I’ve been thinking a lot about web audio players lately. Working for a radio station I’ve had to deal with live web streaming audio for a long time, but not since we put efforts in CAVEradio had I really thought about getting creative with the typical pop-up audio player. As I use CAVEradio as my guinea pig I’m starting to consider skipping the pop-up player entirely.

Post radio stations and streaming places have pop-up players. You click the button and a new window opens up, usually quite a bit smaller than a normal web page. The intent of these players is to be just that – a player – without much else. You’ll hear an advertisement, maybe make a few customization choices and then the player ends up minimized or out of focus. That pop-up player acts like a normal radio: out of sight, out of mind and in the background.

When we started CAVEradio we included a real-time chat along with the pop-up player. The chat is a critical part of the show as we use the banter there to see what people want to talk about and get their reactions to what we’re talking about. It’s an invaluable tool that provides instant (free) feedback. I kept thinking about what more I could add to the pop-up player that would keep people engaged with what we’re talking about and perhaps promote more conversation topics. We’ve tried real time polls, call-in links, and the standard Twitter feed…and all of it worked pretty well. Continue reading →