Introducing Radio Station by Netmix

August 5, 2021

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.

Theme or Plugin? Which should I choose for my WordPress website?

by Tony Zeoli

August 5, 2021

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.

Radio Station Update: Version 2.4.0 with Streaming Audio Player

by Tony Hayes

July 15, 2021

We’re thrilled to announce the shiny NEW Streaming Audio Player has finally arrived in Radio Station!

I think you’ll agree, once you’ve read about the details and given it a go, we’ve done a great job with it. We really wanted our new streaming audio player to stick out head and shoulder above other available audio players. To get it right, we’ve combined some pretty high-level technical requirements with “mastering the basics” of an audio player interface, taking our time with it to make it awesome.

Setting up the Streaming Audio Player

The new Radio Station Streaming Audiio Player is available in our recent 2.4.0 release as both a widget or a shortcode. After updating your plugin to the latest version in your WordPress admin dashboard, head to your Radio Station => Settings page to get started.

If you haven’t set your streaming URL, take a moment to do so, along with your stream’s audio format. You can also set your Station Title and Logo while there, which can both be displayed in the Streaming Audio Player.

You’ll see the new Streaming Audio Player tab on the Settings page. Click on that and you’ll find where to set all the new Streaming Player defaults. These settings will be used by Streaming Audio Player widgets or shortcodes if they aren’t overridden by those. Finally, you can go to your Appearance -> Widgets page to add the Radio Player widget to a sidebar widget area. Alternatively, you can use the [radio-player] shortcode in a page or post, or echo do_shortcode('[radio-player]'); in a template.

Now navigate to your frontend page and click PLAY! Upgrade complete – stream activated – level up! Groovy beyond words.

High-Level Requirements

Maybe you’re still wondering what we meant by “high-level technical requirements”… it’s just a standard web streaming audio player, right? Well, internet browsers are a little more complex these days and we also want to lay the groundwork to be able to add some additional awesomeness later on. With all that in mind, here are the main requirements we’ve sought to fulfill in this initial version:

Support multiple audio scripts for widest data format support.
Auto-detect data format and match to the appropriate script.
Fallback to an alternative audio script on playback failure.
Support multiple instances of the player on the same page.
Prevent more than one player from playing on the same page.
Enable auto-resuming of playback when returning to a site.
Have a stylish and completely stylable player control interface.

As you might imagine, the technical challenges involved in each of these individual pieces and bringing them all together are quite immense. A lot of work has gone into getting all the audio scripts to work in a similar way while maintaining the possibility of multiple player instances throughout development. Fortunately, all of these challenges were able to be resolved over many development hours!

Mastering the Basics

When it comes to a streaming audio player, the basics are having a stylish and working user interface that can be customized to your needs. Many players have taken the approach of providing specifically designed skins to choose from, but this tends to provide a rather limited choice that might not work with your chosen style and branding. Instead, we’ve made available some simple options to match up with your theme. Light or dark? Circular, rounded, or square buttons? Vertical or horizontal layout? We thought of almost everything!

This approach gets you a working streaming audio player instantly that looks good from the very outset. You can tweak it with more styles as you need to, to really make it reflective of your station’s brand style guide. Of course, if you want to develop it further, under the hood there are filters for every aspect of the player, so you can change whatever you need to without ever losing your work after a plugin update.

What this player isn’t…

To reduce confusion with what it is, we’d like to mention what this player isn’t…

It’s not a “jukebox” for a list of audio files. There really are plenty of those around already if you need them – but not many players specifically for live streaming. Of course, we may add more features in the future for better handling of files and playlists, but it’s certainly not our starting focus – live streaming is, as that’s what many stations really need.

It’s not a 3rd party embed. While some of these can work pretty well, since your streaming source tends to be off-site anyway, a self-hosted player script works just as well. Actually, given the latest cross-domain javascript security policies, it’s a better option anyway – giving you more direct control and integration possibilities.

