Yahoo Radio

Some of the visitors here may remember back to the days of Internet Wine and Roses when Echo Radio existed. In a marketing plan that could only have come in the tech bubble dotcom insane late 90's, Echo.com offered a great streaming radio station. You could rate different songs and then it would adjust the playlists for your personal station to match your tastes, which it did quite well. It did well enough that I discovered several bands I had never heard before which I absolutely loved, and several more which I had heard of, but not actually heard and found out that I either loved or hated. Even cooler was that it was set up almost like an IM client, so that you could see the people you referred and other friends that were online listening at the same time and jump in and listen to their station with their own peculiar tastes for a change. I remember several pleasant nights listening to Bill's "Jello Puddin" station.

All of that sounds pretty normal and reasonable, right? Here's the goofy part: They gave you money for listening. Only in the dotcom era. For every however many minutes you listened they would award points, which could be redeemed for Gift Certificates or even bigger prizes. They didn't really check whether you were listening either. AND, if you referred other members, your points went up quicker, and you got a rake from your underlings points.

So, after discovering several bands I really liked I subsequently got several CD's (fo free!) to match. In the summer of 2000 there were very few seconds that my computer was not playing Echo. (And I was actually there listening for most of it.) I think it was the same for Bill and Amanda both of whom I got hooked (or they got me hooked, don't remember who found it first).

Given this brillian business plan I don't really need to explain that they went out of business within a year. But several friends got new CDs and a couple more got free 5.1 Cambridge Soundworks speaker sets.

Fast Forward to 2004: While I know better than to expect money for nothing in the modern slightly more sane US economy (that's only available for CEOs), I still miss the format, and several times since Echo went under I've been wishing I could get my station back, cause it was just the way I liked it. Enter Yahoo LaunchCast! A very similar interface and plan, just no free money. Brings me back and its great to be able to hear a station with tastes as varied as mine. I've just started listening, so I need some more time to tweak before its perfect, but its pretty awesome already. (Thanks, Charli, for finding it!)

Note: Echo still exists actually, although they seem to have given up the radio thing. They are involved in some 7-way investment from Music Retailers to explore ways to tap the digital market. Best of luck, Echo, sounds a little more sane. Do watch out for them, as they were ahead of their time with a great interface and design way back in 1999. There could be enough smart people involved that they could be the next thing to take on and supplant iTunes.