Supafresh

The Challenge

Austereo asked the Hyro Team to build an online radio player as part of their DAB+ (Digital Audio Broadcast) trial running in early 2008.

The DAB+ online radio player needed to stream audio whilst displaying information on the current track as well showing the next and previous tracks, all synchronised with fractional lag time. The player needed a chat functionality with a back end pre and post moderation on tool. Austereo also wanted to enable users to buy all tracks from the play list and view album cover artwork.

The Digital Business Solution

Austereo’s DAB+ online radio player was delivered in 6 weeks. The player was built in JavaScript and Flash 9 with a Java backend content management system (CMS).

Hyro produced a number of creative designs for the player and built an effi cient bespoke CMS allowing the Austereo team to update rating text, pre and post moderate chat, administer users and do simple reporting.

Omniture tracking was used to give a further breakdown of user activity and reporting.

Wireframes for both the front-end application and the CMS were created as well as a user guide for the CMS.

Flash 9 was used to add in simple animations and transitions to the player. As well as a JSON interface to search for tracks on iTunes and deliver a direct link to the users. The Audio stream is Windows Media Player and the track information is fed via XML to a FTP, with the aim to move over to a Web Service at a later point.

Success Achieved

• Austereo’s DAB+ online radio player is the first in Australia.
• Once the player and station have been tested and reviewed by the target demographic, further development will be undertaken.
• The player is an easily re-useable application that Austereo can use for other stations should they want to roll out further DAB+ radio stations.