Even listened to the radio on your phone while you’re on the bus or just relaxing in the park – sometime it can get a bit boring. Especially for us geeky types who love to know what going on all over the world in the tech biz.
Well I found a cool app for your cell phone that may fix the problem.
Virtual Radio is a cool Java app for you Java enabled cell phone that allows you to listen to Internet radio stations in crisp high quality sound. The have lowered the frequency to 32kbps for the Java version so your GPRS connection can keep up with the content.
There are loads of different channels to choose from depending on where you’re located. You can also reprogram the tuner to play your favourite channels or simply find new ones.
The best this is that it’s completely free to download and use. One piece of advice that I’ll give you is to watch out for the GPRS costs. However, nowadays most network have deals on GPRS internet such 99c per day for unlimited usage or a set fee every month.
Download Virtual Radio here.
Internet radio has taken off in the last few years. This is because more and more people are using smart-phones and using laptops on the go. Not to mention the fact that you can listen to your favourite radio station whilst holidaying in Australia or backpacking through Europe. Then, along came Internet based radio. This meant that there was no traditional radio station (ie. On a radio) for a particular company – it solely exists on the internet.
Pandora became one of the biggest streaming high quality music and advertisements across the web. Now, they have secured a massive investment from Greylock Partners of around $35 million dollars!
Currently, Pandora plays advertisements in order to make ends meet. Now, after securing this investment there is talk of charging listeners who tune in for over 40 hours every month 99c or an annual premium of $39 for unlimited listening and elimination of all the advertisements.
“New funds will be used toward the continued growth and development of Pandora” said Pandora.
It’s a good move to. Now that people are ditching podcasts more and more in search of radio – investing now would be wise. And when media players and internet speeds improve – internet TV would be no shock appearance.
Yahoo’s woes have been smeared across every form of tradtional media as well as every news site on the net. Starting with their slump in stock value, their lack of management, their massive cuts due to the economy, and their on again/off again courtship with prospective buyers. Yahoo has gone through its fair share of hard times, much like any other company has been through this strained economy.
The services that Yahoo offers currently seem almost lackluster when compared the number of simliar Web 2.0 applications that exist that no only compete with Yahoo’s offering, but are better on many levels. Yahoo’s email service and search service had a revamp earlier this year, some services were let go, similar to what AOL was also doing earlier this year.
LaunchCast Re-Launching
Those services that Yahoo has not cut, more often than not, they have been outsourced to other companies. Currently their subscription music service was relayed to Rhapsody music service to continue it’s music playback offerings.
Now Yahoo is looking at relaunching its LaunchCast service through CBS Radio
. AOL made a similar deal earlier this year to ease the burden of cost on the company. According to TechCrunch, “CBS provides streaming fo
r 144 owned radio stations, as well as providing some Internet-only content.” With this kind of backing it would make good business sense to relay some of the burden on the company and offset it with this partnership that will at least help continue the brands music offerings.
This partnership further extends to the marketing and advertising for LauchCast. CBS Radio will now take over all the ad sales, now being in control over offering placements for video and audio displays on the site. This transition looks to take place in early 2009, so fans of LaunchCast should have something to look forward to in the new year.
A Worthwhile Service?
I can’t reiterate enough how great of a move it was for Yahoo to offload the previously company maintained service onto CBS Radio. But I still can’t wrap my head around people who use the service and find it more valuable then the top services on the internet that offer the same if not better. I’m talking about Last.fm and Pandora.
Both of the above mentioned services offer users the ability to build their profiles and their listening preferences based on artists and genre of the user’s choice. The services will then continue to play the music that the algorithm believes you will like best. Sound simple enough, but when you add the social aspect to it by being able to share, connect, and see what others are listening to, the services are hard to beat.
I wish Yahoo luck with their re-launch, but I see services like this and AOL’s service quickly shrinking away into obscurity.
What’s your take on these services, and what do you see happening in the near future? Does anyone out there use LaunchCast? I’d especially like to hear your thoughts.
Even listened to the radio on your phone while you’re on the bus or just relaxing in the park – sometime it can get a bit boring. Especially for us geeky types who love to know what going on all over the world in the tech biz.
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