The Smartmuzik stint didn’t go quite well due to technical problems that are out of my reach. This country has set a lot of restrictions on the internet that some Icecast server hosting abroad are either blocked or set with limited connectivity depending on the ISP. So after some searching I was able to stumble upon Shoutca.st, one of the cheapest and reliable Icecast hosting companies on the net. They offer a free plan and I used it for testing and it worked like a charm, so I went ahead and upgraded to their premium package. So why did I do that? I wanted to start my own online radio station. Since I already have webserver for this blog and other experimental websites I created, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to set up one for an extra couple hundred baht a month even though the competition is quite difficult and diverse.
So after careful consideration, and because I’m a fucking cheapskate, I decided to get a free domain for this online radio from Freenom. So the domain I registered for it is RADIO101.ga. The “.ga” TLD (Top Level Domain) stands for the country of Gabon. So with a domain under that country’s TLD registered under Freenom, a Netherlands-based domain registrar, pointing to a web server in Thailand that is hosted by Orangewall, a company now based in India, with an audio streaming website content, from an Icecast server located in France that is hosted by Shoutca.st, a UK based company, I can now perhaps say that I may have started my first multinational company.
So anyhow, I now installed a wordpress CMS to run the site and added a few other scripts for a chatbox, community website features, and social login features. I uploaded over 4gb of music and set up an Auto DJ in place so it is now playing random songs with a Station call ID every after two songs. I’m still going to figure out how to add more variety to the programming and probably have some free podcasts aired as well as soon as I have enough time to do it. Then later on will try inviting some interested people to DJ. Looking at the stats, there has been a few visitors but they don’t stay long to listen. I guess they need more interactivity like a live DJ, or a contest or something to keep them hooked. Unlike real radio, it is more difficult to have listeners tuned in to online radio because they can easily go to other sites to listen to the music they want on demand, like youtube, which has a lot of music videos. So at the moment, I’m not worried if nobody listens to it.
So I’ll consider this as a work in progress, something to pass the time with, a hobby. Even if it gains a few stable listeners for a short period, it is still worth it.