New Loudcaster Feature: Better Track Manager
Hello Loudcasters!
We’ve soft-launched a new track manager. It’s in your dashboard and will run side-by-side with the current track manager until it’s shown to be be bug free.
This is what you can do with the new track manager:
- Upload multiple files right in the browser, so say good by to FTP if you’ve been dreading it
- Better search capabilities
- Ability to edit meta data
- Visual indication of bad tracks, the ones with missing meta data
Happy Loudcasting!
P.S. If you enjoy using FTP, you still can. However any files uploaded through via the web page will not be placed in your FTP bucket. We needed to preserve the file structure for these files, and moving them around on disk would be really problematic for us.
New Loudcaster Features: Theming and Chat Streams
Two things make on-line radio special to us.
First it’s delivered over an Internet connection, which means you can can interact with the other people using the radio stream.
Second, when consumed with desktops and mobile devices, you can blend interesting imagery with it.
So now you can jump into a chat stream on Loudcaster and see what’s up with everyone including the DJ’s, and be wowed by the DJ’s really cool themes!
The chat stream has an obvious use for chatting on the page, but will evolve into a larger discussion that can span out from the page it sits on. Each comment is referenced by the channel it was made on, but soon they’ll also be referenced with what was playing at the time. This will create a new way to explore radio, music and talk content and get closer with the radio producers and fans. It’s also an opportunity to participate in real-time games and events.
The themes give the DJ’s a great form of visual expression, complimentary to the audio. They can change them around now and then, like changing clothes to suit the mood! One day they could be configured to morph on demand too. Imagine a supplied backdrop that periodically gets watermarked with imagery collages relevant to what’s been playing…and can be extended to fans, so they can wear and change them out them in places like Twitter…like a virtual shirt!
These guys are theming it like a boss:
http://loudcaster.com/channels/382-93-kxr-worldwide-80s-hits
http://loudcaster.com/channels/17-no-boundaries-radio
http://loudcaster.com/channels/413-big-dawg-radio
http://loudcaster.com/channels/483-epic-rock-radio-err
http://loudcaster.com/channels/333-karnival-radio
http://loudcaster.com/channels/14-peace-out-radio
http://loudcaster.com/channels/1-smashteroid
http://loudcaster.com/channels/370-i-love-disco
http://loudcaster.com/channels/397-cross-country-radio
http://loudcaster.com/channels/73-jackmix
http://loudcaster.com/channels/315-walts-oldies-but-goody-wobg
http://loudcaster.com/channels/431-classic-hits-radio
Help us build a super simple desktop radio broadcasting application
By now, 2011, broadcasting should be as easy as blogging and it’s not. Many people are overwhelmed by it. We want to change this by getting together with a desktop app developer that loves online radio, broadcasting and DJ-ing.
Over the years many first time broadcasters have told us they find virtually all on-line radio broadcasting tools are a bit like jumping into an F16 fighter cockpit for the first time. Knobs, dials, flashing things.
The world needs a super simple desktop app that will get someone going in two simple steps.
1) Load my audio files
2) Broadcast
If should be built with the following:
Windows 7/XP/Vista support
.Net based
Base library for sound processing
- capable of streaming live
- support for pushing a mic button to broadcast live voice
- capable of uploading files to a server, which are used for a backup broadcast.
Will anyone help us build this app and forever change radio? Contact Us 
New Loudcaster Features
Happy Holidays! We have new stuff!
On-Air For $9.95
Many features have been made into options, so any new broadcaster can start broadcasting as low as $9.95 per month with crisp clear sound and a smooth listener experience. Compare that with the competition.
Shoutcast
We now support broadcasting with shoutcast clients in addition to icecast clients! So we can support any shoutcast based broadcasting tools like otsDJ/otsAV!
As you may or may not have known, all the Loudcaster early adopters have had two stream encoders, and now you can customize them.
Features Galore
All early Loudcaster adopters have the featured package, but not you can customize it! You’ll notice a new section in the dashboard called Manage Resources.
Encoder 1 is for mobile/dialup connections. It streams aac+ and you can make it stream at 24kbps, or 32kbps. 32kbps will sound better than 24kbps, but 32kbps may not work will for certain listeners on a dialup connection.The choice is yours to make though.
