Last.fm staff are a creative and unpredictable bunch. When the online radio service’s interns aren’t categorizing last.fm tunes by age and gender popularity, their database programmers deploy regular expression scripts to dive into the server’s postgreSQL database and dig up every band named with the same word twice. As in “The The,” “Talk Talk,” “Duran […]
Archive | Internet radio
Bill would legalize extra-long music sets online for public radio
Under the provisions of the Digital Milennium Copyright Act (DMCA) there are several restrictions on streaming radio that don’t exist for terrestrial broadcast. One of the most vexing for a lot of noncommerical stations is the limitation that an online station may not play more than three songs from the same artist, album or compilation […]
Google TV will include Pandora
Pandora the online radio feature announced today that it will be included in the upcoming Google TV service: “Today we’re expanding again and we’re thrilled to announce that Pandora is coming to Google TV. Google TV combines the best of the web with the best of TV in one easy to use entertainment experience, giving […]
Gender and age preferences on Last.fm: What should you be listening to?
Joachim Van Herwegen, an intern at Last.fm, recently decided to compile a number of plots of musical preferences based on listener ages and genders. The results are quite fascinating! Herwegen’s first plot depicts the most common artists as a function of age (x-axis) and gender (y-axis). A quick glance will tell you that most users […]
Pandora: we’re helping iTunes
Pandora founder Tim Westergren told CNBC on Wednesday that Pandora isn’t a problem for iTunes, it’s a solution. “We just found out that the digital download business is flat,” CNBC’s Julia Boorstin asked Westergren. “Is Pandora stealing from iTunes visits?” “We’re actually one of the biggest referrals to iTunes,” Westergren shot back. “Pandora is a […]
Could white space devices boost streaming community radio?
The Federal Communications Commission has put the finishing touches on its rules for “white space” broadband devices—that is, gadgets that can send and receive high speed Internet across unused TV channels. Rolling out the service will be very tricky, since it involves portable gizmos that link to mobile or fixed machines that link to a […]
HD Radio boss says their “new technology” is experiencing “growing pains”
Last month I noted how Radio World columnist and HD Radio fan Thomas Ray encountered nothing but trouble when he tried to buy a new Ford with a factory-installed HD radio. Ray’s plight didn’t escape the notice of Bob Struble, the CEO of iBiquity, which owns the HD Radio technology. In a commentary published in […]
How to use the device speaker on your Droid FM radio
Here’s a handy Youtube tip for Droid FM radio fans. If you’re using the FM device, you don’t have to listen to the stream via your ear buds. You’ve got to plug in the buds because they function as an antennae for the gadget. But once you’ve done that, click your menu button on the […]
App store streaming audio rule: 5MB max over 5 min
As everybody in Apple-land already knows, Apple has published its new guidelines for Apple Store app developers. James Gralian, one of our regular Radio Survivor readers, was kind enough to point out the parameters for media applications, which include the following guidelines relevant to radio app developers (note section 9.3, to which we added italics): […]
WFMU on the “catch 22” of Internet streaming
John Bergmayer of Public Knowledge has a great interview with Ken Freedman, station manager of WFMU-FM in Jersey City, New Jersey. WFMU is a trailblazing radio station which was in the forefront of both the free form and dot.com eras. The dialogue is a terrific read, because it encapsulates all the dilemmas facing Internet radio […]