Today marks an important personal milestone for me. I’ve always wanted to have a crack in the booth at being a real deejay and, as of today, I am one. The idea for what would eventually become Mediazoic came to me during one of those flights of “what would my ideal job be” fancy that come every so often and, almost three years later, here we are.

We’re a week later than we’d hoped, and about two years later than I (or my long-suffering wife) originally wanted, but thanks to determination, resilience, and the help of a whole bunch of really wonderful people, the time has finally come to pull off the cover and reveal what lies beneath. There isn’t nearly enough space here to thank everyone who helped make this happen, so I’ll put that in the “Important Things To Do” folder and tackle it a bit at a time. If you signed up for our private beta, and you didn’t get an email today with instructions on how to access it, let us know. If you didn’t sign up for our private beta, and the thought of not being in on it is unbearable to you, click here.

The Mediazoic software allows anyone who listens to music on his/her computer to broadcast a stream of that music in real time over the Internet. There is no cost to the listener, and the listener does not need our software to enjoy the broadcast. Our system logs each time a song is heard, ensuring that royalties may be paid to all rights holders, so by listening to someone streaming with Mediazoic, you are helping support the continued health and vitality of the music business.

Music is a great source of knowledge. Many music fans I know, and I include myself here, would contend they’ve learned as much about the world and how it works from their music collections as they learned at school. At music’s best, it strives for incredible things, ineffible things, of which the stuff of life is made.

It is that view of music that I hope to bring to my first two Mediazoic playlists. I’ll be rotating playlists about every week, so if you listen a lot, you’ll hear some music repeated, but I’m hoping it’s music that you’ll want to hear more than once. I have some great music lined up for you. I call my first playlist Warm. As a lifelong musical traveller with a collection of music from over 100 countries, I thought it appropriate to start all this with a tropical playlist, dedicated to those upon whom winter is descending and who long for the warm sunshine.

My second playlist is called Musicmas. Far from your average Christmas music, it is a multi-denominational, multi-genre celebration of the season. It is dedicated to those who reach through music for that spirit that drives all great cultural celebrations.

To me, running a company is a bit like running a band. Talent matters, and so does practice, in front of fans. Our beta listeners are our first fans. We hope some of our talent will shine through, and we certainly appreciate applause, but we also know that we still need practice. So, we take requests, criticism or any other shout-outs in the hope that it will make us better. The best thing about the Mediazoic platform is that, just like live music or radio, what you’re hearing is what I’m hearing, and, thanks to the power of technology, we can talk about it while it’s happening.

In the end, we hope that what hooks you on Mediazoic will be the music, because we think music is important, and who you get your music from is important.