KZIONradio

One of the strangest things to come from my stats program is the fact the top search terms used in search engines to find KZION are:

kzion
k-zion
kzion internet radio
www.kzion.com
kzion.com
KZION

Why does someone need to enter KZION into a google search box to find me? Isn’t it obvious that KZION could be found at http://www.kzion.com ?

I have been using The Bat Email client for three or four years now. I’ve been really happy with it but I really like Firefox and the open source community of Mozilla so I decided to check out Mozilla’s Thunderbird last night.

There wasn’t much of a learning curve. I immediately set up all of my accounts and as email arrived I created new folders and message filters to organize incoming messages. I found the spam filter to be fairly intuitive as I began marking the spam messages. I was able to set up my dynamic signature for outgoing emails and I installed quite a few extensions with no problems at all.

There are some issues though. The first one is both Firefox and Thunderbird are resource hogs. Firefox sits at 43 MB and Thunderbird is at 24 MB while SlimBrowser uses only 12 MB and The Bat uses only 5 MB. That bothers me as I like to run quite a few programs simultaneously and even though I have a gig of RAM Firefox and Thunderbird slow me down.

The other issue I have is I cannot find a way to import my 75,000 emails from The Bat to Thunderbird. There is an import option in Thunderbird but it limits me to a few select email programs. The Bat can export in many popular formats but Thunderbird does not allow me to select where the files are to import so I’m stuck. If there is a way I’m not seeing it. I guess I will have to wait for an extension to be developed that will allow additional options to importing email or perhaps 1.0 will have that built in. I still need to check the forums and maybe I’ll find something there.

All in all I’m pretty satisfied with Thunderbird.

I really love LDS Christmas music which is why I love KZION at Christmas time. I’m getting a little anxious to dust off the holiday music. In years past Christmas music began the day after Thanksgiving (US) and ran until New Years Day. Traditionally, the day after T-day started with 25% holiday music and increased each week until two weeks before Christmas, and then KZION switched to 100% holiday music.

I see no reason to change what I’ve done for the past four Christmas’s. In fact you may even hear an occasional Christmas song before Thanksgiving

I know there are a few that hate Christmas music on KZION and would love for me to wait for the last minute to begin playing it. I think it’s a nice change and besides LDS Christmas music is not all jingle bells and Santa. In fact the majority of the music is Christ centered.

Let me be the first to wish you Happy Holidays Heck, Canadians have already celebrated Thanksgiving Day.

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Light Weight Low Tech CSS Tabs found via CSS Vault Resources

September was another productive month for KZION. Four new albums were added to the playlist, the 2004 KZION listener survey was presented and completed, 300 new listeners registered bringing the total to 736, and the total simultaneous listeners record was broken.

New albums added to the playlist were Friends & Brothers, A Unique Blend of Gospel Favorites by Billy Dean, Thurl Bailey and Marvin Goldstein. Billy Dean is not LDS but obviously shares a love for gospel centered music. Neil Bradley Owen knocked on my front door last month and hand delivered his debut CD, Front Porch Prose. I also added Songs For The Sabbath by Lyle Hadlock and Come Unto Him by Karen Larsen.

Somehow I squeezed one more listener to increase the record for simultaneous listeners to 239. Total performances for the month of September were 1,134,912, just under last months record of 1,157,685 performances. Aggregated Tuning Hours were 76,701. KZION played a total of 10,484 tracks with 2,336 of them being unique. Total requested songs were well under last months total of 2,283 with 1,874.

I’m excited to move into the holiday season and begin the seasonal music. It’s always a nice change.

I saw this on TV a while back and have been meaning to mention it. MIT has hundreds of college courses available for free online. These are actual MIT classes but you have no access to an instructor and of course no degree is awarded.

Some example classes in the computer science major are

Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
Computation Structures
Computer Language Engineering
Mathematics for Computer Science
Introduction to Algorithms
Software Engineering for Web Applications
Dynamic Programming and Stochastic Control

As you can see these are not wimpy classes.

I found this code to track the Google Bot when it spiders your website. I’m not sure why you would need to know this. I suppose if you created a new website you might want to know which pages were spidered and when.

This will send you an email with the pages that were spidered and the date and time.
Found here.

This is cool. If you’re shopping for TV’s at Best Buy and you want to compare prices with what’s on the Internet you can send an SMS message to Google and they will immediately respond with results from Froogle. Google SMS can do the following:

Business listings from Google Local
Residential listings from PhoneBook
Prices from Froogle
Definitions
Search results snippets
Calculator
Area code look-up
Zip code look-up

Pretty cool.

Dotster is giving away 25 free .info domains per customer. No strings attached, they are free. At the end of the year you can renew for their normal renewal rate. Currently domain renewal is $14.95 per year.

