On the subject of internet radio. The traditional model is that a show is broadcasted at a certain time each week or day. This poses a problem for the potential listener who can’t make it to their computer at the designated time slot.

Having previous show archives available at all hours of the day help the situation. This way no one will leave unsatisfied who makes the effort to visit the website for the show. If, however, the show broadcasts commercial material then all of the restrictions that apply to the live broadcasts (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) apply also to the archives.

One way around all this is to create mixes that link to music that is already available for free. This could be tunes under a copyleft license, ‘legal music downloads’ like the ones discussed in the previous post, or anything in the public domain. Here I would like to present one of these playlists. Each track will need to be downloaded separately and will involve two clicks (sorry) — you are also welcome to stream these songs first.

“The Best of Will’s Meekly”

1. Radio Citizen - The Hop

2. Unagi - Sacred Music

3. Steve Spacek - Dollar

4. MF Doom - Live From Planet X!

5. Beat Chemist - I Wanna Tell The World

6. Foreign Exchange - All That You Are

Will’s Meekly was a radio program I hosted that ran for 25 weeks. The show was created from a love for beatboxing and good production. It was broadcasted live online via Free Radio SAIC and operated on a annual budget of zero dollars. Although no longer with us, Will’s Meekly had a good run. Thanks everyone for supporting! There may be some ‘never before seen’ content lying around that would be appropriate to publish on starschreck.

After hosting the show for a while it began to morph into something unexpected. Finding quality tunes each week, after I had already played everything that I had initially intended to, began to require more resources. The show survived with the help of recommendation services (like Pandora and Amazon), intersecting playlists (iTunes, Download.com, UGHH.com, etc.), and user recommendation and feedback.

Ultimately it came to a point where I realized that internet radio sucks so the show went off the air. There was, however, a lot of good research and strategies that came out of it.

It turns out that a lot of commercial music is available online for free. It has now become even more of a standard part of marketing. Singles are available on artist websites and also on sites specifically devoted to that purpose. If you are interested in some of these sites check out: download.com, better propaganda, and epitonic. For a lengthy and complete discussion of this topic visit Links to Tens of Thousands of Legal Music Downloads.