Over the last ten years the internet has brought a whole wealth of new ways to distribute your music and get it heard by the masses. Your dinosaur of an author still remembers the days when it became possible to upload a DJ mix mp3 and link people to it. At this time, simply putting your mix up and publicising it in a couple of forums could land you a thousand downloads, because there were so few online mixes around. Quaint. Now, in a time when the net is flooded with so many mixes that no-one could listen to even a fraction, you need to do a lot more to get your stuff heard. Luckily, technology has come on a lot since then, so we have plenty of new options to get your performances out there...Recently, the big change to the broadcasting arena has been the rise of video streaming, via the likes of Ustream. Ustream is a website that enables you to set up a video broadcast, using a webcam, that anyone can tune into. You can use a built-in or external camera, and can take a line-in from a soundcard or mixer. It's like Youtube, but live.
Popular Ustream shows involve London's Boiler Room and Bristol's Panhead, and they can pull in thousands of viewers - a much more effective way of getting your sounds heard than playing the warm-up slot to 35 people in your local club. But it's not easy to get such figures tuning in; if you're an unknown DJ just playing the same records as everyone else, then people will be unlikely to tune to your show; they'll probably be watching Boiler Room.So the best way to get people watching is to make it a real event. To do this you'll need to do a regular session, so that people get used to catching your show. You'll also need help; it's hard keeping on top of social networks, and if you've got two or three people helping out then you can hit your networks that much harder. Additional DJs can also give more depth and variety to the music on your show. You can make it more visually interesting by getting a projection or banner, and by getting some people in the room too - why not make it into a miniature regular house party? By getting people down every week, you'll start to build a community - viewers will start to become those who know the people onscreen, those who normally come to the sessions but couldn't make it, and these regulars will start to put the word about themselves. Free marketing!
The main advantage that the big sites have is that they bring name guests - which is very hard to compete with. But you can hook up with a local club night and get some of their regular residents to play as guests on your show. Or you could make the connection even tighter - if they have a guest DJ coming from out of town, see if the promoter would be happy with the DJ playing a 30 minute "teaser" show on your stream; that way, the DJ brings in viewers for you, and it's free advertising for the club. You could even stream directly from the club itself - there are a lot of possibilities here.
As you can see, it's a lot of work to make a successful Ustream show. Which is why a lot of people still swear by internet radio. It's not the new thing any more, but what it does give you is a brand that you can stand behind; if it's a popular station then people will tune in regardless, and so you don't have to promote your stuff as hard - there will always be a core of listeners. But it's still necessary to try and make it an event - there are so many other stations and shows out there that you still need to get guests, hustle for dubs or find some other way of making your show stand out from the alternatives.
Live broadcasting is here to stay, then, and there are a lot of people making some seriously good use of it right now. So find yourself a webcam, get some friends round with a few beers, and see if you can't come up with the next big online show!
