Ever since we started Streema, we knew that sooner or later, we would need to go mobile - actually, Maxwell Smart did exactly that with his “shoe phone” decades ago.

Over the past year, more and more mobile users have been coming to our site to listen to radio – and these same users have been requesting a Streema application for their mobile devices. We’re thinking we should do something about it!

The mobile options today are so many, with platforms such as the iPhone, Android, BlackBerry…  choosing between stand-alone (native) apps vs web applications, it’s not easy to pick the right one!  Some people even recommend that we develop something that works for all devices. Anyway, right now the only thing that we’re 100% sure of is that there’s enough evidence that radio is and will be consumed more and more while you’re in a car, going out for a run, or anywhere away from home.

So, we are still trying to figure out our next move in the mobile space and here YOU can help us. :) We’ve prepared a short survey that you can answer anonymously. Every second of your time can go a loooong way for us!

Once again, we’re REALLY happy that you are a Streema user. Thanks for belonging to our community!

The Streema Team

Last month, we were informed by Facebook that the profile boxes were going to be removed, and that the width for the application´s tab was going to be reduced. We knew this was going to happen sooner or later, although we didn’t post before since Facebook has changed the final dates a few times… and, we should admit it too, we also were ”refusing” to accept it.

How does this affect Streema? Unfortunately, it’s pretty bad for our Application for Facebook Pages, since it used the Profile Box specifically on Facebook Pages.  That means that it essentially doesn’t work any more.  Additionally, the application’s tab changed its width, so we’ll need to adapt it in order to make it display properly (we’ll post news in the next weeks about it).

So, this is obviously not good, we’re not really happy about it, and Facebook users in general aren’t either (you can read their opinion here, here and here).  At Streema we’re committed to give you the best service we can, although sometimes surrounding circumstances like this one make it a little harder…

Back in late 2006, when Facebook opened its platform to third party developers, we saw a great opportunity and made it happen.  We now understand, though, that Facebook’s strategy has evolved and may not benefit many third party developers anymore – so Facebook will need to understand that many third party developers (including Streema) may need to adapt, change, or even forgo the Facebook platform altogether.

Now, in case you’re wondering, we’re not planning to discontinue our application on Facebook, we still think it is a great app and users do as well since it’s still the most popular application for radio on Facebook. But, as we were saying above, we’ll need to evolve too.  We’re still thinking about what that exactly means but be rest assured that we’ll keep you posted.

Stay tuned!

The Streema Team

At Streema, we’re a community that celebrates a spectacular medium called radio.

We’re not the only ones, though, since thousands of musicians and artists, ranging from rock to pop, metal to folk and even jazz have also celebrated radio.  There is no doubt this medium has influenced music, people, culture… and pretty much our entire society in the past decades.

So, today, we bring you some of the most popular songs in history that bands such as Queen, Autograph and Rush have dedicated to radio.  Hope you enjoy them!

Radio Ga Ga – Queen

Radio Waves – Roger Waters

Radio – Robbie Williams

Video Killed the Radio Star – Buggles

Turn Up The Radio – Autograph

Radio – The Corrs

The Spirit Of Radio – Rush

Which one is your favorite?  Are we missing any great songs?  If so, please let us know – we’d love to add them too!

Stay tuned!

The Streema Team

Over the past few months we have received requests from 3rd party developers to use our radio directory in their own applications.  And while thinking about an API has been entertaining, for now we’ve had to focus our efforts on other aspects of Streema.  Well, we wanted to let you know that recently we made an exception when a developer we’ve known for a while, @thepose, asked us if he could create a Chrome Extension to use with Streema.  We figured it couldn’t hurt to experiment, so we gave him the green light… and now there’s a new way to listen to radio on Chrome:  the Radio Player for Streema extension.

Now, before we continue, for those of you that are not familiar with Chrome or Chrome Extensions, let us give you a very quick intro:  Chrome is a Web Browser, much like Internet Explorer or Firefox, and it’s developed by Google; and Extensions are handy and useful applications that enhance your browsing experience on Chrome.

The extension Radio Player for Streema brings you the possibility to tune in to your favorite radio stations while you continue surfing the web.  Among it’s main features, the Extension has a notification system that displays the song for the stations that have Now Playing information available. Please, try it out, share it with your network, and give us your feedback!

In addition to being very happy to know that our users now have another way to enjoy Streema, we’re also happy to experiment with the idea of working with third party developers.  Our radio station directory contains tens of thousands of stations, from more than 230 countries and covering over 190 genres.  If you have thoughts about how to integrate it into another platform, do share them with us, we are always open to new ideas.

Radio is a powerful medium, traditionally broadcasted through the airwaves – but today, it’s future is on the Internet.  The huge challenge will be to find the way it will be consumed:  PCs, mobiles, cars, game consoles…?  Most likely, it’ll be all of them.

Stay tuned!

The Streema Team

PS: Too much information? Still confused? Just follow the instructions:

Streema is all about radio. Stations are the main medium where people listen to music, talk or sport shows… without these, Streema wouldn’t have a reason to exist.

So, daily, we receive large amounts of requests through our Radio Request Form for stations that we don’t yet have in our directory. The work required to add each one is very time consuming and hard to scale, so every once in a while we improve the process we use internally to do this work.  Today is a big step forward in that direction.

Starting now, the Radio Request Form will require more station-related data in comparison to how it was before.  Even though this might mean a little more work for you – i.e. the person that requests the station – this way we all help create a more accurate, reliable and enjoyable Streema experience. We encourage you to continue requesting all the stations you don’t find in our Radio Directory.  Thanks!

Stay tuned!

The Streema Team

PS: Yes, we know we many of you have requested stations that haven’t been added yet; please, be patient, we’ll upload them all for sure.

