L is for Live365

In the Encyclopedia of Me, L is for Live365. Live365, for those not in the know, is an Internet radio broadcasting service with thousands of stations in hundreds of genres. You can find pretty much anything you could ever want to listen to in their directory.

The reason it’s in my encyclopedia is because I run one of those thousands of stations. I have been making mix tapes (and later CDs) from the first day that I had the technology to do so – I’m guessing since my early teens. In 1996 (I think) I orchestrated an annual tape exchange with my coworkers and have been doing tape/cd exchanges periodically ever since. It’s great, particularly when you find exchange partners whose musical taste complements your own (hi, Penny ). A few of the bands I am particularly enthusiastic about are groups that I was introduced to via a single song from an exchange.

It seemed to me to be a natural progression from sharing my favorite music through cds to starting my own radio station. Given changes in the way royalties are paid, running a station may become cost-prohibitive when my contract is up for renewal in November, but for now I’m having fun making up playlists and broadcasting them for all the Internet to listen to. My only complaint is that I am only able to upload enough music for a 7-hour playlist, and in order to keep the music fresh, I really have to change the playlist often. I’m just not that organized lately! Ideally, I could devote a computer here at home to being a music server and broadcast live all day long – then I’d only be restricted by the size of my mp3 library. Which is substantial

You’re all invited to listen. Every time you drop by this blog (or any part of the Polka Dot Creations website), you’ll see at the top of the page a little area devoted to Polka Dot Radio. The currently-playing track is listed, along with a link to the website, a speaker icon to allow you to listen now, and an rss icon so you can subscribe to the message board (which sees pretty much zero action since I got sucked into the blogosphere ). To listen to my station, you’ll need a Live365 account, but they are free and relatively easy to sign up for. You can download Radio365 (for a fee), listen to the station on your browser (for free), or use any other media player of your choice (which is also free). We even own a little doohickey that lets us listen to internet radio (and our own mp3′s, too) on our home stereo, which is pretty nifty. As soon as I’m done blogging, I’m going to update the station, since I think it’s been a few weeks – 7 hours of music repeats an awful lot in a matter of weeks!

L is for Live365. And for Listen!

And for Lisa.

This day in blog history:

• Oh, August - 2009

This topic in blog history:

• Podcasts - May 2009
• P is for Polka Dots - August 2007
• O is for Oral Histories - August 2007