Listening to radio doesn't mean tuning in using a traditional box. With the proliferation of Web radio, you can hear the music and news over your Internet connection. Sometimes in ways you never expected.
In this day of cable, satellite and digital TV, and the World Wide Web there are still countless radio listeners tuning into the old audio box. And why not? You can get all sorts of music, news, and information -- much of it with an actuality lacking in other media.
But even with AM and FM and shortwave, it's frequently difficult to find the types of programming you want to hear. Searching through program guides is a lot of work. And station surfing, while fun, gets to be boring after a while -- especially when you consider that finding something is, at best, trial and error.
Believe it or not, a great place to turn for radio programming is the Web. Sure, everyone talks about per-to-peer and file sharing networks, but we seem to forget about Web-based radio stations. There are thousands of them worldwide pumping out all kinds of programming, from music to news to talk and opinion. And they're doing it legally.
Internet radio is perfect for radio junkies in the Internet age. You can find the programming you want, and you don't need a lot of extras -- just the right software. A high-speed connection can't hurt, but it's not 100% necessary.
How It Works
Internet radio acts a lot like it's "over the air" counterpart. Instead of tuning with a dial, you go to a Web site. Once you get there, you start using something called push technology. Push technology sends, or "pushes", content to your Web browser when you click a link. It's just like changing channels on your radio. The information is there and is waiting for you to tune into the right station to view it. The biggest difference between Internet and traditional radio is that with Internet radio, you never miss a portion of a song or program. It starts when you want it to.
What gives Internet radio its flexibility is the ability to stream information. As the name suggests, streaming sends data so that your computer can deal with it in a stable, continuous flow. Unlike downloading, streaming starts playing a song or program before all of it reaches you. In essence, you get the next best thing to viewing content in real time.
The only drawback of streaming is that your computer must be able to gather the information and present it to you as it arrives. If it can't, the computer and the software youre using to listen to the broadcast must be able to buffer the video. Buffering saves the data you haven't heard in memory until your audio software catches up with the stream.