Every once in a while, we have a “Before and After” moment in Streema’s development – and today, we’ve got one of those. From now on, when playing any station on the Streema.com website, our website’s player will open in a separate window, as it currently does on our popular Facebook application.  We understand that many of you are probably thinking “So what’s the big deal?”, but this is a change that will help us build a better Streema and we’ll explain how in the paragraphs below.

One of the features that we’ve traditionally been very proud of was our embedded player, since it allowed users to navigate Streema without the stream getting cut off.  But this meant that there were tradeoffs to be made in terms of loading time, usability, search engine crawleability, availability of station information, etc.  At this point, it made sense for us to not make those tradeoffs anymore, and while it’s difficult to explain all the pros and cons in a single blog post, here’s a quick summary of how users will benefit:

• A site that is more in line with what’s usually experienced on the web – for example, players usually open in a different window on most media sites and the URL of the page you are visiting usually appears on the browser’s address bar!

• Station stream won’t stop if you happen to click on an ad on our website – this was important because many ad networks will not open up in a separate window.

• Much faster site, in particular for first time users.  Many people will be reeeeally happy about this.

• Better and more complete radio station information at your finger tips, specifically located in our website’s player, and allowing for more interactivity in the future – at least that’s what the plan is!  :)

We know there will be some of you that will miss our embedded player, but we do hope you understand this big change and maybe eventually you will come to enjoy it.  We worked hard in the past with our embedded player (you can read more here and here), but we think it’s time to take Streema to another level, and we believe this will help us build the foundation to get there.

Do note that if anything is not working as you expected, please let us know, as your feedback is really important for us.

Stay tuned!

The Streema Team

We’re a week away from the 2010 FIFA World Cup, the most popular sports event across the globe.  Starting June 11th, and lasting one month, 32 nations will play in 9 cities around the country of South Africa.  In it’s 19th edition, it will be the first one held in an African nation.

This is an exciting time!  For a whole month,  the entire globe will be talking about this tournament.  It will be present in the news and in talk shows everywhere, and for many people, the World Cup will be present in every conversation!

So, if you’re not one of the lucky few who will get to see it in person, here you can find some of the best soccer stations to listen to the games:

BBC Radio 5 Live (United Kingdom)

talkSport (United Kindom)

Radio Marca (Spain)

RAI Sport (Italy)

RTL L’Equipe (France)

Bayern 3 (Germany)

Radio Bandeirantes (Brazil)

Ok, that’s it – now, nobody has an excuse for not knowing that there are 11 official languages in South Africa or not being able to name the Uruguayan Head Coach!

Good luck to everyone and their team!

Stay tuned,

The Streema Team

Today we are reeeeaaally happy to announce we’ve released the first version of the Streema Widget!!  This has been one of the most requested features, so we hope you really enjoy it!

The widget enables anybody to grab a simple piece of code from our site and bring radio into your blog, website or social profile. In order to play a radio, it calls up a pop-up player (very similar to the one used in our application for Facebook Pages), so that people can continue browsing your site while enjoying a great station chosen by you.

Check out how it works right here in this blog post for Radio Orbital (to grab the code for this station, go here). If you want to select another radio station, just go to our radio directory, go to a station’s profile, and once there, click on “Get this Radio Widget”.

Free Online Radio Stations

Radio Orbital

---

Grab this widget | Other radios

developed by

Although we know this is a basic version, we want to let you know that we’d still love to launch a wider family of widgets, where you’ll be able to customize the color, dimension, and appearance.  Remember, the more feedback you give us about this, the better it will get. :)

Stay tuned!

The Streema Team

Much has been written and said about Twitter during the past year.  For those who don’t know, Twitter is an information network that enables its users to post messages of up to 140 characters and share “what’s happening right now”.

The service provides real-time information from people all over the world and interestingly enough, it has been used in many situations:  ranging from emergencies, to political campaigns, to even business opportunities.  In many cases, Twitter helps generate reliable information, assistance, and activism – good examples are the way it was used during Haiti’s earthquake and last year’s Iranian elections.

Today, we are talking about it here at Streema because there has been a lot of buzz related to our website on Twitter recently, particularly after the Jonas Brothers appeared on Radio Disney‘s studios – you can check it out here!

While we’re at it, make sure to follow our latest news over there too!

Stay tuned!

The Streema Team

Today there are two big pieces of news that happened in the past month and that we wanted to share. Unfortunately, they are both bad news, but part of a natural process in a changing industry like radio; we’re hoping that in the longer term, the consequences will be better for the industry as a whole.

The first one, which brought a great deal of attention, was the announcement that the BBC will stop broadcasting BBC 6 Music and BBC Asian Network at the end of 2011. The decision prompted a backlash from listeners, trade unions and the music industry, and even the presenters and DJs of the BBC 6 Music station.  If you’re interested, check out the complete guide to support it.

The second piece of news actually appeared on the other side of the Atlantic and covers online media. CBS Radio decided to shut down its streams to non U.S. listeners, which affects all the content accessed via the AOL, Yahoo! and CBS streaming networks – that represents A LOT of radio stations in our radio directory.

It’s really interesting to see how two similar decisions elicited such different responses.  In one case, the CBS Radio decision affected a very large group of global listeners, but no one revolted.  In the other case, it seemed that it hit a smaller yet close-knit community of listeners, employees, and other radio-related folks – and the resulting effect is that they joined forces and have been rallying to stop the shutdown.  This situation reminds of the classic Margaret Mead quote…

“Never doubt that a small, group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

Anyway, we’ll keep you posted on all of this as it evolves.  Stay tuned for the next episode of Radio News!

The Streema Team