First of all, Michael, I want to thank you for the great work you've done on mpr.org. The site in general has come a *long* way in the last year or so. I'm extremely glad to hear that you'll be taking on a central role with 89.3.

Like the discussions have touched on before, and like you stated, information (content) is key. Along with the requisite playlists/DJ bios/etc, we want to see discussion forums on various topics. It would be incredible if you implemented something RadioParadise-esque, so that you could go in to the website and comment on/rate a specific song. This is a great way for a station to gauge what its audience is thinking about the current programming selection.

Also, it would be great to have some sort of event schedule where you could promote the artists you're giving airtime to when they tour in the area.

I'm sure I'll think of more ideas for you in the near future, but I think that's all for now.

Thanks again!

I agree with Erik on giving listeners a say in what they hear. Perhaps, to go a step further, you could have a "request to hear" a genre or a suggestion box of sorts. Perhaps, its that we are just starving to be asked what matters to us that makes this endeavor so exciting.

One thing that the BBC does (poorly, I am sad to say) that I'd like to see is a song-by-song update of the playlist so listeners don't have to try and recall "that song last Thursday, two songs after the Dead Can Dance bit...", but check up on as they are listening online. Nor do I think it all that interesting to know the playlist ahead of time (as I have seen in other areas) -- that smacks of commercialism.

Thanks!

Are you talking about the website or the station itself? For the website, a news section would be cool. It could be centered on local events primarily, but could cover the big music news of the day.

Maybe a message board for people in the area to talk/build a community around. News can also be spread that way.

I'd also like to see a 'Charts' section showing what's being spun the most.

I like the NPR All Songs Considered site: http://www.npr.org/programs/asc/ It would be cool if you could post whole songs the way they do.

Anything you can do to build a community would pay off hugely. If MPR doesn't want to deal with that, then at least be open to supporting/linking to an unofficial community site.

Content is king, methinks. Links to things like the all music database, featured bands etc etc. Per-show /presenter pages/blogs that are maintained by the show teams themselves. Please don't go to a pure-blog format, which makes it near impossible to find information posted by the production team.

Just announced:

9 am Monday the station goes live.

monday is the day!!!! 9am!!! so kling just said on mpr!

I'd say yourself the headache of complaints by offering at least an MP3 stream alternative and keep the "public" as they are in your e-loop. The cutting edge is often the bleeding edge.

If you want to "be somebody" online you want to get on Shoutcast and other services that rank mp3 streams. This will expose Minnesota produced content much further.

Cheers,
Steve

KCRW's website is pretty good. I like the DJ album picks and the archives of in studio appearances by various artists. Will the web stream show artist name/song?

Congratulations Mr. Wells I'm sure you will do well in your new position with MPR. As a long distance admirer of your work I hope to see something new and original with the new station's website. It does make me sad that you won't be able to make the very important meeting in Nebraska that you had scheduled, but duty calls eh?

I'm going to make a suggestion that you should be able to submit a standing request of say 5 or 10 songs and when one of "your" song is played you get an e-mail warning that "your" song is coming up in 5 minutes or whatever the case might be.

Other than that... reviews of new albums, local shows, local bands, content, we demand content. Oh and some spinning globes would be nice.

The one thing that I like about the KCRW site is that I can go back and listen to the In Studio performances that have taken place. First, I hope we have the opportunity to hear tons of local music in a on-air studio setting... and secondly be able to download the recordings. Many stations have done this, usually with an interview and three songs. Each song is able to be downloaded and stored locally on the users computer. You asked, "what will bring people back to the site again and again..." Unique content. is the answer... I am able to find out fun facts about bands online... but being able to hear live studio takes, or interviews of local and national bands is less common.. and worth a trip to the site...

I have been poking around lately, but see no reference to any specific website for the new station, which it will need.

- is there to be a separate website for 89.3?

- will it be as square as the rest of MPR's online content?

- is WinAMP required for listening, or is there an OS X client available? Are you aware that your demographic probably has a disproportionately high number of OS X users?

I am very much hoping that there will be a separate website, free of the stogyness of the rest of the MPR web presence, and I really, really hope that, like every single other radio station that is available on the internet, OS X users are able to listen one way or another.

Are you going to keep any of the programming from the former St. Olaf owned radio station WCAL? Church service at 10:30am on Sundays, for instance? Other regular programing carried over?

In response to the Mac aacPlus question:

VLC media player (http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-macosx.html)

VLC for Mac OS X is distributed as a disk image. Once the file has been downloaded, double-click on the icon. Drag the VLC application from the resulting window to the place from where you want it to run (suggested location would be /Applications).

Open the "File" menu and select the "Open Network Stream" menu item. Select "HTTP/FTP/MMS", and paste the complete URL, (http://mpr-aac.streamguys.com/listen.pls) in the corresponding text field. You can then start playback by selecting the Ok button.

I'd come back to a web site for this station, if it had a bullitin board for user comments; and if the site included music trivia about the songs and artists being played.

Funny you should mention a bulletin board:
http://kcmp.forum.publicradio.org/

Hey Mike -- congrats on everything you've done here!

I heard the aacPlus stream and it sounds INCREDIBLE. Looks like you have a lower bandwidth Windows media stream that should help alleviate those who don't download the VLC Player.

One thing -- I'm used to comments going from oldest to newest. This way I see questions answered before they're asked, which is a little strange. :-)

Great work on the site so far. Before the Current came along I was listening to KEXP out of Seattle all my days at work and they had a great feature on their website (KEXP.org) of a realtime playlist of what song was playing currently scrolling across almost every page of their site in addition to a playlist page that showed the history of the last hr. I'm sure it's probably a bunch of work to do, but that would be the greatest...

Talking about Michael Wells, I am not sure if he is the same that owns a web site called FRANDT on the net and he he taking the money of many people to whom he offers a service of web hosting and after some time he canceled all the services and neither the t5elephone of his company functiona again nor technical support on the web page because it doesn´t work anymore.

Sorry to hear you had such a bad time with that site. I promise you that I am not the same Michael Wells. There are no less than 13 M. Wells(es) in the Twin Cities alone. A quick search on Google shows that I'm worldwide.

- Michael Wells
Web Producer, The Current