At most times, there are at least a few people chatting back and forth to each other, and most are listening to the station, building up TSL. In addition, the chat window automatically inserts each song into the chat as it plays, along with album art and links to purchase the songs. Users can also rate the songs up or down.

This is all part of building a community around your station and your online presence. A community to which listeners can belong - where your station becomes a part of their identity. I may be a web guy and not a 'marketing guru', but I have to believe that's a good thing for your station.

If the on-air talent at your station join in on the chat (not at the expense of the air product, but in addition to it) that would only serve to make your station's site more interactive and more attractive to visitors and listeners. Chat has a great added value for more interactive shows, like morning shows. Instead of going to the phones live to get immediate interaction on a bit, the host or co-host can scan the chat and cherry-pick the best comments on-air. While you don't get the audio that a phone call provides, you do get the assurance that the comment won't be boring - which even phone screening can't prevent for some callers.

They Do this for Free?

Coming from the world of radio, where the bottom line is the bottom line - offering this service for free is a bit odd. In actuality, it does make some business sense for YES to do this. In the past two weeks, YES started offering video from YouTube (owned by Google) and Google AdSense ads on every station's page. While the video doesn't generate any revenue, it is a great feature for users and doesn't cost them any bandwidth since the videos are hosted by YouTube (although YouTube's business model likely makes even less sense). However the ads are delivered by Google and are directly related to the song currently playing.

This leads to highly relevant information for the end-user. The same reason that linking to Amazon and iTunes to allow users to purchase songs from the artist is relevant and not annoying advertising (so much so that most users don't even think of it as advertising), providing ads that are related to the song you are listening to in an unobtrusive way is likely viewed more as a service by listeners than most ads they view.

This is the promise of the web and one of the traditional media's weaknesses. Most radio ads (except maybe concert advertisements) are unrelated to the reason why they are listening to the station in the first place. This is fine as most listeners have come to accept that - but it also makes listeners less likely to be influenced by them. Since every page view on the web has to be delivered by a computer that potentially has knowledge about the visitor about to receive it, that computer can later the content so it is tailored to each user and the content that is being delivered. It replaces the shotgun approach of advertising with that of a sniper rifle.

In the end, YES is doing exactly what radio stations do - offering up free content in exchange for an audience to which they can advertise.

What To Do Outside of Market 150

YES currently tracks stations in markets 150 and bigger through Mediagroup. However, that does not mean that smaller stations are shut out - they just have to do a little more work. YES said that they are working with some stations on taking a direct information feed from their audio systems, but they are still bringing it up to speed. That being said, if you are interested in having YES display your station's music, just contact them to discuss it further. Of course, that changes the effort required to get your song information on your site and the potential value of YES. You'd have to consider that as well before deciding to go ahead.

As always, AllAccess has my “The Net Untangled Tip of the Day” each weekday and a column on Website Wednesdays. So check back and together we’ll get our internet presence focused on keeping radio strong in this world of increasing competition.

Do you agree with me? Or am I full of hot air? If you have comments or any questions about radio websites – either general questions relating to the industry or the web or even specific (HTML, PHP, .NET, Javascript, etc.) questions, send me an email through http://Preppermint.net/contact . I’ll answer your question quickly and maybe even use it for a future column.