Encoder 2 is intended for people that have high speed connections. It streams at 64kbps, and you can choose to make it stream in the MP3 format as mono or stereo or as AAC+. AAC+ will offer a significant boost in sound quality, but may be unavailable to some listeners as the format does not have universal support yet, though it nearly does! The MP3 format offers universal support, but it won’t sound as good, but most don’t mind that. 64k MP3 stereo can sound a little fuller than mono, and 64k MP3 mono will sound as good as 128K mp3 but it might not sound as deep since it will be missing stereo effects. Choose whatever makes the most sense for you.
We’ve added a drop-down to the channel page called Sound Quality, choices are mobile and HD. Mobile will play the 32k and HD will play the 64k stream. We believe this language best represents the future of radio and is more along the language of what people are used to when they visit sites like Youtube (240p, 1080p, and so on..), or shop for media devices.
One caveat, if you switch between formats (mp3 aac+) you’ll have to restart any devices and players you might be listening with. If you are listening via the flash player, you’ll have to reload the web page.
Happy Loudcasting!
New Loudcaster Features: Crossfading and MP3 Stereo Switch
Greetings DJ’s!
Two new highly requested DJBot features are now available for use:
Crossfading….
With one caveat, if you turn this on all tracks get crossfaded. Including station id’s and PSA’s. Depending on a few things, it could sound a little odd when a PSA or Sation ID is played.
MP3 Stereo…
For that that prefer it, you can toggle the mp3 portion of your output between stereo and mono.
Both of these features require a DJBot restart to take effect.
Happy broadcasting!
New Feature: Generous DJ Referrals
Greetings Loudcasters!
We now have a generous referral system that saves you money. You can find more details in the Broadcaster Dashboard under the Referrals Tab.
It’s simple, when someone uses your link we assign a 30 day cookie. If they make a purchase in those 30 days, we’ll apply a credit to your account. The credit is 50% f what they signed up for, up to a max value of $25 per referral. To get credit they simple need to make it through the trial period and be successfully billed.
In other news, Loudcaster has a SXSW panel featuring online DJ’s and human curation of music as opposed to personalized streaming services like Pandora. If you find this topic interesting please vote for it here:
http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ideas/view/7958
Voting closes Friday August 27th. We’re going to try and showcase some of your channels too!
Happy Broadcasting!
New Feature: Mobile Webite
Tonight we launched a mobile optimized version http://loudcaster.com! It allows for easy searching, listening and accessing favorite channels. Now your listeners can tune in with their Internet connected smart phones, like the iPhone, from the car or just walking around town!
The mobile site can be a accessed simply by going to http://loudcaster.com with a smartphone. Visitors can switch between the full site and mobile version as needed.
Loudcaster-mobile provides easy access to your broadcasts, addition to the many other iPhone apps, third party applications and set-top boxes your Loudcaster channel is already a part of. Loudcaster-mobile also paves the way for specialized Loudcaster mobile apps on the iPhone and Android.
DJ Bot improvements
We’ve made some enhancements to the DJ Bot based on your feed back.
DJ Bot is no longer cross-fading Station ID’s and PSA/Sweepers and we got rid of an occasional delay between track selections. We also simplified the scheduling of Station ID’s, PSA’s and Sweepers by combining them into a Station Break. Down the road we’ll add customizable clock-wheel features.
Next on the to-do list is playlist scheduling! This is for those times you want to play specific content at specific times, but you won’t be able to DJ it live.
Happy broadcasting!
Stats: AM-FM Dinasaurs are Losing Ground to Internet Radio
According to the Radio Industry News blog, 2009 marked the first year terrestrial radio started to lose ground to Internet Radio, which now has over 69 million listeners. Check out their post to see Internet Radio’s hocky stick and terrestrial radio’s glide path.
If you cruise through the stats (and if you’re a listener, you already know) that the top reasons are:
- Finding things to listen to that exist no where else.
- Having control over what you listen to (so why is Pandora so popular?)
- More variety
- Fewer Commercials
When you couple this with Folder Media’s report that over 10 million digital table top sets have been sold globally, ya gotta see the trend.
Isn’t it all about giving what the people want? Is there anything terrestrial radio can do to keep market share?
Soul meets Bluegrass
A friend of mine turned me on to Phantom Limb, a Bristol, UK “contemporary.” I was stopped dead in my tracks. Indie yes. Fantastic? Absolutely. They define the concept of ”undefined but great.”
It made me think about my huge problem: How can you find great new stuff when you have diverse tastes? Do you have to listen to thousands of DJs? Cruise thousands of music blogs? Knowing that you’ll never consume all of it, what is practical?
Back to Phantom Limb…Take a spin and let me know what you think.
