A Radical way to Stream : Review of RadicalFM and RadCasting

Listening to other services seems to be a solitary experience, but music was meant to be shared. RadicalFM combines the sense of community the personalization made possible by the Internet to deliver a synchronous music sharing and discovery experience.

Service Review of Radical FM App and services from RadicalFM.Com

Review by Joseph Timmons: IndiePulse Music Journal

So, in this modern age of music streaming, there is a multitude of services available online, from iTunes to Pandora to Soundcloud and beyond. All with features from site to app that make it possible to take your music with you.

However, how many of them allow you to broadcast your interests online with unlimited music selections?

RadicalFM – http://www.radicalfm.com allows users to create a profile and select options in music interests, it creates a rotating playlist and also allows you to “Favorite” specific songs. There appears to be no limit on how many stations or levels you can create and for the most part is very easy to set up. The one thing that does stand out is no commercials, you are limited on skips and there are some limits as to operation regarding sharing music, but then again, this is really a personal player service.

The music library behind Radical.FM is definitely impressive, and the RadCasting experience is both easy and powerful. You can add multiple genres into your station, and can even adjust how frequently each category will get played.

Broadcasting or  “RadCasting” is done when you go from device only Personal Streaming to “On Air – RadCasting” which means when someone else selects to favorite and listen to your station, you are listening to the same thing at the same time. This new offering provides listeners with live chat for real-time feedback and conversation about the music playing on the RadCasting stations. You can tell the RadCasters what you think of the selection, and station owners can inform friends and followers about their channel through Facebook and Twitter.

Listening to other services seems to be a solitary experience, but music was meant to be shared. RadicalFM combines the sense of community the personalization made possible by the Internet to deliver a synchronous music sharing and discovery experience. RadCasting an innovative concept in streaming which is served on the most powerful music sharing architecture ever developed.

RadicalFM does not charge for its service but you can pay what you feel the service is worth. Radical.fm is an internet radio service that adopts a radical approach to the music monetizing conundrum – it asks you to pay what you think it is worth, either as a one-time payment or a regular monthly fee. Whether you pay $1.00 or $100.00, it is all the same, just great music and great fun.  All the music you hear is legally licensed and RadicalFM pays royalties for every track that you play, which is why donating is great, kind of like public radio foundation to national radio “air play”.

I only saw two drawbacks, but not significant issues.

• One issue is there in no embedded player features for sharing, so you cannot post a personal player on a blog or website, but I connected with RadicalFM and here is a feature in the works to do just this.

• The other is a lack of independent and “unsigned” artists, but with the state of technology as it is and that RadicalFM is growing consistently, they should be able to do that soon as well.

Personally I have been using RadicalFM for about 2 weeks and I am very impressed, both with the App and site operations and the amount of music available without repetition. All in all, RadicalFM is worth a try, and “free” is always a great price point.