First Post: Give me Radio or Give me Death

This is the first blog entry for the new TUN3R.com blog.
And there was much rejoicing!!!
Before I get started, I wanted to introduce myself, and TUN3R.com.

About myself (Neil): Well, here at TUN3R, I’m the senior VP of worldwide marketing … and janitor.
Outside of TUN3R, I’m basically an internet radio buff.
I started listening to mp3 tracks back in 1997 – hard to believe it’s been 10 years already. Back then, and still now, I mainly use Winamp. I bought my first hardware mp3 player in 1998 while on vacation in Singapore. It was the Rio PMP300, and came with 32 MB of flash RAM (and it still works better than the Sony 2GB player I bought last year). Ah, the good ole’ days before DRM…

When Nullsoft added Shoutcast streaming radio to their player, I was a quick convert, and much preferred its quick buffering and easy browsing of stations over the competing RealMedia streaming audio. But most of all I liked it because anyone could set-up a Shoutcast server for practically nothing, and there was just a lot more variety. Plus a lot of it seemed kind of underground and subversive. Mind you – there was, and still is a lot of crap out there.

To this day, I still love Winamp, but got involved with TUN3R as it struck me as a nice balance between the complete anarchy (but good selection) of the Winamp world, and the lack of variety (but decent consistency) in most commercial radio portals.

About TUN3R: Well, if you haven’t already guessed, TUN3R is an internet radio portal. Right now, it mostly features Shoutcast/Winamp broadcasters, but in actual fact can support any kind of streaming audio (e.g. Real, Windows Media, even FM radio if you want). Our aim with TUN3R is to create an environment where it is fun to browse around and check out stations and DJs you weren’t necessarily looking for, but without overwhelming you with billions of crap stations. We want to eventually fill the TUN3R board with paying broadcasters. The monthly fee for a broadcaster is nominal, and is actually a fraction of typical hosting costs. So even if you’re a small garage operation with 50 listeners, this service should be affordable to you. We think this is a win-win situation because the more services you pay for, the more likely it is you’ll be found, but at the same time, the better portal itself becomes. But there is also another reason why it’s good to have paying broadcasters: It provides assurances to listeners visiting the site that the broadcasters and DJs are serious about what they’re doing, and are worth checking out.

TUN3R is still going through some major changes, which we hope to have finished within the coming weeks. While I can’t say these new features will change the world as we know it, there will be some search features that I have never seen before, but which I think will give internet radio a shot in the arm.

Next post: I’ll be blogging about the iPod, and why in actual fact it’s not a radio killer. Folks: The golden age of radio is just around the corner (in spite of all this Copyright Payment BS), and I’ll tell you specifically why.

n.