Internet radio

Crowd-sourced radio show ditches the DJ
ASHER MOSES
October 26, 2009 - 12:39PM


A mock-up of what Austereo's online voting system will look like.

A mock-up of what Austereo's online voting system will look like.

Austereo listeners will be able to control what is being played on air in real time and even nix bad song choices as they are playing in a radical new radio experiment that blends online and traditional broadcasts.

The radio network, in partnership with US internet radio station Jelli, will unveil a new 24-hour national digital radio station, Hot30 Jelli, next month. It will let listeners go online and vote on the music they want to hear on the terrestrial station in real time.

Those without a newfangled digital radio can also take part in the crowd-sourced radio show as Hot30 Jelli will be simulcast on 2Day FM in Sydney from 10pm to midnight four nights a week.

"The next song that is played is decided half a second before the last song finishes," Jaime Chaux, Austereo's digital content director, said.

On the Hot 30 website, listeners will see the live queue of songs to be played on the station and can vote whether each song "rocks" or "sucks". Users also have a limited number of "rockets" and "bombs" they can use to send a song to the top or bottom of the queue, although the songs played will always be the ones with the most votes.

"The order of the songs that get played and what's on the playlist is being constantly decided on by listeners," said Chaux, adding the initiative played on young people's desire for "instant gratification".

"The Hot 30 currently is a show that's built on votes but once that countdown is built you can't change it and if you vote for a particular song at 7pm you might not hear it until 9.30pm."

Jelli began as an internet-only radio station but it is now spreading into traditional media, with the company recently inking a similar deal with Triton Digital Media to provide a user-controlled radio show for 4500 terrestrial FM radio stations across the US.

The show is expected to begin broadcasting early next year.

Since June, Jelli's technology has powered a two-hour Sunday night alternative rock show on a San Francisco radio station, Live 105 KITS.

Parent company CBS told the San Francisco Chronicle that Jelli's system had more than doubled ratings in the 18-49 demographic for the first hour, and increased ratings by 50 per cent over the second hour.

The ability for users to pull a song before it even finishes is particularly radical but Chaux said he expected this would not be common in practice as songs are not played in the first place unless they have a high number of votes.

The list of songs on offer includes anything played on Hot 30 in the past five years, which is far broader than the selection offered on today's music countdown shows.

"There's a window on screen where players can talk to each other and they end up supporting each other on song choices ... so it ends up being an online community," Chaux said.

Source: smh.com.au

Hobsons Bay Libraries now using Eventbrite for Library Bookings

Check out the link to Eventbrite under WebWillys hit list for all the events @ HBL libraries and book online YAY

Around the bay in a day

Thousands up bright and early for charity ride
DANIEL ZIFFER
October 19, 2009
More than 15,000 people participated in yesterday's Around the Bay in a Day.

More than 15,000 people participated in yesterday's Around the Bay in a Day. Photo: Penny Stephens

In a blaze of Lycra, Victoria's 17th annual Around the Bay in a Day cycling event put 15,000 people in the saddle, reports Daniel Ziffer.

ENJOYABLE punishment on a glorious scale led thousands of cyclists to saddle up to go Around the Bay in a Day yesterday.

More than 15,000 riders - we counted wheels and divided by two - pedalled around Port Phillip Bay. From 5.30am, riders took off from Alexandra Gardens pursuing goals ranging from 50 kilometres to a punishing 250-kilometre option, circumnavigating the bay.

In its 17th year, Around the Bay burns calories, packs the Sorrento-Queenscliff ferry and raises money for the Smith Family.

Geoff Moore cheered on his business partner Mark Duncan. Their company raised $5000 for charity and their team was called Frosty's Wheels after Mark's father who died last year.

''I completely winged it,'' American student Amanda Devilliers said, laughing. ''Just the 50-kilometre option. I didn't want to hurt myself.''

Melbourne Life has never seen so much Lycra en masse, as riders rolled back into the city. Among the wearers, Naji Aoukar said conditions were ideal for his 100-kilometre jaunt.

''A good day. Not too hot and not too windy,'' he said. ''Headed down to Sorrento and cruised back.''

Oarsome Foursome rower Drew Ginn wasn't weighed down by his three Olympic gold medals, joining V8 driver Cameron McConville and Sydney Swans player Ryan O'Keefe on the 250-kilometre ride, while newsreader Helen Kapalos did the 100-kilometre option.

Blackburn's Georgie Christopher went for the century, praising the organisation of the event. ''No major stacks that I saw. I'll do it again,'' she said, as she prepared to ride home.

The future of books

One of my favourite whizz-bang gadgets is a thing called the Book. No, not iBook, e-book, m-book or anything like that. Just a handy-sized collection of bound pages and type. It looks and feels good, it responds to touch. I can take it anywhere and be transported in an instant to an astounding virtual world.

Of course the Book has been with us ever since Johannes Gutenberg dreamed up his own revolutionary piece of high tech, the printing press, around 1440. It is not going to disappear – at least, not for a while yet. But if you believe the prophets, it’s going to expand and diversify to a point where it won’t be a book as we know it. And not only the Book, but our fundamental ways of communicating are going to change.

Already we can download and read books, stories and other texts on devices such as laptops, e-readers, mobile phones, iPods and iPhones. Millions of young Japanese women are hooked on romances which they consume on their mobiles. The Age is introducing an m-phone serial story written by Melbourne author Marieke Hardy. But this is only the beginning.

According to Jeff Gomez, US author of Print is Dead, there are two schools of thought on the future of publishing, much like the Big Bang and Steady State theories about the universe. Either nothing much will change, or everything will expand so far that the industry will cease to exist – “except for, probably, Oprah”.
Bob Stein, co-director of the New York-based Institute for the Future of the Book, believes the changes the book is undergoing are much more radical than we think. "We are changing the way that humans communicate with each other," he says. "This profound shift is more significant than the invention of the printing press… A thousand years from now, humanity will look back at the late part of the twentieth century as the time when something big started."
I can’t begin to get my head around what might happen in a thousand years, but I know one thing about now. We human beings are devices wired for story. We love a good narrative and we will take it in whatever form is the most reasonably-priced and reader-friendly. The electronic screen has come to stay, but for the long-haul read, it’s still true that nothing beats the old-fashioned book.
Jane Sullivan is a Melbourne writer and regular contributor to The Age.