eYada ceases live operations
July 9, 2001 1:45 PM   Subscribe

eYada ceases live operations Thoughts on the viablity of streamed talk on the Web?
posted by ParisParamus (7 comments total)
 
I still think this is a fantastic idea, particularly with the consolidation/blandization of Hertzian radio. Hope they can regroup.
posted by ParisParamus at 1:48 PM on July 9, 2001


The only reason real radio stations can make money in the first place is because there is a limited amount of competition in any given market (and the added benefit of the captive market of drivers). Online, that restriction is gone. And not only is an online station competing against every other streamed station on the planet - both Net-only and streamed broadcast signals - but they're competing against hundreds of thousands of alternate forms of online entertainment at the same time.

This problem is somewhat ameliorated by the fact that the potential audience is far larger, but not by much, since the amount of competition is infinitely higher as well.

Thus, the only way an online station could even have a prayer of getting enough of an audience to make money is if they were to produce some truly brilliant programming, something so great that word-of-mouth alone would cause their servers to overload. eYada, instead, decided to offer generic talk radio. The only thing special about eYada was that it was online. And nothing guarantees a dotcom failure like offering the same damn thing that already exists all over the place, and pretending it's special because "we're doing it online!" Yeah, great. Have fun burning your cash.
posted by aaron at 2:13 PM on July 9, 2001



And nothing guarantees a dotcom failure like offering the same damn thing that already exists all over the place, and pretending it's special because "we're doing it online!"

Postmaster General: "Electronic mail? Pshh!"

just ribbin ya.
posted by o2b at 2:56 PM on July 9, 2001


Huh? They got $25 million in funding last March and now they're shutting down and firing 70 people? Man, give me $25 million, one techie and I'll run a volunteer-powered station for the next bazillion years.
posted by fleener at 3:36 PM on July 9, 2001


Singlecast streaming is expensive. Not your normal run of the mill services website. For Internet radio and streaming to really get off the ground, we need to have true multicast ability...
posted by fooljay at 3:59 AM on July 11, 2001


fooljay: streaming is expensive per/listener, but eYada didn't run up against that limitation. I don't think it even ran up against the non-portability limitation. I think it ran up against the barrier of lack of imagination. Its schedule sounded like CNBC circa 1995. $25 Million, with some ad revenue added in, in 15 months?!
posted by ParisParamus at 6:18 AM on July 11, 2001


I for one will miss Eyada. I listened every day.
posted by ljromanoff at 8:34 AM on July 11, 2001


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