The Nashville music scene can appear a bit daunting to enter, especially for new artists and bands. While there are plenty of opportunities to put your music out there, the only problem is connecting with fans. People need an incentive to follow a band’s career as it develops, and — although the music itself is important in achieving that goal — it’s not enough in a town where the advantage lies in the hands of those who are well connected. However, indie artists need not worry; UARadio.net, an online community for indie artists, is aiming to help out in a big way. I caught up with Julian Bankston, founder of the website, and discussed the ideas behind UARadio.

Julian started UARadio after following his own affection of music. “It all comes down to what you know and what you love,” he explained. Utilizing his IT background, he created a website where he and other unsigned artists could display their work. Once more and more unsigned artists began to put their information on the site, he realized that the value was not in his music, but within the community his website was creating.

Julian handles all things technological on the website including the UStream, their most beneficial feature. “Artists need to have the ability to showcase their music to a broader audience and transcend the physical limitations of a venue,” he said. “By streaming their showcases live, artists have acquired new fans from countries as far away as France, the UK, and Australia.” In fact, the live stream not only brings Nashville artists to distant territories; unsigned artists in foreign countries also use the UStream to broadcast to the U.S. One of the biggest rewards is that fans can watch a show from the comfort of their own living room, regardless of the distance or location of the venue.

The creativity of using the UStream for publicity and promotion seems to be boundless. According to Julian, “the response has been phenomenal and artists are now using us for CD release parties, showcases, and special events. Artists can now engage with their on-line audience during and after the show with features such as live chat, video conferencing, and more.”

On top of the UStream, UARadio also offers a free radio stream that can be categorized by genre, individual artist pages complete with songs and albums available for streaming, charts that display which songs and artists have the most plays per week, a classifieds page for artists to connect with each other, advertising space, blogs, photo and news galleries, album reviews, and a daily “featured artist” column. The UARadio staff handpicks the featured artists in an attempt to help them “rise above the pack” and get the recognition that they believe they’ve earned. The best part for artists is that all of these services, including advertising and live stream rates, are affordable and custom tailored to the artist’s budget.

However, Julian wants artists to understand that his efforts are mutual. When asked how artists can further use the site for more exposure, Julian answered, “Exposure is all about doing the work. Very few sites give automatic instant success or huge fan increases. We have given artists a dedicated niche market to help increase their chances of being noticed on the web.” Despite this, UARadio is a developing business, currently seeing 4,000 unique hits to the site monthly — and growing. “We are currently working on a battle of the bands feature that will be fun and refreshing, but still have our unique spin,” he says.

Visit www.uaradio.net or contact Julian directly.

Radio.com is combining the power of 600+ “real” radio stations along with Last.fm’s scrobbling in an attempt to become the online source of radio. Google shows 3,350,000 searches per month for “radio”, meaning CBS now has one of the most valuable domains on the web. But, Radio.com will have a lot of competition to deal with (Pandora and Grooveshark). What can CBS offer that is different?

The slick user interface, sections for news and sports, along with links to AOL & Yahoo stations are the main selling points of Radio.com. It seems as if they’re trying to give terrestrial radio a live-podcast feel. My first encounters with the service were basically nonstop advertisements for 3 minutes. Fortunately, mute still works.

But once the ads are over, a nice cover-flow appearance of what you’re listening to is displayed above relevant information to the station you’re listening to *sometimes. Sometimes means it doesn’t always update when the song changes, for no reason that I can see. But when it does work, an indicator displays if the artist is on tour, along with the ability to buy ring-tones that are based on similar artists.

It doesn’t require a sign-up, so go try Radio.com and see if it fits for you.