WordPress Radio – WPR.FM – Get Involved

Since my involvement in WordPress some 9 years ago, I followed the various audio and video productions pertaining to WordPress with great interest. As the technology of podcasting became more prevalent and easier to produce, there were many new productions about WordPress that came and went. Recently though, there have been a lot of really good shows that have been released on a regular basis that have provided a well-rounded set of listening choices. I believe the time has come to engage in a community based strategic alliance of these shows in the form of a 24/7 streaming audio station.

Thus, the formation of WPR.FM. WordPress Radio.

At first, I was unsure how to go about starting a streaming radio station. As a podcaster of 8+ years, streaming was always viewed as the “old” way of doing things. This was more commonly profiled due to lack of bandwidth or mobile portability. Nowadays with modern carrier technology able to stream anywhere we are, I feel the stars have aligned to create an audio channel that’s all ours. I approached my friend “Mr. Oil” who runs FralNet, a UK-based host provider and he liked the idea so much that he graciously offered to help get us up and running at no cost! He helped me with the setup, and in 10 minutes, we were streaming to the world!

Now that the connections were made and the “on-air light” has been illuminated, it’s time to get the DJ’s in their proper rotation. Ideally we would like to see the following shows in the programming lineup: WordPress Weekly with Jeff Chandler, WordPress Plugins A-Z with John Overall and Marcus Couch, Your Website Engineer with Dustin Hartzler, The WordPress Chick with Kim Doyal, WP Watercooler with Chris Lema, Jeff Tucker and cast, DradCast with Brad Williams and Dre Armeda, Matt Report with Matt Medeiros, Weekly Web Tools with Dave Jackson and others like WP Bacon, Apply Filters and my own 3 minute news segment of The Daily Plugin. And that’s just who I listen to. There are probably tons more that I am missing.

From an additional content perspective, how cool would it be to get Q&A segments from WordCamps or Meetup Groups? How about a monthly “Industry Night” show where EVERYONE who produces a show all gets on a call and goes around the table talking WordPress? I think our community would get a lot of benefit from this. We also have the ability to stream live, so the possibilities are only limited by what content is available to us.

So we have a WordPress stream, now what?

Site Design and Development
The next phase will be site builds and profiles for all the content, shows and presenters. This is where I am looking for the community for help. If this is a project that you believe has merit and you’d like to volunteer to help with the site build, please let me know.

App Creation
If you have experience in APP development for both Android and iOS and would like to work on the APP project with us, we welcome your participation there as well. Our goal is to create a free stream companion app that can be played on the go and have all the appropriate show information about both content and hosts.

Content Programming
We’re looking for help with programming the station as well. As we start receiving more submitted content from the WordPress Community, it will be important to keep a high standard with regards to the production elements. We’d like to make this a professional station with station IDs, show introductions/lead-ins and fresh WP news content every day. If you are an experienced audio editor, we would enjoy your participation as well.

For everyone else, I invite you to tune in! The stream is already live and can be listened to on our splash page one any device, in any format.

So what do you think of the concept? Let me know what ideas you have and what I may have missed.