Streaming Evolution

While all this is a great beginning for our new Radio Station Stream Player, we know it is still a beginning! There is more work to be done, more options to be added, more features to develop, more innovations to explore, and more services to integrate with… We’d like to thank all our users for being part of this new beginning! For the now, we hope you enjoy the new Player and stay tuned for the next installment of the Radio Station story!

Until next time,
Tony Hayes, Lead Developer

Radio Station PRO – Just Around The Corner!

We are thrilled to announce the upcoming launch of Radio Station PRO next week!!! 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 for your first yearsubscription! Click on the huge red button below to sign up to the exclusive Launch List to receive your discount code by email when we go LIVE.

Yes, I’m in! I want the 30% discount off of PRO

The next update to Radio Station will be a game changer!

by Tony Zeoli

July 13, 2021

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?

The reason you’re receiving these emails from netmix® and viewing the connection to Radio Station on our netmix.com website is simply that I’ve owned the netmix.com domain since late 1995, when I launched the first streaming DJ mix show website in the world and featured global superstar DJs “in the mix.

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!

Having problems with the button? Click here.

Are you still having problems? Copy and paste this link in your browser address bar:

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.

Radio Station 2.3.3.9 has arrived! Here’s what to expect…

by Tony Zeoli

July 11, 2021

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.

Yes, I’m in!

Radio Station PRO is just around the corner!

by Tony Zeoli

June 24, 2021

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!

Tony Zeoli
CEO
Radio Station by Netmix

Radio Station Reached 2,000+ Active Installs, 90,000 Lifetime Downloads

by Tony Zeoli

February 19, 2021

Last week, Radio Station by netmix® achieved its first true milestone and benchmark for growth since we took over the plugin in June 2019. Our plugin page on WordPress.org updated to reflect 2,000+ active installations on WordPress websites of broadcasters around the world. We’re also tracking for 90,000-lifetime downloads by mid-February.

When we took over development, the plugin page displayed approximately 62,000 downloads over a span of 6-years – from 2013 to 2019. That’s approximately 10,300 downloads per year. Over the past 18 months, we’ve served 28,000+ downloads; a number that is a combination of new downloads and upgrades when we release bug fixes and new features. In the past, it took over 3 years to reach that number.

We’re excited about the growth and adoption of the Radio Station plugin and we’re continuing the work required toward establishing Radio Station as the premier, professional-grade WordPress plugin for broadcasters to plan their Show Schedules worldwide.

Of course, we’re grateful to you, the broadcasters who use our plugin and provide invaluable feedback. We are truly grateful. Thank you!

netmix® in Clubhouse

netmix® CEO Tony Zeoli’s Clubhouse profile page displaying his user name and schedule rooms.

If you’ve been following the story of Clubhouse, a new “drop-in audio” application for iOS (and soon Android), you’ll know it’s fast becoming one of the most popular social media apps since TikTok. The app is based on Clubs and Rooms. Clubs are high-level containers for the rooms underneath them.

A user can spawn different rooms on-demand or scheduled rooms to have in-depth conversations with as little as 2 or as many as 5,000 participants. Moderators bring speakers up to the stage from an “audience” listening in.

netmix® CEO, Tony Zeoli, launched the room entitled, Radio Station Websites & Apps: Tech & Trends, which is hosted under the Music Business focused, 808 The Wave club. The room opens each Monday night at 9 pm EST.

If you’re already on the app, then simply check the schedule under the calendar icon on your home screen and save the date by clicking on the GCal icon and saving the event to your Google Calendar. You can follow @tonyzeoli on the Clubhouse app to be notified of when the Radio Station Websites & Apps room goes live. We’re working on securing a netmix® club. Stay tuned!

Free Listing in the netmix® Directory

Screenshot of netmix® Station Directory

Get more exposure and listeners for your Radio Station, for FREE. Simply click the “Submit Your Station Listing” button to sign up for an account and then click “Activate Free listing!”

This time-sensitive FREE OFFER is ongoing. Activate your free listing before it ends!

We know and feel there is a lot of appreciation for these efforts from our community of existing Radio Station users! We’re asking for your financial support and the best way is to not restrict features or seek donations but to deliver even more value! We are now offering listings in the new Netmix® Radio Station Directory – allowing us to financially support improving the FREE plugin for everyone.

