Friday, July 02, 2004
Web music the best thing to happen to radio since FM
More and more applications on the net gain on importance. Below is a selections of quotes that I took from Katie Dean at Wired News.
The concept has many names: Web radio, webcasting, streaming jukeboxes, Internet broadcasts. But the idea is much the same. Music fans "tune in" to various services through their Net-connected PC, where they can hear music from a huge range of genres. And not just the same 20 songs over and over again, like commercial radio. With Internet radio, listeners can tap libraries of millions of songs that would never be broadcast on the airwaves.
Web radio has been rapidly gaining popularity. The top five Internet broadcasters increased their audience by 32 percent from June 2003 to February 2004, according to Arbitron Internet Broadcast Ratings. The top five are AOL's Radio@Network, Yahoo's Launchcast, Live365, Musicmatch and Virgin Radio.
"Internet radio is becoming the radio at work because you don't have interference or reception problems," said Laura Behrens, a senior analyst with Gartner/G2. "You're sitting at your PC anyway." Downloading music, in contrast, has dropped off during the day, she said.
The new medium still has hurdles to overcome, but analysts predict music fans will eventually stream their music to a variety of wireless devices, allowing them to take the music anywhere.
Of course, the music industry, with help from allies in Congress, is doing its damnedest to shoot itself in the foot and kill the medium before it takes off. Wired News looked at some of the popular choices for free radio. Read the full article in case you want to know how they compare.
Comments-[ comments.]
More and more applications on the net gain on importance. Below is a selections of quotes that I took from Katie Dean at Wired News.
The concept has many names: Web radio, webcasting, streaming jukeboxes, Internet broadcasts. But the idea is much the same. Music fans "tune in" to various services through their Net-connected PC, where they can hear music from a huge range of genres. And not just the same 20 songs over and over again, like commercial radio. With Internet radio, listeners can tap libraries of millions of songs that would never be broadcast on the airwaves.
Web radio has been rapidly gaining popularity. The top five Internet broadcasters increased their audience by 32 percent from June 2003 to February 2004, according to Arbitron Internet Broadcast Ratings. The top five are AOL's Radio@Network, Yahoo's Launchcast, Live365, Musicmatch and Virgin Radio.
"Internet radio is becoming the radio at work because you don't have interference or reception problems," said Laura Behrens, a senior analyst with Gartner/G2. "You're sitting at your PC anyway." Downloading music, in contrast, has dropped off during the day, she said.
The new medium still has hurdles to overcome, but analysts predict music fans will eventually stream their music to a variety of wireless devices, allowing them to take the music anywhere.
Of course, the music industry, with help from allies in Congress, is doing its damnedest to shoot itself in the foot and kill the medium before it takes off. Wired News looked at some of the popular choices for free radio. Read the full article in case you want to know how they compare.
