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Survey: Internet Radio

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It’s hard to believe, but internet radio has been around for 25 years. So we sent contributing editor Dom Robinson (who is quite passionate about internet radio) on a hunt to uncover the origins, technical evolution, major adoption points, current usage, and some futurists’ predictions about the future of this humble-but-huge part of the streaming ecosystem.  

We’d like your input, so we’ve put together a survey. The survey should take no more than 10 minutes to fill out, and in return, everyone taking the survey will be entered in a drawing for a $50 Amazon gift card.

Click here to take the survey

Sleuthing through internet archives, anecdotal stories, and old metadata, Dom uncovers the various birthplaces of internet radio and talks to the technologists who made the first streaming environments suitable for live and linear audio delivery. He meets the podcaster and the first internet radio DJ. He uncovers untold stories about the first commercial station to go online. He digs deep with the founder of RealAudio. He talks with a member of the teams that helped put the BBC radio online. He explores the current technology strategies, looking at what has survived the test of time and what hasn't. He looks at the benefits that internet radio has brought to community and niche radio. He gets a dose of pragmatism as far as larger traditional FM radio broadcasters are concerned. He looks at smart speakers and how they have recently caused an upswing in internet radio listening, and he uncovers some real data about changes to the audio industry that have had an influence on internet radio, and vice-versa.

Technologies covered include: NVP, the MBone, VIC/VAT, RealAudio, Windows Media, Icecast, and Shoutcast.

Stories and topics touched on include the first live transmissions from the White House and National Press Club, the audio encoding workflow for the first internet talk radio series, the Rolling Stones’ inaugural live stream (and how they were crashed by “severe tyre damage!”), how the first DJ to play music online did so “by accident,” how the Virgin FM radio station was originally put online, and Live365’s arrival and struggles (and recent rebirth).

A wide range of very special internet pioneers have contributed a vast array of insights and information over the past few weeks. It was initially intended to be quite a brief article, but the passion with which the contributors shared their stories is reflected in this extra-length feature which will be out soon in Streaming Media, both in print in the September issue and online.

We think there is much more to cover in this space, and we would like to hear your stories about internet radio too. So please take a few moments to fill out our survey so we can gather more insights and see what we can do to keep a focus on this space!

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