Happy Halloween!

Quick show update, I've decided that I'm going to play around on www.camup.tv this week as well as try to simulcast to our channel on awdio.

Please watch our FB group as well as this blog for dates and times. If it goes well then I will do something like an "Official Launch" the following week.

Happy Halloween!

The Past, Present, and Future of Indie Spotlight

This post will first be a history lesson on Indie Spotlight, my thoughts on our current broadcast situation, and the future of the live broadcast.

First, the history lesson;

Indie Spotlight started in January of 2009 as an offshoot of my previous online broadcast known as NewsTalk which was broadcast on blogtalkradio.com. NewsTalk, which had debuted in Feburary of 2008, was just as the name sounds, it was a news magazine style program that covered the news of the day although the primary focus was on the election of '08. Shortly after the election my friend Deb from the Unsigned Musicians show suggested that we use my platform to talk about some of the things that were going on in the music industry at the time, how independent musicians were effected by the nonsense and interview musicians as well as movers and shakers in the industry. I thought it was a great idea and the initial shows were called NewsTalk, Special Report. 

As music began to be incorporated into the program I decided that Indie Spotlight was a more appropriate name for the show, since most of the guests that we had were independent musicians and I felt that since we were talking about the music industry and the issues that the indie guys had to overcome to even have their music heard I felt that a name change was in order.

During the period between January to May of 2009 our broadcasting site blogtalkradio.com was undergoing a transition of their own. Frequently there were issues either with the live broadcast, the archived shows, or the chat so after much nagging by Deb I made the decision to move to blogtv and go to the hybrid video/music format.

If there is anyone keeping notes this will be the first time we changed our broadcasting home.

Indie Spotlight Live debuted on blogtv.com in May of 2009. Over the course of the next year the show transitioned from a primary talk format with some music played, to mostly a music show. We still had musician interviews but as time grew on they became less frequent since on blogtv the interviews had to be conducted via skype whereas on blogtalkradio they had a handy guest line that they could call in from on any phone, One of the advantages that doing the show on blogtv had was their "co-hosting" feature where I could bring someone on live to be a part of the show and especially in the beginning we had live music featured via the co-hosting feature just about every week and it was a ton of fun. If someone were to ask me what I miss most about our blogtv broadcast my answer would be that I miss being able to do that. I really miss being able to feature live music on the show.

Over time we became a totally music oriented broadcast, and at the time I was using the screen name "riskybusiness04" since it was the name that I usually used online. In November of 2012 I decided that I needed to use a screen name that was more oriented to the show, and created a new profile on blogtv with the Indie Spotlight Live screen name.

While on the same website, those keeping count will count this as move #2.

On March 14, 2013 I found out that blogtv.com was selling itself to younow.com. I took a look at younow's terms of service, didn't like them and decided that I needed to find a new home for the show. We did our last show on blogtv before they shut down on 3/24/13 and I spent the last night that blog was online on 3/27 at the Unsigned Musicians show with Deb, who cut her show short so that we could check out a new musician on his own channel on blogtv. It seemed a fitting way to go out on blogtv.

Over the course of finding a new home for the show, we found one, but it didn't have a chat room. Please keep in mind that this site was very different then than it is now, but yes, this is when we found awdio.com. We premiered our show on there at the end of March of 2013.

If you are still keeping count, this will be move #3.

Our broadcast on awdio at that time wasn't without issues, the first one being that at that time it was still important for me to have a chatroom open so I could interact with people so in order to do that I set one up on a chatroom site with links to where you could listen to the show, and links on the showpage on awdio where you could find the chat. Doing the show this way at that time didn't work well because we had two situations, the first one being people who found the show, but couldn't get into the live chat, and we had people that found the chat, but couldn't listen to the live show. Because I was doing the show in such a format which was "click here to listen, and hang out with us in the live chat here" it was important at that time that my broadcast provider was reliable. Sadly awdio at that time wasn't reliable, I found myself twice in a three month period apologizing in my separate chat as to why we weren't broadcasting live. 

