My third decade in existence on this rock (my 20's) was the decade of webcasting for me. It was a little hobby that lasted roughly the entire span of the decade, and I enjoyed it immensely. I got to webcast my favorite music, legally and for minimal cost. As far as hobbies go, $10 per month wasn't bad. But it wasn't just the streaming, nor the online community (forums.live365.com, to which I was once a VERY active member), but it was also the enjoyment of flea marketing, and stopping at out of the way yard sales all over the region hunting down record albums, and 78's to take home and play on my various webcasting stations.
Internet webcasting is fraught with legal issues and high royalty rates. Over the course of the decade I watched as internet radio became more and more popular and likewise ASCAP, BMI, and Sound Exchange filed suit to reap in their piece of the pie. I recall the rules in which we had to play were pretty strict. We could not be part of an "interactive" service, which means if a request was made, we couldn't honor it right away, but had to play a few songs first. We could not play more than 3 songs in the same hour from the same artist, and so on and so forth.
Live365 had one critical flaw, despite it's ease and user friendly design, listeners still had to sign up to hear music, and they also included instream ads that we (the webcasters) had no control over. The alternative was for the listener to sign up for their "VIP" service which eliminated the ads on their streams, and didn't count against our listener cap. Due to this requirement to sign up, I shifted back and forth from Live365 to LoudCity, and later LoudCity's short lived project LoudCaster. LoudCity was nice because it didn't have instreams ads, was just marginally more expensive (around $20 per month), and generally had more listener slots available. The only downside was it wasn't a hosting service, just a licensing service. I had to provide my own hosting, which also meant sending a 24/7 uplink to the hosting service. I can't remember exactly what it cost, but I seem to recall paying for about 50 24kbs slots. This worked out pretty well. 24kbps is getting pretty low though on the quality scale. The sound was a pretty far cry from CD quality. All of my mp3's are encoded at 128kbps which is good enough for my ears.
The fact that I had to have a constant uplink also proved problematic. It would run for days and days with no issues, then suddenly the ISP would drop and I'd have to reboot the stream. This wasn't a big issue if I caught it, but in those days I frequently took trips on business to Ohio leaving the stream to run on auto-pilot while I was away. I loved webcasting on LoudCity, but the constant reliability issues I was having forced me back to Live365 which also provided for hosting, and was considerably more stable.
I ran several webcasting stations during that decade, Oldies, some classic country, alternative, one for FreeForm (among my favorite, yet least popular, played everything), and finally BeanJelly Radio, which started out as a FreeForm station, however I converted it into a vintage music station that played songs from the first 50 years of recorded music. 99% of the material for BeanJelly Radio was taken from old 78 RPM records with dates ranging from the early 1900's to the early 1950's, with most of them averaging around the 30's and 40's.
BeanJelly Radio was my most popular and successful webcasting station. Granted it didn't boast the listeners that many of the big dogs had, but it was still the most popular webcasting station that I had created anyway, it formed somewhat of a "following" among those who enjoyed the classic swing, jazz, and hillbilly music. Many of my listeners were from the U.K., and I'd often get "fan email" from them. For a while, BeanJelly Radio actually made it to being a Google suggestion.
All this ended when I left my job at Hobart to pursue my own interest in getting my own restaurant repair business going (Lunar Services). The new business took a good amount of my time, and simply put I no longer had the time, nor interest to maintain BeanJelly Radio and I let it lapse. When Lunar Services didn't work out I begun working at a Dollar General and selling New Age (witchcraft) stuff at the Pulaski Flea Market on Saturdays. Later, thanks to me selling off a bad investment house, I took the money from that and leased a shop in downtown Pulaski for my retail endeavors, that shop was called "Lunar Curiosities". Shortly into that I was offered the job where I'm at now on the condition I move. I weighed the options and decided 11 years in Pulaski is enough, it's time to move on. Closed the shop, sold the house, and moved to Damascus. For about a year after we moved we actually didn't have internet service, and despite my occasional thoughts on getting BeanJelly Radio going again, I never found the motivation. Finally, about two years ago, I sold virtually all of my record albums, LP's, hundreds of 45's, and probably and estimated thousand 78's to a record store in Whitesburg Kentucky.
Looking back, I somewhat regret the decision. The small amount of money I gained has long since gone, and all that remains is an empty self where a big part of my history used to live. Sometimes I still find myself in a record shop, and recall the old excited feeling I used to get when I'd find an awesome album, buy it, eagerly get it home, and rip it to the computer. Then get on Live365's forums and brag about it.
But I guess even if I hadn't have sold all of those records and my recording equipment the hobby would have been short lived anyway, because I found out that as of January 2016, Live365 is now defunct, underwater, history. Another victim of lobbyist greed. Though I will admit, I've been a Pandora subscriber for a few years now and love it, there was always something satisfying deep down that Live365 would go on without me, and that I could always check in from time to time to see what the old gang is up to. I decided to check this morning, only to find out the whole thing is gone. Gone for almost a year. That in itself was salt in an open wound, that not only had I forgotten about my old friends and hobbies, but that I had went so long before I even realized it was dead. A guilt fell over me.
So that's why I've spent the better part of an hour, as I have no blog anywhere, to offer this tribute on a male skirting website of all places, to the old webcasting service that kept me out of trouble through my 20's, kept us busy on so many cold winter nights, and so many times brought us as a family together to do something other than watch TV, (we used to enjoy live-webcasting, even if nobody was listening
) Farewell Live365, I certainly hope that someday you'll find away to come alive again, even if I may not be among your "broadcasters", you brought something very special to the internet, and won't be forgotten at any rate. I'll check back every so often.Below are some pictures I uploaded over the decade of my webcasting days for your viewing pleasure: Full Album
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