It’s been a bit of a busy week at work, with not one, but two major projects launching on Friday night.
One is Absolute 80s, a new station which does what it says on the tin online, on DAB in London, and on your TV, mobile, etc.
The other is dabbl, the user-controlled station which was originally launched in beta as part of One Golden Square Labs. As a beta it broadcast 7pm -6am online and on DAB in London, but to coincide with the launch of Absolute 80s, it now has a much larger music library as an evolution of what was Absolute Xtreme. It’s also 24/7 online, as well as on DAB across Swindon, Bristol and Essex.
What’s been immediately interesting is how for me, dabbl combines some of the benefits of radio (not having to make an individual playlist, hearing new tracks, sharing with people who aren’t online etc), with some of the benefits of playlist-based services (being able to pick music I like).
And also looking at initial traffic, Facebook page support and Twitter messages for both stations. Obviously it’s incredibly early to draw any conclusions, but so far the response has been really positive, which is fantastic.
If you want to be supportive:
Oh, and if you want to listen to both stations while you’re out of the house, they’ve joined Absolute Radio and Absolute Classic Rock in the freshly-updated Absolute Radio iAmp for the iPhone and for Android Phones, available on iTunes and in the Android Marketplace now.
Not bad a bad week, especially when you consider there’s also been a load of other stuff going on (for instance 3 special Christmas sessions in a church in London), plus there are a load of other projects and plans which will be revealed in the near future.
And behind the scenes, it’s been continual proof of how talented the people are in the building. And the thing is this combination of talent and innovation continually means raising the game, which is fantastic (if a little scary at times!).
Right, time to go and do some voting on dabbl…