Tuesday, May 02, 2006

Anniversary Party


Be sure to listen to Treasure Island Oldies live show this coming Sunday, May 7, when we celebrate the 9th Anniversary of the show. It's hard to believe that back in 1997 in a tiny studio not much larger than a closet, Treasure Island Oldies began. It was very much the pre-broadband era; most people had 28.8k dialup modems, and the luxury was a 56k modem. And it was not a rarity to have tons of buffering and frequent connection loss, kind of like if you did not hold the string tight between the two tin cans! We've come along way since then. Today you hear the show in high-end audio quality in stereo via broadband.

Over the years, Treasure Island Oldies has been recognized for its innovation in technology and programming. It was spotlighted in a feature article in Maclean's Magazine, Canada's weekly news magazine. Global Television News At Six did a two minute-plus item in their prime time newscast. In addition, it's been spotlighted on the Voice Of America program, Communications World, and was the number one show on a shortwave radio station in Europe, SWRS. The show has been reviewed by Rober Fontenot of oldies.about.com as "Quite possibly the Internet's finest oldies netcast show..."

So much has happened since the show started back in 1997 and from Day One; we have been proudly associated with the Dowco Entertainment Network, later becoming the MediaOnTap Network, using the studio faciltites of insinc, Interactive Netcasting Systems Inc. in Burnaby, British Columbia. For the past three plus years, Treasure Island Oldies has been involved with more new cutting edge technology, which enables listeners to hear the show on their cell phones. We are pleased to be available across the United States via satellite on the Mobile Broadcast Network, MBN. As well, our good friends at Radio 88 FM in Gothenburg, Sweden, the country's second larget city, carry our show on their station every week. I am honoured to have such great partners to bring Treasure Island Oldies to you.

I would like to thank Hugh Dobbie and John Doyle at insinc; both gentlemen have been tremendously supportive and great to work with all these years. I would be terribly remiss if I did not thank and acknowledge those responsible for the creation, ongoing maintenance and weekly updates to the website. Blast Radius Communications, designed the first official Treasure Island Oldies website. Lee Feldman and his two other partners at the time, were just starting out and worked from a rented house in Vancouver. Their company grew and has become one of the leading web development companies in the world. Jim Amidei, my good friend in Wheaton, Illinois, eventually took over as webmaster, and for several years updated and evolved the site into a new and different version, resulting in great feedback from listeners. His support and friendship is truly a gift. Due to a number of circumstances and health issues, Eddy Fisher took over for Jim last summer and for many months he and I planned and worked on the development of a completely new website to include a whole new look. I am thrilled with the outcome and the feedback has been wonderful. I am also grateful to the artist, Ali Knight, for permission to use her artwork, You And Me And The Big Palm Tree, as the signature graphic on the new site.

Since the launch of the new site in March, this Treasure Island Oldies Blog as well as Podcasts of the weekly feature Rock & Roll News have been created. Yesterday was the single larget day of traffic, downloads and subscriptions for the podcasts! Thank you.

And I am most grateful to you for listening to the show week after week. And in recent months, the number of listeners has dramatically increased. From all the email I receive from all over the world, it seems that it only takes listening to the show once to get hooked.

So join me this Sunday, May 7 from 6 to 10 p.m. Pacific for a great party on Treasure Island Oldies as we celebrate our 9th Anniversary and the start of our tenth year of bringing you the world's best oldies and lots of Lost Treasures.

I would be pleased to read your email greetings on the show; just send them to michael@treasureislandoldies.com and also be sure to send your requests. I will do my best to play them on our Anniversary Special. You may also leave greeting comments and requests here at the blog and I will read them on the show.

See you Sunday. Bye for now.