Userradio, by California-based August Black, is a set of tools allowing people to make their own collaborative radio productions over the web.

"An unlimited number of people can mix multiple channels of audio simultaneously and together from anywhere on-line using a standard flash-capable browser.

It means that you are able to create radio programmes with friends, colleagues, etc. who are living in the same street or at the other end of the world."

Userradio mixes the new technologies of personal communication with ``old'' broadcast radio technology.

Userradio is a set of tools for collaborative networked audio production, where an unlimited number of individuals can mix multiple channels of audio simultaneously and together from anywhere on-line using a standard flash-capable browser.

The audio output of the application is broadcast on terrestrial FM radio and the users are ideally within the broadcast diameter.

With this application, an unlimited number of individuals can mix multiple channels of audio simultaneously and together from anywhere on-line using a standard flash-capable browser.

Like all internet communication tools, userradio consists of a server side of the application and a client side. In between is a database of sounds that can be accessed by both the clients and the server, where all sound files entered into the database reside on the server's hard disk. By default, permission to use the system, including the uploading of audio material into the database, is granted to anyone. However, it can also be limited to specified IP numbers.

Userradio is intended mainly for real-time control of FM radio, where a mid- to low-grade computer with an audio output device can serve an analogue audio signal at a single location while simultaneously broadcasting a digital audio stream to multiple locations on a network.

An example is the Fundamental Radio show on Radio FRO in Linz, Austria where an hour of radio has been regularly produced simultaneously by two individuals, each in separate locations (their own apartments) away from the radio studio.

Userradio should encourage a needed communal or representative character to the radio medium, where the space of production is spread amongst it's listeners.