To do this, we concluded providing 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. Tje Patreon platform is 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 financial 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® Station 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 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.

Submit Your Station Listing

Get On The Waitlist for Radio Station PRO

In June 2019, we took over the Radio Station plugin for WordPress from its original creator, Nikki Blight. Since that time Lead Developer, Tony Hayes, and netmix® CEO, Tony Zeoli, have worked to add a slew of new features and functions to bring Radio Station back to life.

With over 2,000 active installations and close to 90,000-lifetime downloads, Radio Station has restored its place as the preferred WordPress plugin for broadcast and streaming stations around the world to create a show schedule and playlists on their WordPress websites.

Radio Station PRO adds advanced features to program your station’s schedule and display relevant content to your website visitors. Be one of the first in line to get a FREE TRIAL offer when the plugin is ready for download.

Upcoming PRO Features:

Persistent Audio Player – with the aim of continuous play during website navigation.
Show Episodes – a new plugin post type for adding and displaying Show Episodes.
Host and Producer Profiles – publish and display individual user role profiles.
Role Assignment Interface – fast interface for assigning plugin Roles to your team.
Genre Image Support – assign images to Genres for genre shortcode display.
Show Meta Caching – gives improved performance for Schedule calculations.
Schedule View Switching – allow user-switching between multiple Schedule Views.
Dynamic Widget Reloading – auto-refresh widgets at Show changeover times!
Visitor Timezone Switcher – allow site visitors to adjust their Timezone display.
Archives Views – Grid and Cloud Views for archive shortcode displays.
Social Icons – Social icon fields for Show and Profile Pages.
Show Schedule Feed – allow users to subscribe to a Show schedule via RSS.

One feature we’re working on post-launch is the ability to manage multiple Show schedules on one site. If you operate two or more stations but only operate one WordPress website, the ability to add multiple schedules is going to be cool. While it won’t launch with the first version of PRO, it will come soon after.

The reason we’re adding a persistent audio player to PRO is to help our user’s station websites finally remove their sidebar audio widget player, which stops playing when a user changes the page. A persistent footer player will always stay sticky and never impact the listener experience!

We’re opening up the plugin to a limited group, so enter your email address today to ensure that you secure your spot on the waitlist and receive the email with the initial FREE TRIAL offer when PRO is ready to go!

Just click on the button to go to our new PRO version domain and future PRO version website: RADIOSTATION.PRO. Then enter your email address to be added to the waitlist.

Get On The Waitlist!

New Music!

We are introducing a new feature to our Radio Station by netmix® newsletter. Each month, we’re going to feature an artist we hope you will love and ad to rotation on your station. This is a trial to ascertain how many stations want to be added to our new music promo list. Please let us know if you want to receive music from us in the future.

This month, we’re featuring Fete Sad Girls, the electronic music duo from the Bushwick section of Brooklyn, NY.

Fete Sad Girls Soundcloud EP

Fete Sad Girls YouTube Videos

Get Up To Speed!

Since 2.3.0 dropped in May, our email list has grown considerably. It’s best to get up to speed with Radio Station by Netmix®. We recommend you read our release blog post about v2.3.0 to familiarize yourself with the wide range of plugin changes, including new features, a completely new Show page layout, the new conflict catcher, and so much more.

To follow new features and enhancements, check out the Changelog.

View the plugin’s documentation.

If you need support, please post your support requests to the Radio Station support forum on the WordPress.org plugins page.

If you would like to report a bug or open a feature request, use our Github forum.

Want to contribute to the development of the open-source and free version of Radio Station, or make a feature request? Dive into the codebase and generate a pull request at https://github.com/netmix/radio-station. Or, add your feature request to our Git repo.

We also want to hear from our users. We’d love for you to respond to this email and tell us about your radio station or Internet broadcasting website. We want to know how you’re using the plugin and where in the world you are.

