A Joke? Why is Google doing this?
http://www.google.com/radioautomation/

This does not seem like a joke to me. From my brief perusing through this website, it looks like this product is designed to be a turnkey way to create an Internet radio station that can either deliver live programming or podcasts. It might be possible that they want to compete with Live365. Possibly, they will one day they will build a farm of these servers to provide options for the small-time Internet broadcaster who doesn't want to deal with the hassle of server maintenance and of getting a high speed network connection to his premises.

It appears to be for real. CJ, are you looking?

It's the former Scott Studios and Maestro systems. Google bought the companies a couple of years ago. Not a joke, folks.

" It appears to be for real. CJ, are you looking?"

I use SAM4 and this does many of these same features. Not all. But many. I do like the Hotkey soundboard though. That's something SAM does not have.

Any info on the cost of this setup? I looked around the site a little and didn't see anything. It is available now, or not yet?

It appears to be a hardware package you buy, not a streaming service like audiorealm or 365.

http://www.google.com/radioautomation/productshardware.html

What happened to Demark? I thought they bought Scott. I suppose Google bought Demark. The screen certainly looks just like the Demark I last used. I disliked that system immensely !

Next Gen is much better. The damned hot keys suck, probably because no one knew how to set them up properly !

>>What happened to Demark? I thought they bought Scott. I suppose Google bought Demark.<<

Precisely.

Got to play with the Google/Scott set up last year when interviewing at a station. We don't have it at my station, still using the latest SS32 and enjoy it. I will admit, really enjoyed the AV at the Wolf in Seattle and Wenatchee, especially the live mode. Then again, everyone has their favorites.

Side note was funny a couple of years ago when one of our AV cards died, taking most of my country station, plus 1/2 our CHR and Spanish too. Luckily, I always loaded up my laptop (OTS juke program - Australia) with the same music and always had current jingles too, because I saved us $4,000 in one week by using my laptop for our station for 10 days waiting for the correct AV card to replace a very old one.

The love from Cherry Creek and the GM was shown two months later when I showed up for my gig and was informed I was not picked up on the new deal.

Hey, that's radio.

Kahtik,
You say you like SS32, but what did you think of the Google/Scott system when you got to play with it?

I enjoyed the smoother visual presentation of the program verses the standard SS32. The station was almost done with all the needed sound cards, as they had just started using it, so there were just a few minor features missing. However, there was a "burp" that happened a couple of times resulting in not reading the next voice track and another time an audio timing problem.

Having dealt with problem issues in the past with Scott Studios TV test version when working at KFXO Fox 39 in Bend, and minor issues with both my AV and Enco experiences, it's not a surprise. Any such "burps" could have resulted from the original installation to improper upgrades.

For example, at Fisher in Wenatchee, WA, I often would get into an arguement with our engineer who would acuse me of improper cart labeling resulting in an error on rotation process. I knew I had to relable everything to prove my point, as it was already labeled correctly to get him to realize he had set improper key switches in the wrong positions. It also helped getting AV on the phone myself as our engineer would never admit to the error.

I also enjoyed the information file attached to the hot key for artist information, etc. You know, every automation program has it's pro's and con's.

Great example right now is the Selector I'm using has quit following the "shuffle" and "kick" rules. I haven't touched a thing, and in fact, have always taken a bit longer than usual to schedule as I've always "massaged" my logs. Which I feel also explains why I've never lost in ratings war when I had music control. Now there is something acting strange and even Selector is stumped. Funny, I've mentioned what I think it is, but I think certain bodies think I'm just a small market afternoon PD who might not know anything. LOL.

If anyone is really curious on where I stand and my work ethics, check out last weeks, no the week before's R&R under the country "letters" portion to R.J. Curtis.

OK, enough rambling... but I would enjoy spending more time getting to know the Google/Scott set up as I felt it was WAY to short amount of time spent to look at it.