Full interview with Douglas Arellanes, Head of Research and Development at Campcaster.

Bess Kargman: It seems like campcaster could represent the future of radio (and the way the industry could be changing)…could this mark a trend or a sign of the future?

Douglas Arellanes: We’d be very happy if Campcaster had a role in the future of radio; that’s what we’re working hard to achieve.

The problem is that I don’t see a single future for radio, as things seem to be splitting and recombining in interesting ways. When mobile operators are offering access to services like Rhapsody over 3G, satellite services like XM and Sirius are offering recording functions for their receivers, discovery services like Last.fm and Pandora are making it easier to find and listen to new music, and when community broadcasters are starting to regularly broadcast via the web, I’m not sure there is a capital-R Radio any more.

We see Campcaster making a difference in lowering the barriers to entry to making quality radio, regardless of the delivery method (FM, shortwave, Internet stream, podcast, etc.). We’re also working hard to give independent broadcasters the same tools that have, up until now, only been accessible to well-funded organizations. Finally, we’re making sure that Campcaster enables broadcasters (for lack of a better term) to share their programs with one another to create “virtual radio networks,” and we believe that has tremendous potential.

Kargman: What is your vision for the company?

Arellanes: A point of clarification: We’re not a company, we’re part of a 501(c)3 public charity devoted to supporting independent media in emerging democracies. Our vision is to provide the most effective means of support to these organizations so they can do their jobs more effectively and be self-sustainable in the long term. On the technology side, by creating a community of users with a common set of interests - radio broadcasters - we’re following a model that has been proven in the computing world with open source projects like Apache, which has become the de facto standard for Web servers. In a perfect world, broadcasters in the developed world would use Campcaster in the same way, extending it and making it fit their own needs. And then, because we have taken steps to spread Campcaster among independent media in the developing world, those organizations would benefit as well.

Bess Kargman: Is this just another form of democratized media or is it something different?

Arellanes: With Campcaster, democratization is occurring on several levels, in front of the microphone, in your headphones and up at the head end. The listener gets the benefit of better programs that are potentially drawing from more diverse sources as well as being delivered in a number of ways. The broadcaster gets the benefit of having lots of functionality they couldn’t afford in the past, as well as being able to network their station with others. And the unsung heroes in broadcasting - the engineers - get something with its workings transparent and open for improvement; as opposed to commercial products, Campcaster is not a “black box” and has been specifically designed to encourage technical innovation.

Bess Kargman: Some other radio outlets are popping up that are similar to Campcaster—how would you say your creation is differs from the others?

Arellanes: If by ‘radio outlets’ you mean other open source radio playout systems, then yes, there are others. There are also commercial services that will seek to match some of Campcaster’s features, just as has occurred in the open source content management segment - something we also have deep experience with. On the content management front, our next release 1.2.0 “Kotor” is designed to interoperate with our Campsite content management system, and we expect to see a tremendous amount of innovation in hybrid terrestrial radio stations with websites and streaming services in coming months.

Right now, I’d say Campcaster has a very strong technical foundation to work from, and its user interface, when compared to other open source and even commercial tools, is extremely easy to use. Combine that with the fact that you don’t need a PhD in computer science to make changes in the Campcaster source code and we think it’s simply better on the code front. Yes, there are a lot of areas where other projects have more features, but we believe we will meet and surpass those in coming months.

Another significant advantage of Campcaster is that it’s being used by a truly diverse group of broadcasters in very different places around the world. We have a community of users that is using Campcaster in very different ways, and that will lead to rapid development of a number of different features.

When you have such a diverse user base, it will also lead to the software being used in unexpected ways - we’ve been contacted by everyone from mobile operators and streaming service owners to satellite broadcasters and the people who pipe music into shopping malls - and we’re very happy to see what they’re able to do with Campcaster.

Bess Kargman: What effect do you think it will have on terrestrial (common) radio? Should regular radio networks be worried about the competition?

Arellanes: Campcaster is a tool that was initially created to serve terrestrial radio broadcasters, so I don’t think they should be concerned about the competition from their fellow broadcasters. If anything, they should be looking into why they’re spending thousands of dollars per PC for tools they can’t even change to fit their needs.

At the end of the day, terrestrial stations powered by Campcaster will still be limited by the same factors that are holding them back now - namely frequency allocation and signal strength. Those are unfortunately prevalent the world over. But because tools like Campcaster open up other distribution methods, we’re able to provide them with alternatives if they’re unable to get a license for a 1,000 watt transmitter or even if they’re not granted a spot on the dial.

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Bess Kargman, like most Amherst College graduates, is a hard-core Red Sox and Patriots fan. She is currently completing a graduate degree in Journalism at Columbia University, where she is concentrating in New Media and Radio. Her writing has appeared in the Washington Post and she interns for the business radio show, “Marketplace” on National Public Radio.