Ye Olde Rad Blog

I noticed that Shoutcast topped the 100-K listener mark today. This statistic can be found in the site's upper right-hand corner. I'm sure they topped the 100-K mark before, but I never noticed until today.

When I posted the article on Internet Music back in 2001 (January), there were less than 1-K listeners. So you can see there has been exponential growth (similar to the increase in how fast rain forests are being destroyed, or the increase in the federal deficit).

I traded a few emails with the folks who run some of these "streams", such as DJ Ari at Digitally Imported radio. He says peak listening time is around 12:30 Pacific time, which would be 3:30 Eastern, and speculates this time corresponds to the lunch break at Silicon Valley. Most of these guys assert that the growth of Internet music mirrors the growth of broadband technology, which continues to grow at a rapid pace.

If you listen to Internet music, you're probably familair with StreamRipper. Today, you can even even get commercial-free satellite radio in/for your car (US$12.95/month).