Rockpile
Anyone who has ever wanted to host a radio show - or thought they could pick better music than program directors - should take notice. The future of radio lies on the Internet. Using sites like this month's featured link, www.live365.com, frustrated music fans no longer have to settle for listening to the same, tired music formats. Instead, they can choose from thousands of unique radio stations broadcasting on the web or even create a radio station to suit their own musical taste.

In today's PC-equipped world, web radio has been somewhat of an underground phenomenon spreading throughout the Internet. In the last few years, traditional radio stations, from commercial to college, have begun expanding from local broadcasting over airwaves to include worldwide broadcasting using the Internet and streaming audio technology. Furthermore, new stations - transmitted exclusively on the net - started by music fans with some computer savvy have exploded in popularity. The result has been an almost overwhelming selection of music on the web with the kind of diversity traditional radio could never offer.

With a sufficient Internet bandwidth and enough computer muscle, it's easy to broadcast anything from pure indie pop to a favorite Martin Luther King speech. However, despite the growing popularity of broadband and super-fast PC's, most people are not equipped with the hardware capacity to host radio shows. This is where www.live365.com comes in. The site allows anyone the opportunity to participate by providing the user with a free bandwidth and the server hardware needed to webcast or listen to other webcasts. The site provides the technology - the user picks the music.

There are two ways to host a station. The "live cast" option broadcasts music from one's personal music library on a home PC using software downloadable from the site. This enables one to either loop a play list or DJ a live show in real time from home. The other option is an "easy cast," which allows one to store up to 365 megabytes of songs on the site's servers. This requires one to upload the music one wants to play directly to the site.

After the music is uploaded, the site transmits the music 24/7. With both options, approximately 100 listeners can connect at once to a single channel. The challenge is attracting listeners. If a show starts to gain popularity, it "charts" on the site, which then leads to more exposure for the show.

To simplify matters, the hundreds of stations are sorted by genre as well as popularity. The homepage includes an index and a top 10 list of the most frequented stations. Many stations have very specialized formats with an exquisite vibe, whereas others cater more to a commercial, radio-friendly sound. The beauty of www.live365.com is anything's possible. And if one can't find the music one wants, one can simply create a station to play it.

-Ed Yoo