I registered the following:

KZION.INFO
LDSRADIO.INFO
LDSTUNES.INFO
JOHNHESCH.INFO
KZIONRADIO.INFO
HESCHFAMILY.INFO
INSPIRATIONALMUSIC.INFO
LDSWORLD.INFO
KZIONROCK.INFO
KZIONCLASSIC.INFO

And I may grab more. Found via Best Tool for the Job

PHPitfalls: Five Beginner Mistakes to Avoid

An Introduction to Using Patterns in Web Design.

More comments from the 2004 KZION listener survey.

A very small minority of the songs played are annoying. However, this is by far the exception and not the rule.

Change the “recently played songs” list to 15

I think I’ll do that. Maybe to 20.

Maybe offering LDS news. We moved from Salt Lake City to Everett, Washington (near Seattle) a year and a half ago. I really miss hearing about missionaries and other church stuff in the regular news. Even if this is not possible, I am a very happy listener and you have already surpassed my level of satisfaction!

I’ve broadcast LDS news before but it takes a lot of time to prepare and record.

Allow requests to nonpaying members

Color me fat, dumb and happy! I love things the way they are.

The new website is awesome, now that I have grown accustom to it. So far I haven’t found anything lacking. I appreciate the move with the blog page integrated into the website.

List the publisher of the Album, as you did before the re-launch.

Yes, I need bring that back.

Can the timing for Now Playing be kept closer to what is currently playing?

There were quite a few comments like this one and the answer is no. The radio station and the website are two separate entities and they cannot be synced. The best I can do is to estimate the time to refresh.

It’s so nice to be exposed to such a variety of quality LDS music. It’s a pleasure to listen every day. Plus, the website is mellow and enjoyable to see and use.

There is so much information about what is playing. Everything is at my fingertips.

The music (duh!)...but not sure that’s what you’re looking for. I would have to say the request option. As a suggestion though I would like to see the name of the person that requested the music be shown (maybe the user can pick a name to be shown by instead of their user name for security reasons?) then also have the ability to see what that user has requested recently. Might give me a better way to find music I would like if I find users requesting songs that I like.

I’ve thought about that. That would also expose those that keep requesting the same songs over and over and over.

I love that on the What’s Playing page, it’s easy to rate the song, leave comments, and see what artists are coming up next.

The colors are so bright that it’s psychologically uncomfortable to watch for very long. If you darkened the blue and toned down the white background and orange top banner, it would probably be more comfortable and customers would be more comfortable looking around and buying CDs or memberships.

Lack of current news content. The blog gets to be a bit of a ramble about nothing at times.

How rude.

Well, that’s it. There are hundreds of more comments but I think I have provided a good sample. Most were positive and many listeners offered some great ideas that I will follow through with. Until next year…

I saw this country in my listener stats, Holy See (Vatican City State). Interesting

More survey comments.

I miss the weekly shows and occasional whole CDs. I miss them a lot, actually.

I really miss the special broadcasts each week of new material and the Friday night edge segment.

YES, I need to bring back the shows and concerts. I promise to have them back soon.

On Sundays, the music isn’t always appropriate. Probably due to the different time zones. Probably begin Sunday-style music when the first time-zone hits the Sunday and stop, when the last time-zone on this planet switches to Monday.

Are you serious?

When do you feature a live DJ?

As little as possible. I don’t like the sound of my voice on the radio.

More survey comments from the 2004 KZION listener survey.

My work situation was/is pretty bad. My co-workers had decided to make my life as difficult as possible. This was based on one of their hatred for Mormons…I HAD to do something, and using headphones and appropriate volume allows me to hear the music more and them less…I’m 46, a widower, and feel very much alone in the world just now. KZION is helping me to cope. God bless you for your efforts.

I love the detailed song information, (especially the detailed list of recently played songs), the fact that we can request our favorite songs, the increasing amount of music that you have available, the fact that you play only sabbath appropriate music on Sunday, the new website with so many good features (hotlist, requested songs, a timer letting me know how much time until I can request again, links to artist homepages, etc) and the fact that it is commercial free, continuously playing beautiful music. I listen to it every night as I write in my journal or when I am studying my scriptures.

It’s loaded – you get everything here. I love the album cover pics, the album information, the fact that I can buy it. The site is interactive- it’s genius.

Well, if you say so.

Nothing against the station personally, we probably just need more LDS artists that produce something other than inspirational music. I think the proportions of music should be more mixed. With the majority of the music falling in the inspirational category, and not much rock/contemporary to balance it, I hear more ‘sappy’ music during the week than I would prefer. This is the reason my wife prefers not to listen to KZION.

I agree. I would love to have more contemporary LDS music but it is difficult to find. Those that create music outside the inspirational genre typically do not market themselves or their music as “LDS”. They are looking for a wide range of listeners and so a lot of them do not submit their music to KZION.

Some of the music is just a little too contemporary/rock for my liking.

It’s give and take. There are occasional songs that I don’t really care for but KZION is no different then any other radio station you listen to. There are always some songs that you wish would end early.

