Statistics Version 4 was designed around Nullsoft SHOUTcast, just as earlier versions have been. This has spanned back to January 2005 when Statistics was first released onto Rysin.info. Statistics v4 has been highly successful and now provides an excellent opportunity for the site to advertise etc. in the future. And has even been featured in newspapers! (read paper articles here)

Numerous emails have been received over the past few months to change this. Interest has mainly been shown in Icecast by our users, but interest has also been shown with Windows Media Streaming, iTunes Podcasts, as well as other non-notable streaming methods.

This article will go into detail about this interest, why nothing has been done in the past, and how the compatibility situation will be improved in the next few months.

Nullsoft SHOUTcast is a streaming media protocol which is owned by America Online (AOL).

SHOUTcast was originally designed in 1998 [Archive Evidence] by the small but popular company Nullsoft, before internet juggernaut AOL took over the Nullsoft company in 1999. The SHOUTcast protocol was originally supposed to promote Winamp (being only compatible with Winamp software). But has since been expanded. Now radio streams which broadcast through SHOUTcast can also be listened to in iTunes, Real Player, Windows Media Player and many other compatible players.

Nullsoft also released Winamp, which would turn out to be one of the world's leading media players. Winamp had a fresh new interface which looked far superior to any other media player (including Microsoft's own Windows Media Player which at this point had a very plain interface). Winamp established Nullsoft as a well known software company.

In the past, it was these reasons why Statistics has only ever been compatible with SHOUTcast; it was far more popular than any other protocol.

As seen above, Windows Media streaming is fast becoming more used by companies throughout the internet.

With the site now popular throughout the SHOUTcast community, it's time to expand to Icecast, and Windows Media.

Statistics (in 2005) was originally intended to be a small software package offered on a general software site, but the success of and interest for Statistics has changed all this, and the only major freeware package available on the site is Statistics Version 4.

It will depend on what happens in the next few months, whether the most is made out of this interest to make sure that the interest in the software is kept at a maximum. I, and everyone involved with Rysin Online will try our best to make sure this is the case, generating updates for Statistics Version 4, and possibly a new software package which will be of use to radio broadcasters.