eRockster, the Internet Radio site that lets you do so much stuff it’s sometimes confusing, also is pushing unsigned artists to sign up and get distribution. Consider eRockster is owned by Clearchannel, the mega conglomerate that owns the majority (?) of the radio stations in the US. The folks [...]]]> Who is eRockster?

eRockster, the Internet Radio site that lets you do so much stuff it’s sometimes confusing, also is pushing unsigned artists to sign up and get distribution. Consider eRockster is owned by Clearchannel, the mega conglomerate that owns the majority (?) of the radio stations in the US. The folks at eRockster tell me they have freedom to do pretty much as they please. Hmmm. As a former employee of a mega corporation (I once worked for a Phone company) I

Here are some screen shots showing the new interface on FlyTunes. Click to follow the post to the FlyTunes screen shots.

Looks like they took a [...]]]> Flytunes, quickly becoming my favorite thing on my iPod touch has just released a new interface and now also offers videos. This just keeps getting cooler. It’s also encroaching on Slacker.

Here are some screen shots showing the new interface on FlyTunes. Click to follow the post to the FlyTunes screen shots.

Looks like they took a clue from Microsoft with the What do you want to do line

From this line you choose what you want to do, note they added Video and Podcasts. Not much under either at the moment. More on this later

I selected Radio High Bitrate. this gives you the Select a Genre and Station page shown below. Now you select a genre

After the genre you select a station

Now you click the Play button and off you go.

Unfortunately after this the nice interface returns to the generic Quicktime “Playing Movie” graphic with no song information or other indicator of activity. I’m sure the folks at FlyTunes are working on this. Let’s hope so at least.

Below is a shot showing the rest of the menu with Podcasts and something called Accuradio. Not sure what this is but I guess we’ll see.

You can now do some customization to FlyTunes menus but clicking on that TINY little “Use a custom Guide” button was difficult and I have little fingers.

The next shot shows how you can customize the stations you’ll see on your device. Nice to turn off all the stations you’ll never listen to. You can do it by genre or by individual channels.

The following is a shot of the podcast menu. Not much here yet just a “How to get into College” podcast so we’ll skip that screen shot for now.

Here is what you see if you click on VIDEO and the KIDS and Family section.

This was well thought out. They give you a nice description of the show and a list of the available programs.

The video loaded with astounding speed, faster than most of the radio stations load. Maybe most folks are just not into Dora. Of course is you turn the iPod sideways it shows you the video in landscape mode.

All in all FlyTunes is making Remarkable strides in their Interface and content selection on a weekly basis. My only wish would be to make their website more informative. They could use some help files and better videos. (the videos are good and I of all people can appreciate being on a budget) This is one of those weird spaces that if you don’t keep ahead in the mind of the consumer someone else will.

You can see from where they are going that this is all leading to a “client based” release of FlyTunes based on Apples SDK coming in June. Then thing will really start to get interesting.

For more information or to sign up for FlyTunes go to www.flytunes.fm