Tony Zeoli is Founder and CEO of Netmix.com and Radio Station by netmix.® Originally launched in 1995, Netmix was was considered by Billboard Magazine to be the "innovation and advancement of dance music on the Internet." Tony had launched the world's first Internet mix show website featuring the most influential DJs from around the globe. After two-and-a-half decades, Netmix has since evolved into an online station directory and powerful WordPress plugin, Radio Station, for broadcasters and webcasters to manage their statioon's show schedule in WordPress. Tony has been an innovator at the intersection of music and the Internet for the past thirty years in project management, product development, and digital strategy,. He is also the founder and CEO of Digital Strategy Works, a WordPress web design and digital marketing agency. And, Executive Producer of the Asheville House Music Society, an online House Music mix show. Tony is located in Asheville, NC where he loves to mountain bike, hike, and play golf with his son.
In December of 1996, Netmix.com first appeared online as the world’s first DJ mix-show website hosting streaming mixes by the world’s most sought after DJs. In the March 20, 1996 issue of Billboard Magazine, Netmix was cited by former Dance Trax columnist, Larry Flick, as the “innovation and advancement of dance music on the Internet.”
Born out of my bedroom in a four-story walk up at 726 Washington Street, just outside of Washington Square in Brookline, MA, I would move Netmix from Boston to New York City in September of 1996 to partner with a dance music promotion company, with the goal of converging promotion and marketing with online streaming and distribution. While the partnership didn’t work out in the long run, Netmix survived in the dotcom 1.0 economy until it entered a purchase and sale agreement on June 1, 2000 with Polyverse, a youth-culture startup funded by investors in the gold rush of the early Internet era, which saw companies like CDNOW, MP3.com, and Psuedo Networks valued in the many hundreds of millions of dollars.
While I was negotiating with Polyverse, the Internet bubble started to burst. Fast forward to October of 2000 and Polyverse was out of cash. No one could raise money. The doors closed on new capital and thousands of startups on both coasts and around the world failed. It was, in no uncertain terms, one of the most difficult periods for founders and employees of these companies who saw their hopes and dreams fall apart when the Internet economy collapsed.
Over the next 19-years, I would hold onto the Netmix.com domain and keep the website active. In the late 2000s I launched the Netmix Global House Sessions Podcast, which is still ingrained into this site today (and for the foreseeable future). The podcast features my alter ego, DJ Tony Z, in the mix. But Netmix became a side hobby while I focused on working for various corporations and startups in New York City until 2010, when I asked my wife to move to Chapel Hill, NC for a job at the University of North Carolina.
In North Carolina for 9-years now, we skipped across the state; from Chapel Hill to Winston-Salem and now Asheville, NC. My wife and I adopted a baby boy at birth who was born in the Asheville area. My family became the priority while I also ran my WordPress consulting company, Digital Strategy Works. I had ideas for Netmix, but life’s priorities simply got in the way.
A few years ago, I got it in mind to host a radio mix-show on a Low Power FM here in Asheville, AshevilleFM. My friend, Phillip and I created the Asheville House Music Society and hosted the show on the station for about a year, but we had to put the show on hiatus. In September of 2018, we brought the show back on the air on another LPFM in Asheville, WPVMFM.org, where I volunteer as the station’s webmaster. While working on the station’s website, I noticed they were using a WordPress plugin, Radio Station, which was originally created by a developer in Colorado, Nikki Blight. The plugin hadn’t been updated on the site in a while, so I checked in on the WordPress codex to review the plugin and its status. When I learned Nikki was no longer actively developing the plugin and saw that there was an installed user base, I contacted her to inquire about it and let her know that I’d consider taking it over.
