[It is true that nowadays, with the Internet, television and all the audiovisual boom, radio is no longer listened to as much as it was years ago, as users now prefer to listen to content accompanied by moving images using platforms such as YouTube, leaving a little aside the use of audio-only content.
On the other hand, the Internet also led to the emergence of new radio models and the modernisation of existing radio stations. The Internet brought about a change in the way messages are transmitted to the public and the ways in which people listen to them.
Thanks to these advances, any person or organisation can now transmit audio over the Internet without requiring all the infrastructure and resources that would be needed for traditional radio. In online radio, there are two ways of transmitting content:
- Streaming
Streaming is the transmission of video or audio over the Internet without having to download the content beforehand. When this transmission is done in real time, as is the case of online radio, it is called Live Streaming. Streaming is used both by FM and AM radio stations and by radio stations that broadcast exclusively over the Internet. Audio can be played from a computer, mobile or tablet. In addition, content from any channel in the world can be transmitted and listened to in real time.
- Podcast
The other type of transmission is the Podcast, a free audio file that you can download and play on a computer, mobile or mp3. These podcasts are distributed through RSS, a format that allows sharing web content and in which the user subscribes and through a programme downloads the content to listen to it wherever he/she wants.
Podcasting consists of distributing these podcasts over the Internet so that users can listen to them anywhere.
Nowadays there are many Podcasting platforms on the net and we specifically wanted to talk about iVOOX, one of the best known and used both to produce and consume Online Radio, which has been like a breath of fresh air for the radio sector.
The iVOOX platform emerged in Spain in 2008 and is a free and customisable web service: uploading content, listening to it or downloading it is completely free, and the authors of the podcasts do not receive any kind of remuneration.
It is a very user-friendly and intuitive platform and offers more than 2450 channels and 197 radios.
One of the advantages that iVOOX has over other on-demand radio platforms is that it gives us the possibility of subscribing to the subject that interests us and, in this way, having access to all the related audios, which will allow us to discover new programmes, new users and participate more openly in the community.
Both the website and the app have several sections: in My Playlists we can add the audios we are interested in to listen to them later or download them; we can add all the podcasts we want to a playlist in which we can group all our favourite podcasts.
In My Subscriptions we will see the programmes or themes to which we have subscribed and if anything new has been added. IVOOX will notify us of the new audios that are uploaded to the channels to which we have subscribed.
The home page offers recommendations with the most listened to audios and the iVoox Magazine, which consists of a weekly ranking and a weekly compilation of audios selected by the iVoox team.
iVoox also allows us to rate each podcast and provides a section to leave our comments in order to complete the information, offer our criticism or help other users in their search.
To upload our own audios, we must first create an account. Then we can choose the format in which we want to upload our podcast (mp3 or mp4) or the link (URL) in which it is located. It's as easy as that.
In Occam we use iVOOX and you can enjoy our Digital Mind Podcast in www.ondafuenlabrada.es
In conclusion, this new trend of podcasting is being a clear renewal reflected by the evolution of the media used through the network. Thanks to this method it is possible for a team or individual user to have their own radio programme freely online with the opportunity to be shared and enjoyed by other users.
It is hoped that in this way podcasting will continue to develop positively so that in the future pioneering platforms such as ivoox will continue to be successful and make room for many more to come, so that the broadcasting of audio content will continue to be successful and bring more and more benefits for the growth of the sector.[/fusion_text]