Speaking of the world…we need translators for the plugin, especially after 2.3.0 is pushed. Please get in touch with us at https://netmix.com/contact to let us know you are interested in translating the plugin to your language. We’ll get you on your way!

Like our Netmix page on Facebook and join our Netmix Facebook Group.

You can also take our survey by clicking the button below.

Take Our Survey

Support Radio Station Development

Your support would mean the world to us! Donate a few dollars a month and join other patrons supporting this free, open-source plugin!

Become a Patron!

Radio Station Combined 2.3.3.6 & 2.3.3.7 Bugfix & Enhancements Now Available for Download

by Tony Zeoli

December 18, 2020

There are two versions included in this release. Here are the included fixes and updates for this release:

2.3.3.7

Fixed: Schedule Overrides overlapping multiple Show shifts
Fixed: Bulk Edit field repetition and possible jQuery conflict
Fixed: Related Posts check producing error output
Fixed: WordPress Readme Parser deprecated errors for PHP7

2.3.3.6

Update: Freemius SDK (2.4.1)
Update: Plugin Loader (1.1.6) with phone number and CSV validation
Added: Station phone number setting with default display option
Added: Schedule classes for Shows before and after current Show
Improved: current Show highlighting on Schedule for overnight shifts
Improved: info section reordering filters on single Show template
Fixed: Edit permissions checks for Related to Show post assignments
Fixed: Main Language option value for WordPress Setting
Fixed: make Date on Tab clickable on Tabbed Schedule View
Fixed: prevent possible conflicts with changes not saved reload message
Fixed: do not conflict check Shift against itself for last shift check
Fixed: link back to Show posts for related Show posts (allow multiple)
Fixed: filter next/previous post link for (multiple) related Show posts
Fixed: automatic pages conflict where themes filter the_content early

Thanks to Radio Station’s Lead Developer, Tony Hayes, who led the development of this release.

Thanks to Git users: @astetevens93, @hotrodradio, @cbeattie89, @anigwei, Phasar40, @gusgus, @MattMski, @mattzuras, and KeriB1 for reporting bugs to our Github Issue Tracker.

View the complete Radio Station changelog here.

If you have any issues, please submit Radio Station support requests here.

For bug reports and feature requests, please submit to our Radio Station Github page here.

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!

Radio Station 2.3.3.5 Bugfix & Enhancements Now Available for Download

by Tony Zeoli

November 2, 2020

There are two versions included in this release. Here are the included fixes and updates for this release:

2.3.3.5

Fixed: use schedule based on start_day if specified for Schedule view
Fixed: day left/right shifting on Schedule table/tab mobile views
Added: past/today/future filter for Schedule Override List
Added: filter for Schedule display start day (and to accept today)
Added: current playlist (if any) to Broadcast Data endpoint

2.3.3.4

Improved: auto-match show description to info height on Show pages
Improved: allow multiple Related Show selection for single post
Improved: ability to assign Post to relate to multiple Shows
Added: Related Show Post List column and Quick Edit field
Added: Related Show selection Bulk Edit Action for Post List
Added: filters for label texts and title attributes on Show Page
Added: filter for label text above Show Player (default empty)

Thanks to Tony Hayes, who led the development of this release.

Thanks also to our users for reporting issues in our Support forum and Gtihub Issues tracker!

View the complete Radio Station changelog here.

If you have any issues, please submit Radio Station support requests here.

For bug reports and feature requests, please submit to our Radio Station Github page here.

Support Radio Station by becoming a Patron. Your monthly contribution supports the ongoing development of the FREE and open source version of Radio Station.

2.3.3.3 Bugfix Now Available for Download

by Tony Zeoli

August 3, 2020

2.3.3.3 Bugfix Update includes:

* 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:

@tonyzeoli
@astevens93
@Ajames0807
@cbeattie89
@larryl79

View the complete Radio Station changelog here.

If you have any issues, please submit Radio Station support requests here.

For bug reports and feature requests, please submit to our Radio Station Github page here.

Support Radio Station by becoming a Patron. Your monthly contribution supports the ongoing development of the FREE and open source version of Radio Station.