After a brief conversation, Nikki passed along the car keys to the plugin in early June (2019) and wished me luck. After 16-years of working with WordPress, I am now an official manager and committer of a plugin listed in the WordPress repository. But, I’m not a developer myself. I’m a product manager and entrepreneur with deep experience managing WordPress projects, so I needed help bringing the plugin up to speed. I put the word out in the WordPress universe and the universe returned Tony Hayes, an experienced WordPress developer living about two-hours south of Brisbane, Australia. Tony’s work includes http://wpmedic.tech and other plugins that check on the health of WordPress websites.
For the past three months, Tony and I have been working together on the open-source, free version of the plugin. We’ve also had a contribution from another developer working at a radio station in Virginia, who helped bring the plugin up to WordPress coding standards. We’ve made some improvements to the plugin and are actively working on building a PRO version with an audio player, time zone switcher, and a few other neat features. But for now, we’re tightening up the plugin and its core feature set.
We’re also looking at integrating the plugin with a few popular radio station automation software packages, like AirTime and LibreTime.
After 19-years of controlling the Netmix domain name and website, I decided on merging Radio Station with Netmix, which is why the plugin is now hosted here on this site and it will carry the Netmix brand going forward, along with all the bells and whistles we hope to add to it.
We’re always looking for contributions from the community. If you’d like to join in the fun, please do visit the Radio Station project on Github and take a stab at fixing something or adding something, then issuing a pull request. We’d love to get contributions from the radio station community supporting open-source projects.
I’m so excited I finally found and merged a worthy WordPress project with the Netmix brand. Over the next couple of months, you’ll see some changes to this website. It’s a work in progress and slow going, but we’re committed to advancing the plugin, building out a PRO version with additional awesome features, and figuring it all out as we go along. We’d love to know what you think of the plugin, so leave a comment on this post below. And, please do share this plugin in your networks, so we can grow participation and installs – that’s how this is going to succeed.
When it comes to running yout broadcast, webcast, or podcast website on WordPress, there are many options to choose from and different paths to take. Some people like an all-on-one solution packaging all the features they need into a theme, while others want to cherry-pick a theme or page builder they want to use and then rely on a variety of plugins that do different things to round out the website. There are certainly pros and cons to each and in this article, I’ll walk through your options, which may help you decide what’s the best path for you.
Going All-in on a Theme w/ All the Bells and Whistles
Okay, so you’ve got it in mind that you want your theme to power the visual view and features of your WordPress website. Maybe you understand the features and believe that an all-encompassing theme is the best solution, or you might not realize that you could be locked into a theme and won’t be able to diverge from what resources the theme provides. There are a number of themes out there appealing to broadcasters, webcasters, and podcasters; so many, in fact, it’s very hard to discern which theme makes the most sense for your site. Most theme authors don’t allow you to trial a theme for free before you buy and once you do buy and are locked in, you find out there are other options, but you’re stuck with the theme you purchased. Fortunately, some provide 14-day or 30-day money-back guarantees, but that is not true for all themes out there.
Another issue with themes is, some of these themes are sold on marketplaces like ThemeForest. While ThemeForest is a great place to find high-quality themes, it’s a bit awkward in terms of licensing. If you purchase a theme from Theme Forest, it’s tied to your email account. At the time of this writing, I don’t believe you can assign a secondary admin to your Theme Forest account, which means if you are working with an agency or freelance web designer or developer, getting them access to download a version if the license is expired can be problematic. They have to wait for you to log in to your account and if expired, reset the license, then download and send the latest version.
In addition, many themes on Theme Forest come with a pre-set license to a page builder, like Theme Fusion, Visual Composer, or Beaver Builder. They also might prepackage a slider plugin like Revolution Slider. When the theme is up for renewal, you may renew the theme through your Theme Forest account, but are left to connect directly with the page builder company or third party packaged plugin slider plugin to license the associated software. It’s not very clear upfront when purchasing the theme from Theme Forest. When your license expires, all of a sudden you have to purchase two additional licenses to keep your site updated, so you get the latest upgrades and features of the pre-installed page builder and slider plugin.
