[il-talk] Fw: Seeking Testers

[Deborah Kent Stein]

I don't know anything about this person or the organization, but perhaps some people on this list will find it interesting.

Debbie


----- Original Message ----- 
From: Ashima 
To: dkent5817 at worldnet.att.net 
Sent: Wednesday, February 08, 2012 9:01 AM
Subject: Seeking Testers


Dear Debbie,

At Spacial, we’ve are developing software and services for the last 12 years, enabling tens of thousands of hobbyists living their dream: being a radio broadcaster.

Throughout the years, we realized that many of our clients were blind or visually impaired.  Since we have two of our employees who are visually impaired, they were coming back every year with the fact that we should make our software more accessible.

In 2009, Triton Digital, the world’s leading stream hosting providers for the large radio broadcasters, bought Spacial.  This new partnership allows us to get access to even better technology and resources.  That’s why we decided that our new generation of products, to be launch in 2012, will not only encompass a more accessible edition for the blind and visually impaired edition… our goal is to develop an edition especially built for them.

This means:

  a.. A dedicated micro-site with training documents and tips, fully compliant with the latest guidelines or the WCAG 2.0 standards. 
  b.. A software application complying with Windows themes and accessibility integration. 
    a.. This means that the application will automatically load according to the users settings (font size, contrast, etc.) and will be fully compatible with screen readers and other accessibility devices.
  c.. An end-to-end cloud-hosted solution: no special hardware to cater for, just upload the music or content on the cloud, and press “play”!


Hundreds and maybe even thousands of blind and visually impaired are already enjoying Internet radio broadcasting as a hobby, or even as training for a future job.  Unfortunately, they currently need to use software that are not intended to them and go through a lot of hurdles before being able to get a tangible result.  

That’s what we want to change with your help.  We want to democratize this hobby by allowing more and more, blind and visually impaired teenagers and young adults to try and adopt radio broadcasting as a hobby, and maybe as a first step for a future employment.

Of course, to be able to play music over the Internet, you need to pay for music royalties.  Individually, this could end up in a costly solution.  That’s why we think your organization could become the initiator of that project.  Why?

  a.. Non-for-profit organizations have access to special music royalty programs in most of the countries. 
  b.. The stations could be aggregated under an “umbrella” agreement, allowing the minimum cost required to be shared by hundreds of stations. 
  c.. If the stations are successful, we at Spacial could even sell in-stream advertisements, making this project a fund raising activity for your organization.


For the time being, we are looking for beta testers to test our application and give us feedback on it, both on the accessibility and on the feature side of it.  If you know people within your association that loves music and would be interested in sharing their passion to the world, we would love hearing from them and giving them the possibility to test our application for free.

Kind Regards

Ashima

Solutions Consultant

www.spacial.com