Talk radio for the Internet

Mark Gibbs' Web site tips, plus network applications news headlines

One of the most profound effects of the migration of old media formats to the Internet is how the translation changes the entire model. Internet mediated media ensures a low entry and delivery cost, allows experimentation, and encourages diverse content. Over the last few years we've seen how this effect has disrupted the music business and weakened the oligopoly of the Big Five labels. Online broadcasting - the Internet equivalent of radio - has been equally disruptive. Competitive pressure has forced pretty much every serious radio stations to have an online presence.

In the case of many of the big stations that presence involves at least streaming the current show (some stations such as Los Angeles-based KCRW have gone even further with multiple streams that include not only the current broadcast but also an Internet-only music stream). The end result of this migration to online is that you can now listen to more or less every major radio station in the world and countless hundreds of minor stations.

I’ve just been checking out a service which breaks new ground by providing a platform for Internet talk radio. On Talkshoe you can listen to and join in with any of several hundred shows either live if they are currently airing, or as podcasts (these become available 30 minutes after a show closes), and if you are so motivated you can even create your own show.

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One of the most profound effects of the migration of old media formats to the Internet is how the translation changes the entire model. Internet mediated media ensures a low entry and delivery cost, allows experimentation, and encourages diverse content. Over the last few years we've seen how this effect has disrupted the music business and weakened the oligopoly of the Big Five labels. Online broadcasting - the Internet equivalent of radio - has been equally disruptive. Competitive pressure has forced pretty much every serious radio stations to have an online presence.

In the case of many of the big stations that presence involves at least streaming the current show (some stations such as Los Angeles-based KCRW have gone even further with multiple streams that include not only the current broadcast but also an Internet-only music stream). The end result of this migration to online is that you can now listen to more or less every major radio station in the world and countless hundreds of minor stations.

I’ve just been checking out a service which breaks new ground by providing a platform for Internet talk radio. On Talkshoe you can listen to and join in with any of several hundred shows either live if they are currently airing, or as podcasts (these become available 30 minutes after a show closes), and if you are so motivated you can even create your own show.

To use the service you have to establish and account (this is free) and provide some basic details including your age – some shows have a lower age limit.

To use Talkshoe you don’t need to install anything. The audio is streamed from the site to a Flash-based player and if you want to join in there’s a dial-in number or a VoIP address – there’s also a free optional softphone that Talkshoe provides. The show’s host has control and can mute and unmute callers as needed, but you can also participate using the built-in chat client.

A single show can accommodate up to 250 people talking and, according to Talkshoe, over 1,000 listeners.

The first show I checked out was Netio, which as common with many other shows, has its own Web site. This show, hosted by Bill Alexander was very professional, which is less surprising when you check out Bill’s bio – a 20-year talk radio veteran, Bill is smooth and professional. We had an interesting discussion about the nature of Talkshoe and its relationship to traditional talk radio.

Unlike the majority of Talkshoe shows Bill’s is sponsored and has a large following, which means that Bill generates some revenue from it.

Talkshoe’s revenue generation program seems a tough way to make money: For one of these highly engaged audiences apparently advertisers pay between $3 and $50 per thousand listeners (the average is $20 per thousand) which is split with Talkshoe.

My exploration of Talkshoe was done fairly late on a Friday evening so the live choices were limited and the next two shows I listened to were, well, annoying at best.

“TruthBrigadeRadio” is, as far as I could determine, a collection of rather smug conspiracy theorists who are opposed to the North American Union. Go figure.

The next show was “Unfair, Unbalanced,....and UNCENSORED!” and hosted by a “Pastor Williams.” Rarely will you hear (or would want to hear) such rampant, arrogant, ignorant, bigoted, bible-thumping racialists. But that’s part of what Talkshoe is all about; it is a platform for niche markets to develop (even when they are immoral hypocrites) without having to work their way through corporate run media. This is, indeed, free speech at its finest.

I finally listened to a few less trying podcasts of other shows and generally there’s a clubbish feel to much of the content with a few really professional ones in the mix. Again, that’s the beauty of Talkshow, it satisfies a wide range of user needs and expectations.

There are a few downsides to the service – it has a less than polished presentation and, in places, poor navigation. I also found the guidance for creating your own show to be poorly documented – it’s as if the Talkshoe developers firmly believe that you already know what they’ve built. For example, I tried starting a show and it took a ridiculous amount of trial and error to figure out how to disable it once I’d set it up.

A big plus is that Talkshoe has an API, which will allow developers to create mashups, integrate with blogs, and retrieve show schedule data and content.

The really big opportunity here is the integration of Talkshoe with other social networking platforms to provide live interaction and, in the hands of a skilled host, an engaged community. This is powerful stuff and if there were more shows like Netio I could see this service gathering huge audiences.

Oh, you might be wondering why it’s called “Talkshoe.” This is because it designed for talk and, in honor of Ed Sullivan, they aren’t “shows”, they’re “shoes.”

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Mark Gibbs is a consultant, author, journalist, columnist and blogger.