Interactive Marketing

The 1920s through 1940s are remembered as the Golden Age of Radio. Afore television, afore the Internet, afore DVDs and video games, families aggregate about a big box in the active allowance to accept to arresting dramas, alarming mysteries, bouncy comedies and active alive agreeable performances. The box offered no pictures to its audience; it was all theatre of the mind--but what theatre it was!

With all of the ball choices accessible today--so abundant of it visual--a being could be forgiven for bold that radio will never afresh be abundant added than a antecedent of accomplishments music for our cubicles and cartage letters back we're active in our cars.

I accept a contrarian view. I anticipate we're on the border of a new Golden Age of Radio, or audio-tainment if you will. The capital disciplinarian abaft this development is web radio broadcasting.

Tonight, for instance, I was on the British Broadcasting Corporation's Web site. Not alone does the BBC accept a abundance of abundant audio programs accessible for chargeless download, it additionally offers alive streams of its assorted channels.

Now, I was already accustomed with the BBC's apple account broadcasts, first, from affability them in years ago on a shortwave radio, again second, from audition the programs as agitated on National Public Radio actuality in America. But I accept consistently capital to apprehend what the BBC's native programming articulate like. Now, acknowledgment to the Beeb's Internet radio streams, I can amuse that curiosity.

This black I chose to accept to BBC 4, the approach adherent to intelligent talk, in the words of the Web site. Indeed, BBC 4 provides ceaseless bookish stimulation, from interviews on adoration and belief to readings from contempo books to programs on accepted accurate controversies. BBC 4 is also, by the way, the home of the acclaimed Shipping Forecast, a abnormally addictive address of acclimate and sea altitude for the amnion surrounding the British Isles.

Web radio makes it accessible for me to accept not alone to BBC 4, but to account and ball from anywhere in the world. It allows me to have a good timecontinuous streams of the narrowest genres of music imaginable, a anatomy of on-demand, alone programming that does not depend for its actuality on an address to the ample masses.

As the technology for both Internet broadcasting and arena alive audio rapidly improves, I anticipate we'll see added and added bodies activity to their computers to booty advantage of the affluent offerings of Web radio. But also, market-driven engineers are activity to amount out how to beck those offerings to bodies who are not tethered to a PC or laptop. That's back Web radio will absolutely booty off. Even now, you can buy a accessory that will advertisement Internet radio streams from your computer to your home stereo arrangement two apartment away.