Are your listeners asking about iPhone streaming?
Radio people, what are you telling listeners who ask you about getting your streams on their iPhone? Are you planning to set up your own iPhone streams, as WFMU did last fall? Are you going to recommend an app?
At Louisville Public Media, we’ve seen an increase in the number of emails (and tweets) asking about this – no surprise, given the popularity of the new iPhone. Last week, we picked a specific app and recommended it on our station sites. I created a brief tutorial for those who need it.
We investigated acquiring the capacity to offer a separate iPhone stream, but after consulting with WFMU, we decided the enterprise-level solution was beyond our budget – the ROI (number of people we could serve with the stream) isn’t enough right now to justify the investment.
So, we’re recommending Nullriver’s Tuner Internet Radio, which sells for $5.99 on the App Store. I chose the app because of my personal experience with it, and the large number of positive reviews from users.
Stations: are you seeing a pickup in listener questions about iPhone streams? What are you doing about it?
Some early responses:
Robin Lubbock, WBUR (twitter): “Yes, some interest in that.”
Ann VerWiebe, WKSU/Folk Alley (comments): “We’ve been recommending Nullriver as well, for both WKSU and Folk Alley. We actually developed our own Folk Alley app – but we’re still in the Apple developer approval queue. I don’t know that people have been begging for it, but especially for Folk Alley (which is only available as streaming media), it would be nice to have.”
Josh Andrews, Chicago Public Radio (comments): “WBEZ is on the verge of recommending the Nullriver option as well. We are waiting for an estimate on building out our own tuner app through the iPhone sdk, but I expect we’ll find that cost prohibitive. (Does Ann have a $ figure she’s willing to share?) I also tried to contact Nullriver about getting pubradio stations listed in their directory. No reply.”
Thanks!
We've been recommending Nullriver as well, for both WKSU and Folk Alley. We actually developed our own Folk Alley app – but we're still in the Apple developer approval queue. I don't know that people have been begging for it, but especially for Folk Alley (which is only available as streaming media), it would be nice to have.
Ann – Thanks for the comment! I'll watch for the app.
WBEZ is on the verge of recommending the Nullriver option as well. We are waiting for an estimate on building out our own tuner app through the iPhone sdk, but I expect we'll find that cost prohibitive. (Does Ann have a $ figure she's willing to share?) I also tried to contact Nullriver about getting pubradio stations listed in their directory. No reply.
Thanks, Josh! I wonder if a number of us could find a way to pool resources to co-create a tuner app, offer it free or for something $1.99 to recoup a small amount of the costs? The app could offer as many pubradio streams as we could cram into it.
I'll send a request to Nullriver, too. Never hurts to have another request land on their desktop.
To stream internet radio, I use FlyCast. It's a free app w/ some great features like the ability to surf while listening. I'd really recommend checking it out.
Flycast was a pretty interesting web app, and the new, free stand-alone app shows promise, but we found it to be rather buggy, which is why we've not recommended it to our listeners. However, we'll keep an eye on it.
FlyTunes just relaunched as FlyCast and added an iPhone app (was just web optimized page before). For free, it's been working OK, and lists KQED. allRadio by Visua mobile also works.
got a question man, i have a page that contains divx videos, i use divx web player so that they can be watched, is it possible that an iphone can watch the videos? if so.. how could i do it?, i've been googleing for about an hour now and this is the only thing i have found!
I would prefer the FM Tuner, since I attend many events where the program broadcasts over an FM feed for the Hard-of-Hearing. I currently use an “iriver H10″ that also allows me to record that same FM signal.