I began researching alternatives, and as far as the live streaming sites that were online at the time it was slim pickings because the terms of service on those sites in regards to licensing but I was able to find code for a live embedded video/audio stream as well as code that could be embedded for a chat, the trick was bringing it all together.

For those who are keeping count, this will be move #4.

I found out that I could embed both a chatroom code, as well as the code for my embedded player on a page that I could build on webs.com so we moved to the site that I built on there in the middle of June of 2013. 

Shortly after I moved the show to our own site I decided that I was really over the apartment that I was living at and decided to move out of there. At the same time (and rather unexpectedly) I was offered a promotion at the job I had at the time. I knew that my work/life balance was about to change, and I was also talking to the folks at ivlog.tv about my concerns about their terms of service, they had answered them in a way that I was satisfied with so in October 2013 I put the show on hiatus  and decided to wait for ivlog to launch. In that time I moved out of the apartment from hell, and started my new position at my job. Talk about a crazy month my head still spins when I think about that period of time in my life. 

Indie Spotlight stayed offline until January of 2014. I resumed the show on the site I created since ivlog at that time wasn't online and I really missed doing the broadcast. I was really frustrated at that time that ivlog wasn't launched and by all accounts it should have been. I posted a blog post (more of a rant really) about it, and if cr3am ever see's this blog post, let me offer my apologies right now, I was frustrated at my broadcasting situation at that time. I'll talk more about how Indie Spotlight did on Ivlog a little bit later in this post.

I was working an insane schedule (and yes most of it self imposed) during this period of time, and the show's were broadcast as long as I had time to do them, I have to be honest they really weren't all that great since I was using old playlists from our previous blogtv show. Between that, and how things were going in my personal life, the infamous work/life balance, and how things were really going at work vs. my expectations  I decided to step down from the promotion that I had previously taken in June of 2014 and resumed the show on our webs.com site.

iVlog.com was up and running by then so I decided that we needed to be a part of a broadcasting community again and moved Indie Spotlight to there.

Yes, this would be move #5.

I found iVlog to be very well put together, the video played nicely with no skips and the sound quality was superb. The problem that I had on iVlog was some of our regulars couldn't load the page, and over the course of the two months I did the show on there I found that there wasn't an audience on iVlog that really, as one chatter who came and went put it, "hung out at radio shows". Our viewer stats showed that we had even less viewership than we did when we were on our own site. To this day I still feel that iVlog is a great site and sometimes I wonder if we should have stuck with it, however my overall feeling is still "right DJ, wrong bar". The folks who run iVlog are outstanding people and I really wish the show had done better on there. Sometime in August of 2014 I resumed broadcasting on our own site. (move #6)

Sometime in the middle of October of that year the audio/video player I was using to stream the show to our site crashed. As usual when these things happen it was right before a show. I had seen posts on Facebook about a broadcast site called Justcast, and took a quick look at their Terms of Service. Finding their TOS very favorable I played around with the site, decided I really liked it and felt very welcome on there since many of the shows that were broadcast on there were music oriented, decided  to close down our page on webs.com and as I said at the time, make one last move and call it home for good no matter how it went at least as far as this particular show was concerned.

This was supposed to be move lucky number seven (7). I had anticipated this being the final broadcast home for Indie Spotlight, if it didn't go well I was really thinking about hanging up my headset and refocusing my energy on some of my other internet projects.

As far as an audience on a new website could go, Indie Spotlight has been a success on justcast (later justcastlive). The show has been featured often on the front page and the support from the folks at justcastlive has been incredible.

Now we move from the history lesson to the present day.......

On 9/28/15 I was about to do the show, I had Xsplit open (which I've been using to broadcast and if you are doing video streaming I highly recommend it), the playlist drawn up, and I even had a Weenie of the Week segment planned. Right before the show was supposed to start I grabbed an ice cold beverage, sat down and............

