Soundtap's Tool for College Radio Discovery
Awhile back I got all geeked out about the amazing college radio map that highlighted the “best college radio stations” across the United States and Canada. That map is now up to 90 stations and it ended up taking its creators on a journey to create several other college radio listening tools. Initially they built RadioCollective.org and as Matthew recently mentioned, that has now morphed into Soundtap.
Like its predecessors, Soundtap is an online tool that facilitates discovery of college radio shows. Dubbed “human-powered radio” and a “crowd sourced guide to independent radio,” it allows listeners to not only listen to user-submitted radio shows, but also add their favorite radio shows to the application. While investigating the site today, I spotted shows from some of my favorite DJs at KALX, KZSU, KUSF in Exile, and WFMU. I was also able to add some programs from my own station, KFJC. The interface allows you to add not only descriptions of radio shows, but also links to their Facebook pages, Twitter URLs, and playlists.
According to Soundtap co-founder Sujay Vennam, “There is an incredibly rich variety of programming in college and community radio that is largely overlooked.” On Soundtap one can peruse a list of radio shows currently on the air or even play a “random station” from their database. In the “tops” section you can take a look at the most played stations, radio shows, and the most active users. I’m happy to see that KFJC is #6! They also feature profiles of college radio DJs on the site.
It’s interesting to see the variety of shows that are on at the same time and the interface makes it quite easy to scan through the TV Guide-style listing. I can imagine spending hours on the site not only perusing through the list and tuning in to radio shows, but also submitting some of my favorites.
