"Tildes as community radio" examples of hybrid social media?
I have for the last few years been preoccupied with creating a kind of audio-based social media, a call-in radio-show if you will without any call-screening, and the occasional piece of music to rest the ears after too many words. By now this has resulted in a pretty solid community of dedicated listeners capable of discussing a wide range of topics and so far no heckling or trolling even though we never had a call-screener. Two listeners even met through the show and are now dating <3 <4
The relative success of this radio format has made me ponder how a community comparable to tildes would behave if it had an audio or podcast layer to it. Like a spoken forum/Reddit thread with moderators arranging audio messages from users/listeners into threads that make up rotating topical sections in an ongoing audio transmission. If you could listen to a curated spoken feed of tildes. A community-based audio forum live radio social media hybrid.
Drop some references if you know of any media experiments it might be worth for me to know about while I brainstorm with myself!
One example I know of is the US-based 100% listener-sponsored radio station WFMU. Full weekly schedule, absolutely unrelenting top programming by hosts who have full autonomy to explore their broad musical interests. There is never this modern smarmyness of some podcasts hosts. No ads. Fully listener sponsored. Your attention is taken for granted. Nobody's trying to get you hooked. Your attention is rewarded. They have a written chat-roll during most broadcasts the host will sometimes include into their speak, but not often. It's freeform radio with a digital layer as an add-on. It's fantastic for what it is. https://wfmu.org
Do you know of any experimental/hybrid social media where the users/listeners provide the spoken input in the style of call-in radio? Please drop some references, books, anything that connects to experiences gleaned from this type of experiment. Also interested in your ideas for how to make this work in real life.
It's not supposed to be the best and most streamlined brains-off entertainment ever. Just a stab at a technologically modern and democratic way of enabling discourse and the identification that seems a unique feature of audio-based media. When you can't see the person talking, it's a pseudonymous stranger ... you fill in the blanks with projections, guesses about the person. Always loved this kind of interaction. Which is why I'm here on tildes too!
I don't have much to add to the discussion, but I wanted to say thanks for mentioning WFMU. I do a weekly show there. :-)
https://wfmu.org/playlists/N0
yeah! If only for this comment my question is a huge success. always wanted to get closer to the music traiditions of Louisiana and New Orleans and now the tourist bus embarks from WFMU HQ -- Right on!
I don't have anything helpful to contribute, but I do get flashbacks to when YouTube had video responses. When reddit was adding the 'live' threads and video player, I was really hoping to see something like an audio-response and dialogue tree system implemented at some point. That clearly did not happen.
An interesting concept. I've never really gotten into podcasts, and most social media makes me want to vomit.
An audio based social media... Tildes version would be enabling AI voices, assigning them to people/users/handles and having it read back the detailed threads that people are known for on here. That would be an interesting listen to me.
I'm used to community based radio. My bro in law is ex army and they had their own stations. People called in a lot on that. My other bro in law runs a community online radio station with members from all over the world. They have some non-geo telephone numbers to do call-ins occasionally on that too.
So, no is the answer as to me knowing anything of use, but I just wanted to state my interest in this thread out of curiosity.
The SDF public access unix system has aNONradio: https://anonradio.net/ . Anyone on the system can get a regular slot for a show, and there are reserved slots for open VoIP dial in. They have a chat program called COM and lots of people hang in there while listening to whatever show is on. Sometimes this is interactive, the show host might also be in COM and will respond to discussion.
Listening now. This is more or less exactly the kind of concept I was hoping to discover. Will listen over the next few weeks to get a feel for the dynamic of the open-ended approach to broadcasting. Please send me a PM if you come across similar concepts in the future. Thanks!
If I am understanding correctly, this sounds kinda similar to the app Clubhouse. I was into it for a bit when it came out but it felt like a lot of activity dropped off relatively quickly. It was really interesting while it lasted (I think it is still relatively used but I don't any longer).
You are right, hadn't thought of Clubhouse when thinking abt this idea. Clubhouse had a focus on an eavesdropping fantasy of celebrities socialising no?
Have you tried Airchat? It’s audio-based social media, you’re not even allowed to type there.
I think it’s kind of fun and forced you to pay attention how you speak, so you may even get better at speaking.
Looks interesting. Thanks for pointing it out to me. Will check it out. Curious how the interaction dynamic is shaped by voice input only.