For those who don’t know me already, I’m Tony Zeoli, CEO of netmix®, a company I relaunched last year to support the development of the free and open-source WordPress plugin, Radio Station, which you know as the best plugin for radio stations, streamers, and drop-in audio moderators to build, manage, and display your show schedule on a WordPress website.
Since being passed the baton In June of 2019 by Radio Station’s original creator, Nikki Blight, we’ve worked to update and improve Radio Station considerably. That effort has resulted in doubling our installed user base in 16 months. With such an extraordinary uptick in usage, we learned from stations like yours what would make Radio Station the best WordPress solution for creators of live radio and other forms of scheduled audio content.
That being said, I’m excited to fill you in on what’s happening here at netmix® with Radio Station. I’ve got some fantastic news for you!
But first, let’s dive into a bit of background, shall we?
Yes, you read that right! Back when online streaming audio first started and there were no DJ sets to be found (unless you count those terrible modem connection handshakes as techno!), netmix® was a pioneering online music service deemed the “innovation and advancement of dance music online” by former Billboard Dance Trax columnist, Larry Flick.
Here’s how netmix® got started…
In 1993, I was working the Boston nightclub circuit as a DJ by night. By day, I served as both A&R Coordinator and Worldwide Sales Director for X-Mix Remix and Management, which managed world-renowned producers, Armand Van Helden and DJ Sneak among others. Around the same time, a woman I was dating introduced me to a friend who worked in Harvard University’s IT department. One night, she took me to meet him at his apartment in Cambridge, which coincidentally was just a mile or so from Bolt, Beranek, and Newman, the company that created the ARPANET network for the U.S. military, in partnership with MIT, from which the Internet we know today was derived. He showed me web technologies like Telnet and Compuserve, all of which got me thinking about the future of information technology. But I didn’t quite yet see how that would lead to DJIng online. That revelation would come later that year.
Shortly thereafter, AOL (aka America Online, an early Internet service provider) allowed anyone with a computer modem to dial up and get on the web. I signed up and began connecting with other DJs in chatrooms and newsgroups. I began to see the true potential of the web and how DJs and radio stations might one day benefit from the Internet. However, AOL didn’t stream much audio and there was no video to speak of, so it wasn’t until I learned about the cutting edge of audio streaming at the time, RealAudio by Real Networks, I finally made the connection that one day we would broadcast DJ sets, radio shows, and other audio programs online.
In 1994, the World Wide Web was taking off. Early adopters were touting the benefits of Internet connectivity. The Internet World seminar and conference would become the place to be to learn about new web technologies. I attended the Boston edition with the goal of meeting the Real Audio team who had announced their plans to set up a booth where they would demonstrate the live streaming of a major league baseball game on the web. I stopped by the table and after asking some questions and experiencing what Real Audio was truly capable of, a light bulb in my head flicked on and confirmed my idea to build netmix® and showcase DJ mixes on the web. [See the first version of netmix® in the Internet Archives.]
But let’s step back for a minute from the early 90s to the mid-80s. Before I pursued my major Boston and New York City nightclub DJ career and launched X-Mix as a member of its founding team, I made early inroads at radio. First, as a high school intern at a local Boston-area Urban format radio station, WCAS (now WJIB), and then as a college student studying Radio and Television broadcasting in New York City. I had always been interested in broadcasting in some way, shape, or form. I never imagined I would be at the crossroads of the Internet at its inception.
Over the next 6-years, my life-long interest in Radio and DJ culture, combined with what I had learned about the Internet and streaming audio, drove the development of netmix®. In 1996, I partnered with an NYC-based dance music promotion company and moved netmix® operations from Boston to their office in New York City’s Soho district. To go from local Boston nightclub DJ to an innovative Internet music pioneer was one of the hardest, but most rewarding accomplishments of my life. While it sounds awesome, it was fraught with the trials and tribulations of a startup. I would experience incredible highs and very depressing lows throughout the journey, but I persisted as best I could, armed only with a vision and the energy to see it through, which is similar to Radio Station today.
