Bertelsmann International
launched
two new Internet music channels Tuesday, delivering popular British and
German
music to fans throughout Europe.
Making the service possible is technology from
Westwind Media.com, the
Denver, Colorado-based back-end solution provider of audio and video
content for the Internet. The American company has established
a co-location in Germany specially for the project.
“Westwind Media’s co-location facility allows us to
bring our multimedia services closer to our European clients,
thereby increasing the end user’s experience,” said Drew Decker, network
operations manager of Westwind Media.
Initially, the two channels — named BOL Radio — will start with a
play-list of 50 songs each, adding 25 additional songs per month.
To keep the play-list up-to-date, BOL.com sends music on a
weekly basis to Westwind Media via FTP (file transfer protocol),
using the services of online music distributor Fastraxx.
Listeners who enjoy the various tracks can purchase the music
simply by clicking an e-commerce feature on BOL’s player box.
Fans have a choice of first viewing the cover art, or buying a
CD immediately online.
Westwind Media reports that there is no technical reason why
BOL Radio should not “go live,” but the station has chosen
to have the music encoded and streamed using Windows Media Player
for the convenience of users.
It is expected that BOL will launch up to ten additional radio
stations during the next twelve months. To date, Westwind Media
has an outstanding contract to equip BOL with just two more
stations over the next two months.
Westwind Media has provided broadcast streaming solutions
for many other customers, including BET.com, CDNOW, TheStreet.com,
Lycos, Fidelity and Smart Money.