nicecast - internet radio

Nicecast, from rogue amoeba allows you to broadcast your own internet radio station or listen to your iTunes Music Library from anywhere. Nicecast (a mac product costing US$40) takes in any input and broadcasts it back out to the Internet, so all you need to listen to your broadcast is a streaming MP3 player on any platform. Nicecast includes a built-in streaming server.

The demo version has been fun to play with - I can see that you could use it to broadcast live events (school events, concerts, conferences) by using a mike on your laptop, or connecting a direct line to an audio mixing board. Students could use iTunes along with the included voiceover feature to add commentary between songs, and broadcast a radio show within the school and to their community. There are of course issues with streaming copyrighted material, and there may be LAN settings to be negotiated in schools.

There are “top 5″ stations listed at the foot of the front page. I tuned into “tin ear radio”, who broadcast in the “Snooty Classical Music” genre, along with 2 other listeners. Works fine.