I think I just broke my radio...

Update: Blaupunkt has a 3G car radio, but its attached to miroamer. Using your phone as your internet radio is much better than buying a specific car radio that is tied to a single source internet radio content provider



Pre thoughts:
If you are coming to this site from one of the hacker blogs, you have undoubted already thought of this concept, but its a proof that the concept works: end-to-end streaming music from a server into a mobile device to be used on your person while walking, to be used in your car while driving, or to be used in your house.
If you are not a DIYer, or a hacker or whatever, than consider this: why do you need to have XM radio to listen to the same station coast to coast? Why is it that you can only listen to Hot97 in New York, why can't you listen to it while vacationing in Los Angeles? Why can't you listen to Rush Limbaugh while walking the streets of Cairo? Well, you can. And my mini project proves it.
I hope that this proof with lead some enterprising entrepreneur to take a chance on killing analog and digital radio and satellite radio. I hope that this project will lead someone to think outside the 88.6-107.9MHz spectrum. Its quite silly that in 2009 we still have not harnessed the power of packet switching to replace traditional radio.
The technology is there to have a limitless amount of audio content at your fingertips anywhere you want, at anytime.
This is the future of music.
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I have a G1 Android phone with unlimited data service ($20/month); however this concept should work equally well with a Blackberry or Iphone.

I began the morning shelling out $10 for a mini-USB-to-earphone connector at the local T-Mobile store. You can get the same adapter for $3.99 here.

I, then, cruised over to my local Circuit City (liquidation sale) and bought a Griffin iTrip Universal.

After purchasing my stuffs I downloaded StreamFurious for my Android phone (search: "streamfurious" in the Android market). For Blackberry and Iphone users: search for a program that allows you to listen to streaming music and/or ShoutCast radio stations.

I plugged everything in, set my car radio to 107.7 and listened to streaming audio from all sorts of different stations. Proof-of-concept stage 1 is complete and proven.

After this I went for a bike ride, plugging my earphones into the G1. I listened to streaming radio for more than an hour and a half. Very little battery power was used up (if you are in a car and use an adapter this is not an issue). The music never stopped. At one point my 3G network even fell back to Edge network, however I didn't notice because there was no interruption in audio.

Extra Credit:
I was extremely pleased with my mini project so far, however I wanted to see if I could stream content myself. I used my Linode slice to load the GnuMp3 streaming server and put The Federalist Papers audio book on that guy. I pointed my phone to the server, and lo' and behold, it streamed perfectly.

Final Thoughts:

1. This proof-of-concept opens the door for anyone to make their own streaming radio station and play it in their car.
   
2. Most of todays cars have an auxiliary jack for music (Ipod) players. This makes buying the FM transmitter unnecessary.
   
3. Some entrepreneur needs to, finally, stick a fork in satellite radio and, hopefully, conventional radio by making a 3G audio solution for the home, car, boat. The only products that have not evolved since their inceptions are radio and toilet paper.
   
4. I will never listen to Soldja Boy again. Never.
   

Just do it.

I am a web developer for a company in southern California. As any good thinking worker should be, I love to be lazy. I try my best to minimize my efforts and maximize my returns. For my development this is done by maximizing my reuse of code, using automation tools, and trying to dove-tail tasks. Being lazy doesn't mean not approaching tasks with all due diligence but it does mean using your brain so that you don't have to put the same effort into doing the same tasks or similar tasks the next time.

One of the problems with laziness is that sometimes its unassuming cousin, procrastination, rears its ugly head. Procrastination has kept me from moving forward with my ideas for months, and in some cases years.

In the case of my first startup, the subject of this blog, I procrastinated reading my Amazon Web Services book, instead choosing to get consumed with learning Lean/Scrum techniques, reading all those lovely Pragmatic Programmer books, and hacking around with my G1. So what could I do?

I had to pay for it.

As long as I was relying on myself to learn the amazon API and build the core piece of functionality needed for my startup, I was never going to get started, because there was always something more fun to learn and play with. I also needed to act like I was running a business if I was ever going to realize running a business. So I outsourced. Simply by putting money on the line I gained a sense of ownership and realism with my startup.

I used rent-a-coder. I tried my hand at oDesk, but I found the developers to be wishy washy. I consider myself an senior level Rails developer and these guys were iffy on talent at best. I also started dialogue with two or three developers only to have them flake out, LA style, and stop responding. Interestingly enough, rent-a-coder has the money put into escrow before the developer is allowed to start a project. This makes the relationship between buyer and seller real. With money on the line, the partnership is given credibility, and real stakes. The job either gets done in a business like manner or someones reputation gets tarnished. Rent-a-coder will ban parties who attempt to pull one over. Each project is also assigned a liaison, in my case its Julia who called me and helped me through the process.

My outsource team is in Bangalore. And I have spoken to them twice.

I have dipped my baby-toe into the water and I am ready to go for it.

As with most things in life, some people talk*, and some people just do it.


*I am a talker, I am trying to be a doer.

Welcome to my blog.

So I have decided to put my money where my mouth is and create a startup.