Tony Zeoli with his wife, Missy, and his son Hudson at WPVM FM in Asheville, NC
So, how did it all end up…?
In many ways, netmix® was successful. We reached 1 million unique visitors in 1999 – a major milestone at the time for a small Internet company – and were subsequently acquired on June 1, 2000, by Polyverse, an aggregator of youth culture websites, for $3.1652 million.
…and then the dot com bubble burst!
If it weren’t for that tumultuous event, netmix® might be a household name today (like Netflix.) When Polyverse ceased operations, all netmix® assets reverted back to me. I’d love to fill you in on the details of that experience, but I’ll save it for a future blog post.
By now, you must be wondering, “well, what’s this all got to do with Radio Station today?”
That’s a great question. Let me make the connection for you.
In 2019, I’d hosted the Asheville House Music Society mix show with WPVM 103.7-FM LP, a small LPFM (low power FM) here in Asheville, NC. As a volunteer at the station, I helped with their WordPress website, which is how I first stumbled across the Radio Station plugin. But I noticed the plugin hadn’t been updated in some time and it was not working properly with Divi and other page builders. Because the station needed a working version that wouldn’t break their site in a new theme, I felt the urge to fix it myself or find a way to get it fixed for the station and for others using the plugin.
As a WordPress veteran (I started working with WordPress in 2005), I knew to contact the plugin developer through the WordPress.org plugin page, so I could learn if the plugin was under active development or if it had been orphaned. After tracking down Nikki Blight through Facebook, she let me know she had gotten a full-time job and was no longer actively developing the plugin. We chatted a bit and she asked if I wanted to take it over.
Given my background with WordPress, my media industry experience, and my work in product development and project management, I knew I could take it over and make something out of what was already established, but sorely in need of an update. Understanding that there was a theme marketplace for radio themes and opensource automation systems like LibreTime and Azuracast, I could see Radio Station’s amazing potential and wanted to take it to the next level, which we’ve now done and done well. But I had to figure out how to find a qualified developer with WordPress plugin experience who could help me with it since I’m not a WordPress developer.
While I’ve worked with numerous plugins and plugin authors, I have never actually developed one myself. Truthfully, I didn’t know the first thing about how to manage a WordPress plugin. I put my faith in my skills and experience and set out to learn. It’s also when I linked netmix® – the brand, with Radio Station – the plugin. Just like The Event Calendar by Modern Tribe,Gravity Forms by Rocket Genius, and All In One SEO by Awesome Motive, netmix® would power Radio Station.
So, this time around, it really is “netmix® 3.0”. While the comeback of netmix® started with picking up the ongoing development of Radio Station, I understood the WordPress plugin marketplace and recognized the need for a more comprehensive version to extend Radio Station and present it as the top plugin for radio stations, Internet streamers, and maybe even Clubhouse moderators who need to post and manage show schedules on their WordPress websites.
But I needed help.
Here’s what I did to solve that problem. I posted an announcement on the WordPress Jobs site and was very lucky to get a response from Tony Hayes, who has since joined on as Lead Developer. A freelance web developer and solopreneur based one hour outside of Brisbane, Australia, Tony initially stepped in to bring Radio Station up to speed with current best practices, bug fixes, and a few new features. In doing so, he also realized the potential of Radio Station and was on board with my vision for the plugin. Like me, he was also ready to move from the agency model of building individual sites for clients to building software that serves a purpose.
And that’s why today, Tony and I want to make this incredible announcement!
Finally…just get to the point!
Well, it’s been a major effort over 18-months of active development while also navigating the Covid crisis and our own personal affairs for us to iterate and present Radio Station Pro as a stable, innovative product that aims to be a leader in its field. We’re also building a new website at https://radiostation.pro (launching soon). And, we’re integrating everything with our radio station directory at https://netmix.com, which will soon be relaunched solely as a directory to showcase stations using our plugin and provide a high-quality backlink to participating stations.
