Radio Search Engine Lets You Find Which Station Is Playing Your Song Right Now
DAR.fm founder Michael Robertson has added a new search engine for music playing on the radio to his portfolio of radio-related sites and services. Radio Search Engine provides search by artist, song, genre or show but its most appealing feature is the ability to search for songs that are playing right now. The downside is that if you're trying to hear a specific song, you'll always only hear part of it. It also has potential for radio station discovery but it doesn't really seem designed for that purpose. Nevertheless it's an interesting example of what metadata can provide.
Radio Search Engine was recently launched by Michael Robertson whose best known product is DAR.fm. DAR.fm allows you to record radio shows and some of the tech developed for that project is what's powering Radio Search Engine. In fact, Robertson's making that tech more available through an API so you can build your own.
Intro to Radio Search Engine
Tech that works quickly and easily, without showing you the effort, is one of those magical things. Seeking a particular song that's playing now, getting immediate results and being able to then hear it in progress is the magic of Radio Search Engine. Other searches weren't so powerful.
I found a genre search for "death metal" incredibly limited and disappointing. But when I searched for "Death Grips," though it didn't come up with a station currently playing their music, it did come up with multiple stations that might be playing it soon.
Whether or not they do play Death Grips soon, this could be a useful way to find radio stations by song or artist that might be of further interest. The stations returned also showed the song they're currently playing so that's a bit of enticement to jump into the stream.
There are actually two excellent reviews of Radio Search Engine that get into the details of how it works, current glitches and related analysis by people much more focused on radio than am I:
Brett Moss/Radio World: A Search Engine for Radio?
Paul Riismandel/Radio Survivor: RadioSearchEngine delivers instant gratification, but not yet the Google of radio
I tend to agree with a lot of Riismandel's points in particular. I question how appealing it will be to the "average music or radio listener" and I find his discussion of Robertson's multiple related projects also worth considering.
Note: You can add a radio station to the DAR.fm database if you wish.
More:
- There Are 15,330 U.S. Radio Stations, But How Many Matter?
- iTunes Radio: 2 Billion Songs, 20 Million Users Since September Launch
- Pandora Predicted To 'Dominate' Web Radio For Next Few Years
Hypebot Senior Contributor Clyde Smith (@fluxresearch/@crowdfundingm) also blogs at Flux Research and Crowdfunding For Musicians. To suggest topics for Hypebot, contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.
