity for Latin Americans living abroad to stay in touch with the music and life of their homelands, it could also afford a great vantage for someone open to the idea that there just might be wonderful music, styles, and ideas worth exploring beyond their own shores.

Based in Miami, Morfeo is a portal to the streams of more than 80 local Latin broadcast stations, plus an additional 16 Internet-only stations produced by the company itself. The site is available in Spanish, English, and Portuguese. Drawing from 20 different countries including the U.S., Latin America, and Spain, the user can choose radio formats from news, sports, and talk radio, and a multitude of musical genres.

So often in the U.S., many of the sounds that seep in along our southern borders are simply lumped together as "Latin." But here the adventurous can find a spectrum of 30 different types of music, from flamenco to merengue and Cuban son to techno-cumbia, bachata, bolero, mariachi, and Tex-Mex.

"Morfeo.com is the first company to discover and adopt a viable Internet strategy for the Latin radio industry...allowing stations to reach listeners everywhere in the world and realize income from the additional audience." The press release promises that future plans include "an Audio-on-Demand system which records and archives for subsequent access the best weekly programs of each station...(and) its very own video channel..."

Well-designed website
It's obvious that thought

The color scheme actually uses hot "electric" red, and gets away with it! Very nice. Attractive, stylish logo, and small, compact animations. They've used WindowsMedia technology to construct a very attractive player (pictured above) as well.

the site's "Top 10 stations" on the left (see screenshot at ledt), and a search engine box on the right, which allows the user to browse among the site's live radio destinations by format or country. The home page also includes links to Morfeo's current 16 Internet-only channels (see screenshot at right).

Along the top, there are links back to home, a Help section, a page about Morfeo, and an e-mail link. There's an "Events" link which leads to a section with concert videos and interviews, once again very nicely presented.

According to the press release on the site (dated June 2000), Morfeo hopes to expand their roster to "150 stations and about 50 Internet-only stations

...

... This business model seems to make sense. On their own, the leading Peruvian and Colombian radio stations aren't going to get a lot of U.S.-based listeners to their webcasts. So, bundle them all into one big, attractive website, strip out the local ads and replace them with Morfeo's ads, and you've maybe got some listeners. And even a minority split of the ad revenues is better than nothing for that Peruvian radio station. -- KH ...

Have an opinion on this article? Share it! Simply click the headline at left to bring up a convenient pop-up form.

As one of the highlights of this summer's internship program, RAIN's crack team of summer interns is currently in the process of building an Internet-only radio station that readers will be able to listen each day to while perusing that day's issue of RAIN.

The station, to be called (logically enough) RAIN Radio, is not only designed to be an educational experience for the interns, but it will hopefully eventually serve as the "RAIN Test Lab" for various products and services available to webcasters.

Previously, RAIN's summer interns have added a "Search" feature and bulletin boards to RAIN, beefed up our LAN (local area network), contributed a number of "Site of the Day" pieces and feature stories (including last week's piece by intern Ralph Sledge on Internet appliances), and are currently in the process of redesigning RAIN's "RadioJump!" website (our consumer-oriented guide to the wonders of Internet radio).

RAIN publisher Kurt Hanson is a big believer in the value of internships, having launched his career as an intern at WLS/Chicago working alongside such current industry heavyweights as John Gehron, Don Bouloukos, Larry Lujack, Jim Smith, G. Michael Donovan, John Cravens, Linda Waldman, Marty Greenberg, and others.

So look for a series of feature stories on how to build an Internet-only radio station -- starting tomorrow in RAIN!

BY PAUL MALONEY
MillenniaWeb, the company established by former Tapscan sales exec John Barlett, and Winfire, a provider of free DSL (digital subscriber line) Internet access, have partnered to provide leading Internet technology to media outlets in selected markets -- eight now, with more coming soon -- that are trying to gain Internet marketing opportunities.

The partnership between the two firms will give radio and television stations the opportunity to offer the free high-speed service to their listeners, including reporting capabilities and 24-hour support. Winfire has recently been offering their "FreeDSL" program in Boston, Chicago, Houston, Austin, Tulsa, and Orlando

...

It should be noted that Winfire's "free DSL" offer is one that may be somewhat hamstrung. Barlett's press release observes that "in most cases, DSL service is up to 50 times faster than a standard 28.8K dial-up connection." However, Winfire's website suggests that their standard free service limits users to a 144K connection -- and requires the purchase of a $199 modem. (To get the kind of fast DSL speeds that Barlett is referring to, users apparently must upgrade to a $34.95/month plan.) ...

This reader is responding, I believe, to an article from the RAIN News Archives on how some small-market stations made it to the top of Arbitron's initial InfoStream weekly cume rankings...

"The radio industry seems to be forgetting its roots..."

I really liked your article on how a backwater webcast radio station's high rating may have been due to the position of his station's listing in the MS browser. This points up the problem with many "expert" opinions that we are bombarded with from day to day. The Internet and webcast industry is so new that no one, even Bill Gates, has a true lock on what will happen over the next few years.

All the buzz about Streaming Media seems like it to be has to be taken with a grain of salt in my opinion. If you look at the excitement about Napster it seems to fly in the face of all the pundits who seem to indicate that people will not wait to download huge files but will demand faster playback -- a.k.a. streaming audio. Why would tens of thousands of users spend hours download these files and be willing to share their computers with strangers in the hope of spending more time downloading? Then they play the music through their computers with speakers that, while better than in the past, are no where near the quality of even a cheap stereo system? Why??

To me, the answer is control and variety (and it's free, somewhat, if you don't count the on-line cost, up-front hardware cost, and copy media) Control in the sense that we can listen to what we want when we want. Variety in that the option to listen to a wide variety is more possible.

The radio industry seems to me to be forgetting its roots. The golden age of radio as regards modern music was the 50's and the driving force was rock and roll. Being new and exciting and it was something that could not be heard anywhere else. Today, most stations, with their programmed formats and heavy reliance on cume and Arbitron numbers pretty much all sound alike. The major record production companies have been controlling what is played the same as it was prior to the introduction of rock music which was pioneered by the small independent stations first. The webcast stations seem to be following not the pioneering spirit of those early independent stations but more of the MOR mentality of the homogenized stations we have today.

We should never forget that a driving factor of internet usage and human nature in general is that ... "We will do what ever we have to in order to get what we want .. especially if we feel the benefit out weighs the cost." (Translation: The closer it is to free the more inconvenience we will put up with.)

Sorry to be so long-winded but your articles have stuck a chord in me.

Have an opinion on this feedback piece? Share it! Simply click the headline at left to bring up a convenient pop-up form.

September 12-14	Digital Coast 2000, Los Angeles, featuring a panel on Internet radio moderated by RAIN's Kurt Hanson
September 20-22	Gavin.com: Music on the Net, San Francisco
September 20-23	NAB Radio Show, San Francisco
Sept. 29-Oct. 1	MOBE/Internet & Technology, Chicago
October 5-7	Billboard/Airplay Monitor Seminar, New York
October 9-12	QuickTime Live! Conference, Beverly Hills
October 10-12	Streaming Media Europe 2000, London (NEW!)
November 5-7	NAB European Radio Conference, Berlin
November 12-14	Canadian Association of Broadcasters (CAB) "Broadcasting 2000: On-air / On-line," Calgary (NEW!)
Nov. 28-Dec. 1	Radio Ink Internet Conference, Santa Clara, CA, featuring a brand-new national study on Internet radio usage presented by Eric Rhoads & Kurt Hanson

xxx

Try it out! Explore the wide world of Internet audio by clicking the screenshot above.

Miss an issue?
Visit the RAIN News Archives here.