We are very excited to announce Radio Station PRO launch start date has been set for… next week (so close now)! We are confident this is going to be an incredible and transformative WordPress plugin for your radio station website in many respects. From our visual schedule editor to a new, persistent audio player, and more cool schedule layouts, we’re building the future of radio on WordPress. We have more exciting plans ahead, but none of this would be possible without your support in helping us help you by purchasing the PRO version next week. Your purchase of Radio Station PRO will fund ongoing plugin development and potentially save you thousands of dollars on developer costs!
If you haven’t yet signed up for our launch list discount – 30% off the launch week price of your first year’s subscription to Radio Station PRO, just click on the huge button below to sign up to get your launch discount code at the start of launch week. So, keep checking your email for the code, as it’s coming soon!
Are you still having problems? Copy and paste this link in your browser address bar:
https://radiostation.pro/plugin-launch-discount/
In relief and excitement,
Tony Zeoli
netmix® CEO
P.S.. Watch out for the launch announcement and soon we’ll reveal our #1 feature request and what we’ve accomplished in making it a reality…
P.P.S. If you missed our email last week asking you to answer a few questions for us, you can still do that now and add yourself at the end of the process by going to https://netmix.com/questions.
We are so excited! Radio Station PRO is going to drop THIS MONTH!
Two Tonys on two continents have been up at all sorts of hours this past year to prep the most innovative enhancements to Radio Station for our forthcoming PRO version. Stay tuned, more scoop is coming on the tale of two Tonys and the PRO version…
While most of our attention has been on PRO, we’ve also added some new fixes and features to the already awesome free version. Fixes are included for the current show highlighting and various minor display bugs. The latest feature additions for this version (2.3.3.9) are:
Selective Linking of Overrides to Show data
Multiple Schedule Override Date and Times
Automatic Visitor Showtime Displays
Language Archive Shortcode
So without further ado, let’s do a quick dive into each of these new features to see how they can help you in your Radio Station experience.
Linking of Overrides to Shows
The Schedule Overrides implementation has always been a bit funny (well, that’s how we inherited it.) Over time, we have added more fields back to the Overrides to bring them up to speed with normally scheduled Shows, to the point there is very little difference. The suggestion was made that we could just link them to a Show and be done. But, the purpose of an Override to us is the ability to override any of the Show fields. So this improvement allows for both. It lets you link to an existing Show AND select exactly which fields to override.
Multiple Schedule Override Date and Times
Up until now, if you wanted to set a Schedule Override, you’d have to do so individually for each time and date. With this new feature, you can add as many times to the Override as you like, saving you time in adding all the relevant Override information over and over again. This makes it a lot easier to set up regularly scheduled overrides, or even temporarily set an existing Show as an Override when combined with the new Override to Show linking feature. This improvement also brings AJAX saving to Override Times, and thus up to speed with Show Shifts and Playlist Tracks.
Automatic Visitor Showtime Displays
Timezones really are a pain. We’ve worked hard to take the pain points out for you and your visitors. The timezone clock above your Show schedule already helps your listeners if they are tuning in from another timezone, whether they are a far-off listener or a traveling local tuning into their home station.
Now we’ve taken this one big step further. All of your show times will now automatically convert to the visitor’s timezone and display underneath it. This saves them from having to work out the time difference for themselves. Can you hear the massive sighs of relief? Hey, they might not thank you directly, but it sure makes it easier for them to tune in to their favorite shows.
Language Archive Shortcode
With all the archive shortcodes already in Radio Station, this one was always on the cards. But being able to list shows grouped by language isn’t something everyone is going to use. It hasn’t been a top priority by any means, but it just felt like “plugging a hole” to have this missing shortcode finished. [languages-archive] and the shortcode attributes can be found in the plugin shortcode documentation.