Yep, you guessed it, the Jack curse struck again, justcastlive crashed, right before a show. I posted to the justcastlive Facebook group inquiring about the status of the site and got confirmation from one of the owners that yes, the site was down and to please stand by so I did. I got on skype with Deb since we hadn't talked in a while, and sat on the playlist I had created since at that time it looked like it was a temporary hiccup and justcastlive would be back online soon.

While standing by I felt that it was important to keep the broadcast online, so after exploring several options I noticed that awdio.com had been improved so I decided that while I was waiting for justcastlive to come back online I would do a show or two on there. (while it was supposed to be temporary I think some might count this as move #8)

Justcastlive has been offline for almost a month now, and some of the posts I see on Facebook really don't give me much encouragement that the site will be back anytime soon, in fact I get the feeling that they are going to be down for a while.

So, this leads me to the future of the show. I know that I've said before that I wasn't going to ask you folks to "change your bookmarks and find us here" again. Especially since by my own count this would be the 9th time that I've had to ask this, however with justcastlive being down for such an extended period I really have been left with no other choice so please post in the comments section below what you might think since this isn't so much a post about the future but a question and then I'll offer my thoughts.

Looking at the big picture we have two options, and I'll offer the pro's and con's of each.

     Option A) Continue to use Awdio.com. Please keep in mind that even if justcastlive comes back online sooner than I might be thinking it might or if we go with option (B) I will still most likely still simulcast to our page on awdio. The main reason is that people can listen to the archived show if they miss the live broadcast. One question I am often asked is if there are podcasts of previous shows that can be listened to if people miss the live show. Awdio provides this option. However awdio is purely an audio streaming site, and while they seem rock solid reliable now the last time we used them there were issues. But since we aren't advertising Indie Spotlight as a live show right now so much as an archived show that you can listen to later I don't see this as the issue it used to be, if the site crashes I can simply do the show on another night since I'm not trying to gather a live audience. Awdio not having a live chat is a double edged sword, I do, and yet I don't miss it. I really enjoy the interaction with a live audience during a broadcast but I don't miss "troll patrol" and there is something to be said for having time to casually check Facebook, Twitter and even start reading a book since all I'm doing during the live broadcast is clicking the mouse.

     Option B) Here is where I tip my hand and mention the video streaming site that I've been looking at, and even if I decided that I'm done waiting for justcastlive to fix their site and switch the show over once again our page on awdio will still play a part since we can simulcast the show so we should still have the archived shows for people who miss the live broadcast. The site is called camup.tv, and I've even started building our page over there. I could easily do the show in the same format that we had on justcastlive since the Terms of Service are pretty much the same, and there is an integrated chat. The problem I see with camup is there doesn't seem to be very many people on there. We will truly be starting over once again.

Now, my thoughts...

I have to be straight up honest with you folks, I don't know if I have it in me to reboot and try to rebuild an audience for the show one more time, we were really starting to build a following on justcastlive but with the site being down for such an extended period I have a feeling that even if we stick with awdio, and resume on justcastlive when they come back online will be the same thing anyway. It would be different if justcastlive was only down a week or two, but we're sitting at the one month mark and as I said before it doesn't look as though they anticipate being back online anytime soon so I need to make a decision as far as where I take the show, yet again.

So now, I turn it over to you folks, thoughts? Leave it in the comments section and again I would like to thank you all for the continued support.

October Update, or Something Like That

3 weeks.

Justcastlive has been down for 3 weeks as of tomorrow. As of right now as I type this they don't have an ETA as to when the site is going to be back up. They have a new coder working on it however and have promised that when they come back online justcastlive will work even better than ever before.

I haven't really decided what I'm doing with the show long term. Last weeks' show, as well as the upcoming broadcast for this week, will be broadcast on our awdio.com page.

Now let's talk about the future of Indie Spotlight....

Those who read my last blog post will know that I have been undecided about the future of the broadcast. To be honest about it, I'm still not 100% sure about the direction in which I would like to go as far as the live show. Justcastlive crashing so abruptly has kinda backed me into a corner, Indie Spotlight is not just an internet show broadcast on justcastlive, it's a brand that I've spent the last 6 and a half years building. Even after all this time I'm still passionate about sharing music that quite frankly might not be heard if I didn't play it. I really thought that we had finally found a home, our viewership was increasing every week, and it really looked like that this show was finally starting to come back to the number of loyal viewership that we had in our glory days on blogtv.

