Streaming Radio Archives
The model of radio has been working and profitable for years.
The only difference between WABC radio and YourDomain.com is
they have an audience (akin to web traffic) and they are pros at
producing audience attracting audio content that they broadcast
24 hours a day to a limited area geographically. With your dot
com, you can broadcast audience-attracting audio content just
good as theirs, broadcast it on demand to anywhere in the world,
and make profits with niches where they can't.
Example: Fly fishing radio, Pottery artists radio, Swing trading
radio, Hair coloring tips radio, thousands of other possible
niches would fail horribly in traditional radio broadcast
models, but niches thrive on the internet, and so does niche
internet radio. Once the audience is built, if yours is not
already, all the profitable techniques of traditional radio
apply. It would not be spam in an internet radio program to
advertise and direct listeners to online offers. You could run
all the audio ads you want. But be careful, people are 1 click
away from not listening. Yet, we are conditioned to hear, "This
program is brought to you by XYZ advertiser" and 8 minutes of
every hour, radio plays commercials, and you could do the same
on Internet radio programming.
Internet radio is just broadcast quality content being streamed
over the internet. That is it, nothing more. There are 2
variations, and both are considered internet radio. One version
is live content being streamed in real time based on a time
schedule, but in reality that is not really necessary or cost
effective for that matter. What I believe to be the next wave of
useful marketing tactics using audio on the web, is building a
niche internet radio station which will have tremendous
marketing and audience building potential. It will be in the
broadcaster's best interest to produce killer-archived content
and post that regularly to stream on demand for their listeners.
This is so easy and cost effective to do, and does not require
the live production techniques of traditional radio, nor the
high costs and server infrastructure of live feed internet audio
streaming. Be aware live streaming can be done through web
companies such as www.Shoutcast.com or www.Live365.com, and many
other others that have the data centers to multicast audio
streams in real time. Internet radio needs only to be great
audio content available upon demand online, and I see as an
incredible opportunity for marketers of niche products and
services to create to build audience or traffic to their online
offerings.
What makes Radio, Radio. The aural elements we take for granted
and don't think about.
Below are auditory elements we hear every time we listen to
commercial radio. They all can be produced easily with sound
editing software, royalty free music, pro audio mics and sound
cards, Add some creative energy and you can have an internet
radio station broadcasting your creative content to the world.
Listen to become familiar with the examples of the aural
elements of radio.
Below is listed examples of radio style audio production you can
create yourself to make your niche station
Advertiser Jingles Station Call Letter IDs Sweepers - Bumpers
Production Music Beds Voice overs Interviews - Talk radio
Advertisers commercials
To hear these examples
http://www.internetaudioguy.com/internetradiosamples.htm
Flash is the best technology to stream archived audio over the
web because it is the most common cross platform player, period.
Real Media and Windows Media are the formats that allow live
streaming, but I focused on archived, on demand audio in this
article. The easiest method for hosting streaming internet radio
content is http://www.mp3soundstream.com where you can see how
to record your on demand radio programs and deliver them using
flash.
Niche Internet radio station examples online now.
http://www.lawtechradio.com - All lawyers radio
http://www.choosefitness.com - All fitness radio
You can do it all with the right equipment, the right production
software and a little learning curve, all available from
http://www.InternetAudioGuy.com and
http://www.mp3soundstream.com.
Hear you on the Internet!
Quentin Brown