OUR “WAY COOL” TECHNOLOGY

The main detractions to Internet audio are poor audio quality, and dropouts. Dropouts are typically a result of certain locations on the Internet receiving too much traffic at a particular moment. Devices along the route will throw away data packets when they get too busy, and the design of the Internet is such that those data packets should get retransmitted and ultimately get to the end

That dreaded “buffering” is the standard solution to dropouts

location. But if it is an audio stream that gets interrupted, you hear a "dropout". To minimize the number of dropouts that listeners will experience, technologists have implemented "buffering" -- this means that you wait for 30 seconds or so after tuning in to an audio source while your computer stores up data. When it reaches the buffer high water mark, it starts playing. When dropouts occur the amount of data in the buffer drops because it continues to play -- no incoming data while the outgoing data continues to flow (like your bank account if you are out of a job). If the interruption is long enough, the audio runs out, you hear silence, and the system starts buffering again for another 30 seconds.

SurferNETWORK's LightningSTREAM™ Technology

SurferNETWORK has proprietary solutions to these problems at the radio station, in the network, and at the listener's PC. And we have several patents pending to protect these solutions. We can't at this time disclose the mechanisms that we use to solve the problems, but the net result is this: we

Now It’s Patented!!!

are able to use a good quality codec at a mid-range data rate to give pleasant sounding audio -- our codec has been custom engineered to be optimized for this data rate so we get better audio quality than others at low and mid-range data rates; we feature "instant-on" with no pre-buffering; and, we virtually eliminate dropouts. Most of the industry didn't even believe that this was possible. [NOTE: July 2004 -- SurferNETWORK has been awarded US Patent #6,766,376 for our proprietary “Instant-On” capability for live broadcasts. See our press announcement.]

A Good Radio Station Sounds Good

There's a saying in the radio industry that a radio station is only as good as it sounds. We make radio stations sound almost as good over the Internet as they do over the air.

Another proprietary capability that we have is to seamlessly remove a radio station's audible ad and replace it with one that we have sold -- we then share the revenue with the broadcaster. The rationale for this is that most radio ads are local -- a lumber yard, a car dealer, and so on. Those local ads are not relevant for a large percentage of listeners on the Internet, who could be anywhere. Consequently, most local businesses will not pay any premium to put their ad on the Internet. This medium, however, is perfect for national and regional advertisers.

We also have the capability to deliver individualized ads to each listener, and present a banner ad on our player while the audio ad is playing. We actually create a unique audio stream for each one of our listeners, no matter how many of them may be online at the same time, and even if many are listening to the same radio station. This means that you and I could be sitting next to each other, listening to the same radio station on our computers, and each hear different ads. When listeners download our proprietary player they are asked three questions that are painless to answer: age, gender, and zip code. These are the three demographics of most interest to advertisers, and we can deliver each unique audio stream with ads relevant to the demographics of each listener.

With the combination of our capabilities, we offer the most powerful advertising medium in any industry -- an audible ad in which an advertiser can describe a product being displayed, with an invitation to click on the banner to go to the sponsor's web site or to a fulfillment house to place an order. This is the world's first true interactive multimedia advertising channel, and it can ultimately be driven to the level of one-to-one marketing. Read more on our Advertisers page.