Schedule Editor and Timezone Switching Coming Soon in PRO
The improvements to the Overrides make way for their integration into the Visual Schedule Editor, making it easy to add either Show Shifts or Override Times directly from your Schedule – either from the Admin area or the Frontend of your site! Also in PRO, visitors will be able to switch their timezones via the Radio Clock and see the updated times for all their favorite Shows – very handy for travelers wanting to keep up with their home Station.
Radio Station PRO – Just Around The Corner!
We are thrilled to announce the upcoming launch of Radio Station PRO !!! Jam-packed with new features to “level up” your Station’s online presence. During the launch, we are offering a 30% discount to Radio Station users! Sign up to the exclusive launch list to receive your discount code when we go LIVE.
Wow! Spring cruised by and we haven’t had a moment to craft a proper blog update on RadioStation and our planned Radio Station PRO, which takes Radio Station to a new level!
Before I give you some exciting news, let me check in on YOU!? How have YOU been holding up in, what we hope, are the waning days of the Covid-19 pandemic? Is your community feeling safer? If you are a parent, how is that going for what feels like an eternity? For us, Covid parenting has disrupted our well-laid plans, but we’ve worked through this and continue to make progress.
Hang in there, friends! At least in the U.S, things seem to be progressing. But, we know around the world issues still persist. We wish you, your colleagues, and your family good health and safety in these most difficult of times.
We know you really want to hear about Radio Station PRO. Drumroll, please!
We are squarely in the joyful phase of pre-launch – bug testing time! We’re also working on our new PRO website at https://radiostation.pro, where you can leave your email to receive our special launch offer.
That being said, we are grateful to our advisors and developers who have contributed to the code that are hard at work reviewing for the PRO version and reporting bugs to help ensure a smooth launch. Did you hear me say LAUNCH? You did!It is coming! We intend to set a specific date soon, but we’ll give you a hint; Radio Station PRO’s launch will be in a month that starts with a “J.”
Hmm…really means SOON!
I’ll have more scoop for you in the coming days. You’ll start to seeing more blog posts and if on our email list, emails coming from us. So keep checking your inbox.
Want a sneak peek? You can see some of the new views and additional features here:https://radiostationdemo.com. Others we’ll reveal over the coming days and weeks ahead.
Meanwhile, keep in touch, keep listening to the radio in all its glorious forms, and stay safe! And, be fure to leave a comment about your Covid challenges and opportunities below. We’d love to hear from you!
Support Radio Station by becoming a Patron. Your monthly contribution supports the ongoing development of the FREE and open source version of Radio Station.
You can also now list your Radio Station or Webcast in our new Netmix Directory. Submit your listing for FREE until the end of July 2020 and get a do-follow backlink from one of the oldest domains related to online music and radio today!
* Hot Fix for Upcoming Shows in Widgets were not displaying times if show spanned midnight, e.g. started at 11 pm and ended at 1 am.
We did release an interim 2.3.3.2 last week, but did not send out an email regarding that release.
Here are the included fixes and updates for that release:
2.3.3.2 * Update: Freemius SDK (2.4.0) * Update: Plugin Loader (1.1.4) with weird isset glitch fix * Fixed: Current Show for Shows ending at midnight * Fixed: incorrect AJAX Widget plugin setting value * Fixed: use page-load data for schedules before transients
Thanks to Tony Hayes, who led the development of this release.
Thanks also to the following users for reporting issues in our Support forum and Gtihub Issues tracker:
Support Radio Station by becoming a Patron. Your monthly contribution supports the ongoing development of the FREE and open source version of Radio Station.
You can also now list your Radio Station or Webcast in our new Netmix Directory. Submit your listing for FREE until the end of July 2020 and get a do-follow backlink from one of the oldest domains related to online music and radio today!
Support Radio Station by becoming a Patron. Your monthly contribution supports the ongoing development of the FREE and open source version of Radio Station.