As much as I hate to say it, but our hosting site being offline for an extended period of time could easily have changed that.

I really have to level with you folks, last week I really enjoyed just doing the broadcast on awdio without having to follow a chatroom, surprises on the guest cams, making sure that I was picking the right camera angle, deciding on whether or not to play a video, and getting a feel for the live crowd listening to the show. To be honest about it, while I enjoy the interaction in a live chat, especially when I get questions about the musicians being played and dropping links to their music I felt that the show did just fine without it.

These are my thoughts going forward, and as I said before I'm not going to drop another "change your bookmarks and follow us here" post. As I mentioned in my previous post, while what we are doing, which is play music that might otherwise die because people don't have other avenues to find great music outside of shows like Indie Spotlight, is to me, very important, it's not so important to other people to scour the internet and seek me out. Viewer/listener statistics don't lie, while we were starting to get close on justcastlive we still don't have near the stats that we put up on blogtv, or even dare I say on blogtalkradio. When you go bouncing around the internet, no matter how much people enjoy your show, the interaction in the chatroom, and the experience of your broadcast in general they won't keep following you from place to place no matter how epic you might be.

Please keep in mind, this is not my final decision as far as the live broadcast, this is just where I think we might be right now.

There is another site that I can start doing the show in the similar format that we had on justcastlive right now, in fact I've already started building a profile on there, It's a smaller site than justcastlive as far as viewership but as this point what would it matter since I suspect with this extended downtime justcastlive will also have diminished viewership. I'm not naming it yet since I'm really unsure what I want to do. I promised you guys and gals that when we went all in with justcastlive that it was it, the last time I was going to ask you folks to reset your bookmarks and find us at this new latest and greatest site and I really meant it.

What I'm thinking (again, not set in stone especially since the last time I used awdio they had reliability issues as well) is to continue to do the show on awdio, and depending on when justcastlive comes back online, resume the show on there while simulcasting to awdio for people who either just want to listen to the show without being involved in a chat, or miss the live show and would like to listen to it at a later date.

This way, I'm keeping my promise to you guys, that you can check out the live show if you would like, at the same time offering an archived show for the folks that don't have time, or are even in the wrong time zone for the live broadcast.

In the meantime, check out the show on awdio.com, and if you miss the live broadcast, well unless I really screw it up, listen to the archive.

As always, thank you all for your continued support. I have no idea how I earned it, until I realize that you folks understand that it's not about me, it's about the musicians.

On their behalf as well as mine, thank you.

Quick Update

Played around on our old page on awdio.com last night. If justcastlive doesn't come back online soon I'm considering this for our broadcasting alternative. Feel free to listen to the archived shows, there are two, the show I did last night and one of our previous broadcasts from when we did shows on there before so if you need your Indie Spotlight fix follow the link!

awdio.com/indiespotlightlive

Show Update and Justcastlive is still offline

I've been looking at other places and ways we can do the show, at least until justcastlive comes back online. I said when we switched to using justcastlive about this time last year that it was the last time that I was going to move the show and I meant it, and still do. I have to be honest, I can't keep asking you guys to "change your bookmarks and follow me to our new home" every 6 months to a year.

I just can't, that's bullshit. While I feel what we do, which is broadcast independent musicians that might not get airplay, is important, it's not so impressive that people will follow me to the ends of the internet or even go to a bunch of trouble to find my broadcast.

So, what do I do? I am looking at alternatives, both temporary and permanent. Right now I'm still all in with justcastlive, but not knowing how long they are going to be offline I wouldn't be a responsible host if I didn't look at the big picture and I need to be on a strong reliable site which until last week justcastlive has been. I really don't want to move the show again, I like and trust these guys and I have no doubt that they are working hard behind the scenes to bring the site back.

