Internet radio allows you to have radio programs delivered (streamed) to you over the Internet. The radio programming you receive this way can come from two types of stations: those that stream the programing of a standard land-based broadcast station or those that are Internet only, with no land-based counterpart.

In either case, the programing content reflects the station’s intended audience or genre, such as music, sports, talk, financial, political, comedy, lifestyle, mixed content and much more. There are more than 10,000 active Internet stations, with more coming online every day. The stations come from around the globe and in virtually every language, and they’re available 24/7 for your enjoyment anywhere there’s Internet access. So you could, for example, listen to a streaming hometown news station while you’re on business in France.

Internet radio comes in three flavors: live, on demand and podcast. For live Internet radio, the station’s Internet stream is exactly as you’d hear it over the air, although there’s a few seconds’ delay due to the signal processing needed for the Internet. The on demand version of Internet radio still streams over the Internet, but the programing has been previously aired and kept on file for you to "demand" whenever you want. For both live and on demand streaming, you have no control over the stream, so if you go to get a cup of coffee, you’ll miss whatever was streamed while you were gone. In the podcast version of Internet radio, the station keeps previously aired or special programing on file, and you can download the desired file to your computer to play at your leisure, stopping to get your coffee if you want. There’s often a subscription fee for this service. All three types of Internet programming from some countries may have restricted access to some programing due to licensing or advertising considerations.

To gain access to this vast selection of radio on the Internet, you need a high speed Internet connected computer. From your connection, browse to your favorite radio station if you know the address (or Google it to find it), and then see if it offers live streaming. Or you can be adventurous and Google "Internet radio," where you’ll find many listings of live streaming radio stations to explore. Once you’ve linked to the live stream, the program should play automatically by using your computer’s default media player--commonly Windows Media Player or Real Player. Then minimize the Player window and go on using your computer for other tasks.

If you’d like a another way to listen to Internet radio, the new Revo Blik WiFi Internet Radio (www.ccrane.com, $199.99) provides a convenient option to using your computer. The device is a small tabletop unit that’s designed to connect to your home wireless network, where it gains access to the Internet and links automatically to www.reciva.com, one of the Internet’s listing of Internet radio stations. A panel of 23 buttons on the radio is used for control and a two-line display panel provides limited information while using the radio.

Following the network connection and setup, you have the option of browsing for stations. The display shows the number of stations on Reciva’s list (12,534 at last count). You could load the entire list, but Revo Blik offers to sort the list by country and then do a sub-sort by genre (60's, Classic Rock, Classical, News, Talk and the like). Or you could sort first by genre and then by location. For each station, the display scrolls the station’s call letters and its location. Once you’ve found your station, just click to have the radio link to the station’s live stream and play it. If the station also offers on demand programing, you can choose live or on-demand; if on demand, you’ll get a list of what’s available for Blik to play.

The radio offers eight presets for you to assign to your favorite stations. In addition, there’s a built-in FM radio, a sleep timer and an alarm that can be set to wake you up to a buzzer, FM radio or Internet radio.

Revo Blik also features an audio output to connect to a stereo sound system or a recorder. In addition, there is an audio input to use the radio as a powered speaker.

We had a chance to use the Revo Blik WiFi Internet Radio, and it worked as above and had us spending lots of time checking out what’s available on Internet radio around the world--it’s amazing! We did ran into a few quirks, such as some Internet radio stations that have a mandatory time out, ending streaming. Or the radio’s inability to load our selected group of stations (this happened more often then we’d like, but was cured by refreshing our wireless connection and may be related to a fussy wireless network). Using a different wireless network also cured the problem.

We like the idea of Internet radio to play our favorite stations anytime, anywhere we have computer access to the Internet. And we like the Revo Blik to access Internet radio stations anywhere there’s a wireless network.

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