You can also now list your Radio Station or Webcast in our new Netmix Directory. Submit your listing for FREE until the end of July 2020 and get a do-follow backlink from one of the oldest domains related to online music and radio today!
Among the issues fixed in this release was a conflict with Yoast SEO, a fix to ensure shows in quarter-hour increments display on the Master Schedule, and fixed conditions for Schedule Override time calculations. We also add a filter for widget section display order.
2.3.1
Update: Plugin Loader (1.1.1) with Freemius first path fix
Fixed: conditions for Schedule Override time calculations
Fixed: schedule table view – 12 hour format with translations
Support Radio Station by becoming a Patron. Your monthly contribution supports the ongoing development of the FREE and open source version of Radio Station.
You can also now list your Radio Station or Webcast in our new Netmix Directory. Submit your listing for FREE until the end of May 2020 and get a do-follow backlink from one of the oldest domains related to online music and radio today!
We are excited to announce that we are offering free Directory listings! Including 30 days Dofollow backlink from Netmix.com and listing highlighting. Interested in more exposure and listeners for your Radio Station, for free? Simply sign up for an account and then click Activate Free listing!
When we started down the road of taking over the Radio Station plugin and it’s continuing development, lead developer Tony Hayes came up with a suggestion – “Why don’t we give stations the ability to list themselves in an online directory?” We kicked around the idea a few times and came up with a plan that would give stations (and webcasters and podcasters) this ability, by pulling Schedule and Show data directly from a Station’s website into a new Netmix® Radio Station Directory!
Why is this important? Today, Radio Station by Netmix® continues to be free, and we are committed to keeping it that way. While we hope to launch a Pro version and other Add-Ons in the future, as soon as possible, which can further boost the development of both the free and paid versions, we’ve already put a massive amount of time and energy so far just into updating and improving the free version for everyone.
We know and feel there is a lot of appreciation for these efforts from our community of existing Radio Station users! We think it’s time to ask for that appreciation to be shown financially also, and believe that the best way to do this is not by either restricting features or simply asking for donations, but rather, by doubling up on those efforts and delivering even more value! And so, we are now offering listings on the new Netmix® Radio Station Directory – allowing us to financially support our continued efforts to improve the plugin for everyone.
We arrived at this model by looking at what free plugin developers have done in the past. Often there is a one-time “Donate” button (eg. via Paypal) added to a free plugin, but this strategy has proven drastically ineffective because it is often ignored by users, given there is not much incentive when they already are getting something for free. This results in many free plugins remaining unsupported or not being updated, and often in them being abandoned over time. So we wanted something that would turn around this kind of lose-lose situation into a real win-win!
To do this, we arrived at the conclusion a more sustainable model is to provide a value-add benefit for subscription-based giving by offering a directory listing (and other rewards) as incentives for our supporters, similar to how many community-based radio stations offer benefits to their subscribers. We decided the Patreon platform was well suited for this purpose since it provides the ability to offer rewards in return for different gifting levels. As software creators, this allows us to more easily create the win-win situation we were looking for, where we can both provide further value to our users and receive the support we need.
Thus we have created a Radio Station Directory on the Netmix.com website! By becoming an ongoing Patron for the Radio Station plugin, you can get your Station listed in the Directory (which also means a valuable do-follow backlink!) Read on…
Netmix® Directory Listing
Since the major update to Radio Station to version 2.3.0, the Radio Station plugin now includes an innovative new feature to access all your Show schedule data via a Data API. Once you download the plugin (or update to 2.3.0) and go to the Netmix® site to register your support through Patreon, you’ll be able to list your station in the Directory and we’ll pull all your Schedule and Show data from the activated plugin on your site to publish straight into the Netmix Directory. It’s that easy!
This exciting development means new listeners will not only be able to find your Station (broadcast, webcast, or podcast) via Netmix®, but also discover all of the Shows scheduled on your station’s website! This is a major advantage for listeners in using the Netmix® Directory, for example, users will more easily be able to discover a variety of Shows in all of their favorite genres – not just via single genre-oriented stations as in other radio directories.
