SHOUTcast Broadcasters Convention

Shoutcast creator Tom Pepper sent over a press release regarding a third-party convention being held in Austin, Texas this weekend for personal Internet broadcasters. This includes all of you out there who are busy streaming your own collection of music across the net to users everywhere! Keynote will be Jack Moffit of Icast/Icecast and the Vorbis Project, and on-site lodging is available. The cost will be $99, or $199 the day of the show.

The full press release is below:

World's first tradeshow for personal Internet broadcasters announced
CasterCon 2000 to be held in the capital of live music, Austin, TX, September 29 - October 1

August 14, 2000 - (Portland, ME) - CasterCon 2000, a technical trade show devoted to professionals, vendors, and hobbyists of the exploding personal Internet broadcasting phenomenon was officially announced today. Spurred by the exponential growth in personal Internet broadcasting several vendors and individuals within the personal broadcasting industry have grouped together to develop a community oriented show that focuses on the personal Internet broadcasting arena of Internet based streaming media. A group already organized to meet in Austin on September 29 has opened itself up to attract fellow broadcasters and developers.

"Streaming Media is an enormous field, and most of the major companies and conferences are focused on corporate clients, giant streaming Web sites, and not the individual or small business oriented broadcaster. Those shows also don't focus as much on the tools and techniques they use," said Ben Sawyer, Co-founder of Digitalmill, and co-author of Internet Broadcasting Power. "A group of us decided to get together and share our experiences and from there emerged this conference. We're creating a real place for this amazing community of people, vendors, and services that are spawning this new use of the Internet to get together, meet each other, learn and have fun," added Sawyer.

Radio Focused
CasterCon 2000 will be focused on the emerging technology of personal Internet radio. Spawned by the development of easy to use streaming audio servers thousands of people and companies around the world are broadcasting music, talk and more directly from their computer desktops to 10, 20 or dozens of enthused listeners. As bandwidths costs are dropping the number of hobbyists and commercial interests expected to start their own small audience oriented Internet radio stations is expected to reach into the millions. "Overtime personal radio stations will probably also spawn person Internet TV stations but for now radio is where it's at and people are having a blast. A strong community has already developed and we wanted to give them a place to gather besides virtually on the Web," said Jay Krivanek, a college student and founder of SHOUTclub.com a growing online community of broadcasters using SHOUTcast Internet radio technology.

Community Oriented
Attending the show will be dozens of active broadcasters, software developers, and vendors offering services. All attendees will participate in a series of talks, discussions, and panels covering a wide spectrum of issues in the personal broadcasting field from copyright issues, to promotional tricks, and development of the next-generation of tools. "We expect turnout won't be in the thousands. This is an emerging medium and our goal is to build a forum and a service that will grow overtime and give help and more voice to vendors, users and other supporters of the personal broadcasting industry." said Bryan Payne, of Audiorealm.com a leading developer of personal Internet broadcasting tools.

CasterCon is also trying to bring together experienced radio broadcasters who want to help this new medium get jumpstarted. JJ McKay, the voice behind a million radio station promos and bumpers as well as the broadcaster of Hot Country Hits a leading SHOUTcast station will be attending and is helping with the conference design. "I've been involved in the radio industry for many years, but nothing has me more excited than the thought of millions of personal fans building their own stations on the Web." said McKay.

Inexpensively priced
With a low price for attending CasterCon is hoping to bring together a small nucleus of the personal broadcasting community and users of tools like AOL/Nullsoft's SHOUTcast Internet Radio, Live365, AudioRealm's S.A.M., and Scour.net's MyCaster. "The great thing about this conference is that it's inexpensive, and aimed at regular people who can't necessarily pay $3000 to fly across the country to go to a corporate trade show." said Chris Popp, an organizer of CasterCon and manager of RCN Radio Networks, a leading personal broadcasting radio station. "We want this to be a yearly event that grows and grows as the fan-base of personal broadcasting grows over the years to come."

About CasterCon
CasterCon 2000 is being held Friday, September 29-October 1, 2000 at the Omni Hotel in downtown Austin, TX. Tickets to CasterCon 2000 are $99 until September 1, when they begin rising to $149 for tickets purchased 9/1 and 9/15, to $229 for tickets purchased between 9/16 and 9/28, and for $299 at the door of the show on September 29. All registration, travel and lodging details are located on http://www.castercon.com the official Web site of CasterCon.

CasterCon 2000 is being developed by Digitalmill, Inc., RCN Radio Networks, SHOUTclub.com, and Spacial Audio Solutions

Fast Facts

Name
CasterCon 2000

Website
http://www.CasterCon.com

Where
Austin, Texas

Exactly Where
Omni Hotel in downtown Austin, Texas

When
Sept. 29, 30 and Oct. 1, 2000

Days
2 (but it starts with a party on Friday night!)

Conference Tracks
Two