Folk Alley Launches Android Phone App

August 20, 2010

Folk Alley has added an Android app to its arsenal of ways that listeners can connect with streaming folk music 24 hours a day. The free app is available for download now from the Android Market. Folk Alley's iPhone app, which was launched in 2009, has already been downloaded by more than 6,300 users. The smartphone apps allow listeners instant access to folk music anywhere they can use their phones. Folk Alley brings the best of traditional folk, Americana, singer/songwriter, bluegrass, Celtic, world and acoustic instrumental music styles to an international audience. Listener-supported Folk Alley is dedicated to the promotion and preservation of music that is often overlooked by the commercial radio networks.

The Folk Alley Android app was developed in-house by the Folk Alley web development team under the lead of IT Director Chuck Poulton. The Android app was created by James Savage, a recent graduate of Hoban High School (Akron, Ohio) who will attend Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, Ind., in the fall. Savage also created the Folk Alley Player iPhone app.

Folk Alley Programming and Marketing Director Linda Fahey says, "We are so happy to have James develop an Android app for Folk Alley. Ever since we released our iPhone app, listeners have been clamoring for an Android app, too, so they can stream Folk Alley on the go. These apps are the perfect convergence of modern technology and music with long roots. Now, Folk Alley can be everywhere your phone goes."

Streaming non-stop hosted folk music around the globe since it went online in 2003, FolkAlley.com has expanded its reach both online and on radio. A two-hour radio program is now heard on public radio stations across the country, as well as Gene Shay's weekly show on SIRIUS XM Satellite Radio's The Village.

Savage constructed the Folk Alley Android app in part using code from NPR's app. In the same atmosphere that prompted public media powerhouse NPR to share content on NPR.org through an open source API, the network invited input from the community in the development of the its Android app. Sharing this type of information reflects the spirit of the Android operating system and also NPR's mission of public service and cooperation between content providers and the listening audience.

The "coffee house that never closes," FolkAlley.com offers music fans songs from their favorite artists, an interactive discussion area, Open Mic (an area for new artists to upload songs), exclusive live concert downloads, interviews, videos and more around the clock. Folk Alley is heard online at FolkAlley.com, iTunes, Windows Media, RealAudio, Live 365, XPN.org and as one of the founding partners of NPR Music. FolkAlley.com is a non-profit Internet venture produced by WKSU-FM, an award-winning public radio station with nearly 60 years of broadcasting history. A service of Kent State University, the station also presents the Kent State Folk Festival and broadcasts 13 hours of original folk music programming throughout Northeast Ohio each week over WKSU 89.7, four repeater stations and two translator signals.