And of course, we will also be gradually adding improvements over time to the Directory over time in a similar way to the Radio Station plugin… We’ll be adding more navigation, filters, and search capabilities so listeners can find your Stations and Shows more easily.
Netmix Radio Station Directory (Expanded View)
How to Claim Your Listing
Become a Radio Station Supporter now by clicking the Become a Patron button below. Choose a Supporter Level. Then you can Signup to Netmix® here, connect your Patreon Account and then add your Listing. Netmix® will automatically detect all your Show information via the plugin’s in-built Data API, and display it in the Netmix® Directory automatically… putting YOU in the mix!
Please note, should you discontinue your Supporter subscription, your Listing will be temporarily deactivated until you resume your patronage. As we roll this feature out, we’ll be sure to have a huge list of stations in our directory, which can direct listeners to your site based on genres, languages, or Show details.
Bonus Listing Value!
Not only are you going to list in an advanced directory that listeners will find, share, and utilize to access all the stations using Radio Station, we also want to highlight that via your listing you’ll also get a shiny do-follow backlink from Netmix.com, a 25-year-old authority domain in the streaming media and online radio space. As you may already know, quality authority backlinks are important to your website’s offsite Search Engine Optimization and thus your website rankings. So adding your station to the Netmix can help drive listeners from searches as well as from the Directory itself.
Featured Listings and Sponsors
Want even more exposure and listeners for your Station? We’ve also added extra reward level options for a Featured Listing and/or Frontpage Sponsor Logo position. Featured Listings will get equally rotated top positions in the main directory as well as in the listing positions for their type. And to keep the Frontpage Logo Sponsors reward high value, we are limiting the placements for those levels, so if you want this option, we recommend getting in sooner to claim your spot so you don’t miss out.
If you’re interested in a Featured Listing or Frontpage Logo Sponsors placements, please let us know and we’ll help walk you through the process to reserve your spot.
Next Steps!
What you should do right now, is after you download the plugin and set up your Shows, signup for a Netmix® account via the Station Listing page. You can then click on the “Connect with Patreon” button. If you are already a Supporter then you can just log in to Patreon here, and if not, you’ll be asked to choose a level and add your credit card details via the Patreon interface. Of course, you’ll be on an honor system with what level you pick, so if we determine your site is Commercial, but you’ve picked Individual, we’ll simply contact you to ask you to change your supporter level.
Giving Levels are as follows:
1. Individual (and podcasters) – $5 per month 2. College (or school/university) – $10 per month 3. Community (not-for-profit / LPFM ) – $15 per month 4. Commercial (for profit) – $25 per month
Once you’ve Connected your Patreon account to your Netmix® account, you will be able to add your Station Name, URL, and other details, and the we’ll handle the rest! If your Station isn’t already added via this awesome WordPress plugin, then now is the time to make it happen!
More Surprises! Pro and Add Ons…
Remember, we are in the midst of developing Radio Station Pro and planning the roll-out of other Add-Ons for Radio Station, which will surely enhance the plugin further and provide new tools to help you run your broadcast, webcast, or podcast on your WordPress website. To get there, we need your support and invite you to become a Patreon supporter today to support Radio Station, helping to continue to make this happen!
Born out of my bedroom in a four-story walk up at 726 Washington Street, just outside of Washington Square in Brookline, MA, I would move Netmix from Boston to New York City in September of 1996 to partner with a dance music promotion company, with the goal of converging promotion and marketing with online streaming and distribution. While the partnership didn’t work out in the long run, Netmix survived in the dotcom 1.0 economy until it entered a purchase and sale agreement on June 1, 2000 with Polyverse, a youth-culture startup funded by investors in the gold rush of the early Internet era, which saw companies like CDNOW, MP3.com, and Psuedo Networks valued in the many hundreds of millions of dollars.