Not being able to request an artist because they have played recently—think we should be able to play a repeat artist (not repeating the same song is ok).

If you request three songs in a row from the same artist there are going to be listeners that do not like that artists music. They may sit through one of their songs, but not three in a row. One thing I have learned in the four years of running KZION. If requests are not limited, chaos will result. If you request your favorite artist on Tuesday’s you’ll get two in a row.

I don’t like to see or read rude or negative comments about a song or artist. Constructive comments are fine. I just expect people to be more polite and courteous in sharing comments.

Randomize on the playlists does not work correctly

KZION does not use a random playlist. I use a complicated set of rules that determine rotation based on the weight of the song. I go into detail in an interview I did with A Motley Vision.

More results from the 2004 KZION Listener survey.

Concerning the radio station, how satisfied are you, overall, with KZION Radio?

Very Unsatisfied 2.41%

Unsatisfied 0.00%

Somewhat Satisfied 2.47%

Very Satisfied 49.38%

Extremely Satisfied 45.74%

I think the few Very Unsatisfied responses were meant to be Very Satisfied as their comments were all positive and did not fit someone who was unsatisfied with KZION. I was very pleased with these results.

Have ever listened to either KBYU Internet Radio or Ensign Internet Radio?

Yes 37.04%

No 62.96%

Compared to available alternatives, KZION is…

No answer 2.47%

Much better 20.99%

Somewhat better 8.64%

About the same 1.23%

Somewhat worse 0.00%

Much worse 0.00%

Don’t Know 3.70%

Of those who said they have listened to the alternatives the majority said they like KZION better.

And now for some comments.

I love being able to listen to LDS music nonstop throughout the day…I love the songs on KZION. I love being able to request songs. I love being able to read the comments on songs and vote on them.

Hearing great and new music each day, and being able to request music and rate it. That’s fun ! I also like the variety of music you can hear. That makes it more interesting vs. not hearing the same kind of music over and over.

I love the variety and the frankness of its approach. I like the friendly, tight community of listeners. It’s excellent that one station would play everything from Jericho Road to Ellis Hadlock. I like hearing independent artists, but it would get old to listen to an entire station of them. KZION has a great mix and a lovable personality.

The balance and mix of LDS contemporary and sacred music and the inspirational music as well.

People are finally catching my vision of KZION. Worldwide access to all genres of LDS music and a format which delivers an opportunity to listen before you buy.

That you can choose the songs you want to hear. The only thing I question is why does the computer choose songs that have ‘poor’ or ‘bad’ ratings…shouldn’t that be a clue we don’t want to hear those songs?

That depends. I don’t move a song into the “no play” category until I see more than a few bad or poor votes. But yeah, if there are eight, ten, or more poor ratings and some comments to back up the votes than I will remove the song. I place a lot of emphasis on the supporting comments, so if listeners truly want a song removed voting is not usually enough. They need to give me some legitimate reasons. I’m fairly choosy about what I add to the playlist. The bar is constantly being raised.

Love the fact that I can make requests. Love the fact that I hear a wide variety of music that is clean, music I’m not afraid to let my child listen to. I have been exposed to many contemporary artists who are LDS this way and I now actively seek their music out. Love the new web site format – I now have access to my hot list at all times and have the ability to update my hot list at any time. In addition, I see what has recently been played at a glance. Overall, LOVE the new format!

I’ve concluded this years KZION listener survey and while I only received a few hundred completed surveys I got some great feedback. If you read my weblog last year after the 2003 KZION listener survey you know that I am not afraid to include the good, the bad, and the ugly. I don’t even pretend that KZION is perfect or even very professional as I am for the most part a one man show learning as I go along. I have conducted an annual survey every year for the past four years and hopefully I am learning from your feedback.

In this first in a series of posts I will cover the demographics. In later posts I will answer questions that were left by survey respondents. Because the survey was anonymous I don’t have any way to respond directly so this is the next best solution. I will also post comments, suggestions and complaints.

Gender

Female (F) 41.98%

Male (M) 58.02%

The percentage of men and women who listen to KZION is almost exactly what last years survey found.

Marital Status

Married 71.60%

Single 28.40%

Age

Under 18 4.94%

18-25 11.11%

26-40 51.85%

41-60 29.63%

Over 60 2.47%

No surprises here. The music on KZION is not hip enough for the younger crowd and can be a little too much for the older folks. Although I suspect that the ratio of computer users in these age brackets have something to do with it.

How long have you been listening to KZION?

Less than 1 month 13.58%

1 to 6 months 25.93%

6 months to 1 year 19.75%

1 to 3 years 34.57%

Over 3 years 6.17%

A good mix of new listeners as well as old timers.

How often do you listen to KZION?

Every day 50.62%

A couple times a week 46.91%

A couple times a month 1.23%

Once a month 1.23%

Less than monthly 0.00%

Almost every respondent listens at least a couple times per week.

More results coming soon…