Not to mention how supportive they have been of show, we are the featured broadcast on there almost every week.

Now, with all of that being said (kinda rambling here I know) these are some of the alternatives that I am looking at;

YouTube;

I found last night that because the "Indie Spotlight" page on youtube is in good account standing that I can enable streaming. I did a one hour test show, loading a previous broadcast into XSplit and let it roll. Some of the things I liked were...
   a) You get live feedback from youtube on your stream, and they suggest what settings need to be changed, whether it's adjusting them up, or down.
   b) You can archive the show so people can replay them on demand later if they want.To me this solves the problem of people who want to hear past shows looking for a podcast, well, here is my youtube channel, watch them here.
   c) YouTube is a known brand
   d) Yes, they do have a chat that can be turned off, and you can embed the live show on another site, such as my previous site on webs.com.

The things that turn me off were;
   a) I can't embed statcounter so I don't know where my live hits are coming from.
   b) When I finished the test show the account was hit with 6 copyright claims, which is to be expected because this is youtube. We all know this is automated, and none of the claims affected the standing of the account because it was from all indie labels who just wanted to make sure that nobody except them and the musicians were getting paid for their work, and this enabled advertisements for where you can find and download links for the musicians. I'd rather have this amount of control myself since I often post links in chat as to where you can get the music, but at the same time I have to say that I do like that the system on youtube works and to be honest as long as it's ad's for the right musician and they get album sales and promotion, well that's why we do the show anyway. This one is a mixed bag.
  c) I might find myself with a renegade musician, and get hit with a copyright claim that isn't monetized for youtube that might decide to be an asshole that will not only kill my youtube account, but my show as well. Again, as a responsible broadcaster I have to consider this scenario. Right now my current format is all Creative Commons but when you go on youtube you really put yourself out there with your broadcast and my fear is that I might learn the hard way about how Creative Commons licensing works with someone who didn't understand what Creative Commons really means and find myself being the guinea pig in court sorting this out. No thanks, I don't make any money on broadcasting, I'm not in this to make money, it's to put the musicians out there and let them be known. I work a regular job, and am doing really well to pay my own bills. I don't need a lawyer bill on top of all that. When you go on youtube, you are broadcasting in a very public and traceable way and I really don't like that. I'm super careful with the videos that I put on there which is why I haven't done much with our youtube account lately.

Ok, next.....

Looking at awdio.com. Long time listeners and readers of this blog might remember that we've been there before. The biggest issue that I had with Awdio was the reliability. We did shows on there for 2 months and there was more than one occasion that I wasn't able to do the show because the site was down. Looking at it now, they have made a bunch of changes. While not my favorite option, it does remain an option because shows do archive there so people who miss the live show can listen to it later and their terms of service prohibit downloads. This is important to me for the simple fact that they expressly prohibit downloading shows. I like this because I'm in the business of promoting musicians, and not offering a platform where you can steal their music.


Here's the deal. I'm hoping that when I wake up tomorrow justcastlive is back online and I won't have to worry about all of this. Let's keep our fingers crossed that they get their current issues fixed but it has been almost 2 weeks...

So, the bottom line is I'd really rather not have to have yet another restart to the show, I have to be honest about it, if justcastlive doesn't come back online soon, I think that this time, I really won't be asking you folks to reset your bookmarks for another location yet again.

As much as I hate to say it, we've been broadcasting for 6 1/2 years, a damn good run by any standard. I just might take it for what it is, and say the hell with it and hang up my headset for good at least as far as live broadcasts go.

At this point I'm considering other options which are strictly podcast which would enable me to do the show, and let people listen to the podcasts and not worry about the live chat, as well as other surprises that happen at a live streaming broadcast. Just do the show and upload it somewhere, or do it live on awdio and just link the page on there where people can listen live, or stream the archive.

I'm not asking you guys to reset your bookmarks one more time unless it is something that is tangible and good for the show and the musicians. Moving away from the live broadcast format might be a better answer as far as both and just recording a podcast instead.

Stay tuned.