Developing E-Radio: An Online Audio Streaming Application

The expansion of radio stations through the Internet is not a new thing, but maintaining and operating it can be a challenge which could have great advantages. This paper highlights the development of a live audio streaming application. The development focuses on multimedia streaming specifically on live audio streaming in Internet radio. The system is called e-Radio. The system allows users to interact with the radio station as well as with the other listeners through the web by the developed forum module. It also provides features that promote and advertise the existence of the radio station that could possibly attract advertisers to publish their products on the site. Likewise, gives the administrator privileges to manage the website components with ease and to generate statistical reports regarding the website, the forum and its users. Further, it allows advertisers to put up their advertisements and modify their advertisement's information. The proposed system provides a module for listeners who wish to register on the site for them to avail some of its features offered to registered listeners such as the forum, live shout outs, and disk jockey interactions. It is found out that the biggest issue upon having an online radio station is its high operating cost. It is imperative that a venture towards internet radio requires a scheme that would compensate for the investment of setting up the system. Thus it is important to entice advertisers to take advantage of this new medium.