From PowerCerv PR: "PowerCerv Corporation today announced it has completed the acquisition of SearchPlay, LLC and its subsidiary, RadioIO.

"With this acquisition, RadioIO.com becomes the first publicly held Internet radio company.

"SearchPlay, LLC currently operates RadioIO.com, a 15 channel Internet radio group that last month was rated the eighth-largest of all Internet radio providers.

"SearchPlay, LLC also incorporates a diverse pending intellectual property estate that allows for the operation of a search engine inside a media
 player...

"'Forget about what it means to RadioIO, the public company status of our company is a very big deal for the whole industry,' said Michael Roe, who started the project in a spare bedroom five years ago. 'The timing is perfect. There has been more buzz about Internet radio in the past 90 days than the entire seven years of its existence'..

"'The Internet radio audience has grown 500% in five years and is continuing to expand,' noted John Stanton, Chairman of PowerCerv. '20 million people listen to Internet radio weekly, making Internet radio ten times larger than satellite radio. The upside revenue potential from traditional radio advertising, subscriptions, and Internet advertising, along with search revenue from the proprietary SearchPlayer, represent a tremendous opportunity for PowerCerv."

Ben Fong-Torres writes in the San Francisco Chronicle: "Listeners who were stung by KABL's demise are still looking for ways to hear standards and big-band music...
 

"As the Bay Area loses one format after another -- country, standards, oldies -- the disenfranchised should look to the Internet. Don't think of streaming as something limited to a computer...

"Portable players are on their way. In November, Torian, an Australian company, is set to release the InFusion. The size of a credit card, the $179 device pulls in streaming stations while in any wireless hot spot. It also plays MP3 files, records and pulls in old-fashioned FM signals...