Radical.FM -- Re-Defining Radio

This month we are spotlighting the recently launched RadicalFM. Hypebot named RadicalFM one of 7 Standout Startups from SF MusicTech.

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RadicalFM is a personal internet radio service that enables the user to completely control their listening experience. You may be wondering what’s so radical about this. In a word, interactivity; this new internet radio service combines passive Stations (like Pandora), active Playlists (like Spotify & Rhapsody), social RadCast (like Turntable.FM), and a sister service Radical Indie (like MySpace). Unique features include:  RadCast which allows personal music streams to be shared in real time. While in the RadCast the user will be able to "Deejay"; speak to their entire RadCast listeners in real time.

RadicalFM sees it’s RadCast as a breakthrough in cloud base streaming music services.  Essentially they see it becoming a tool for DJ’s, Musicians, even novice radio jockies to build their listenership. It may even become an outlet for album releases and promotions. Say you have a band or you are a fan of a band, you’ll be able promote that band by embedding the band’s RadCast on your website.  The Deejay feature will allow the band or individual the ability to pause their station to announce upcoming events or to conduct personal interviews.

“RadicalFM gives every single user a complete broadcast radio station, with unlimited legal content” Tom McAlevery, CEO

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RadicalFM CEO Tom McAlevey, founder of the Swedish radio station Bandit Radio and Swedish online radio service tomsradio.com (an early online personal radio players), describes RadicalFM as “the most complete music delivery service in the world”. Mr. McAlevey claims to have pioneered many of the features that are used by the aforementioned Spotify. In fact, Mr. McAlevery points out, in an interview with Brian Brandvold and Brian Thompson, that Spotify’s current lead software architect was the lead architect for tomsradio.com.

We are not advocating one service over the other. We feel that healthy competition benefits the consumer.  It’s clear that this small cadre of engineers and industry insiders are creating something new. Judging from Spotify’s critical acclaim, we can expect something truly radical from Mr. McAlevery and the rest of the guys at RadicalFM.

We find this service to be on pace with most of the popular technologies making headlines today. One of the most recent headlines involving streaming media is Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement that Facebook will deploy a new music platform. The new feature is a partnership with several online music streaming services. If you have signed into your Facebook account recently you have noticed the new ticker feature; reminiscent of twitter’s fast moving feeds. The new music feature will work in a similar fashion, within the ticker stream; you will be notified when a friend plays a song from a Facebook partner site, such as Rdio or Spotify. For information on the new look Facebook follow this link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/22/facebook-f8-conference-live-blog-latest-news_n_975704.html

RadicalFM is currently in public beta, signing up is free. Their press release announced that they will soon be adding a mobile version of RadicalFM along with a similar service for independent artists, called Radical Indie.  Give it spin and let us know what you think.

RadicalFM http://radical.fm