Stream a Little Stream

"With things like Live365.com, live broadcasts aren't compelling," Rose says. "It used to be super-cool, but it's not enough to carry a site anymore."

John Jeffrey, executive vice president of corporate strategy for Live365.com, argues that his company's services essentially level the playing field for would-be Webcasters. "Think of the odds of breaking when you're a band," he says. "The odds are maybe even worse [for becoming successful with an online radio station]. But every year, somebody comes out of that cloud, and it's the most amazing thing you've heard. To some extent, there are lower start-up costs than starting your own band, and lower start-up costs by about 20,000 or 200,000 times than launching your own terrestrial radio station. And there are people out there that just love music, and they want to share it with people.

"So let's say that you don't become the biggest thing since sliced bread, you don't reach tons of people, but you share something you're passionate about with a few hundred or a thousand people," he continues. "There's something very positive about that -- is it a business model that's going to stay afloat and you go with for a long time? Maybe, if you're very careful and you build up a grass-roots campaign and you really work it for a long time. But certainly the industry isn't mature enough yet to make you completely viable out of the box."

Groovetech's Hillinger sees it this way. "A lot of companies are cooking up these Internet radio strategies in the conference room. And they've got a lot of money and their high-level partnerships, but the one thing they don't have is people that are really dedicated to the music."

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