We're going to be phasing out our lower bitrate MP3 streams in 2010, and replace them with aacPlus feeds. 24-32k MP3 streams will become 32k aacPlus streams, which sound so much better than the existing 32k streams. 56k MP3 streams will become 64k aacPlus streams.

Eventually, we'll offer 32k and 64k aacPlus streams for all our channels, 128k MP3 streams for compatibility, and 32kb Windows Media streams.
iTunes 9 now has full support for aacPlus (AAC-HE) streams, and this was the main player that didn't support it. Since 1/3-1/2 of all our traffic is people listening in iTunes, this was something that held us back from making more of a switch to aacPlus before now.

Also, as an experiment, we're running a super-high quality 128k AAC feed of Groove Salad that can be played by iTunes 9, Winamp and Foobar2000. Groove salad also has a 64k aacPlus stream you can listen to for comparison.

We will also be adding Flash-based streaming this year, which will work well for many people in office settings where they can't install a media player.
The listener numbers for the low bitrate MP3s has drastically fallen over the last year, and I can't think of any reason to keep the low-bitrate MP3 streams running. If you think we should for some reason, leave a comment and let me know.
I'm hoping that we'll get more adoption of the 64kb aacPlus streams which frankly sound as good or better than the 128k MP3 streams.

Looking forward to seeing these guys at SXSW. We play Shine on Lush and Groove Salad, and if you're going to SXSW in March you should make a point to see them.

I WISH I KNEW YOU - SHINE (live)
by lesgrandsmanitous

1. Jon Hassell - Last night the moon came dropping it's clothes in the street [buy]

2. Nils Petter Molvaer - Hamada [buy]

3. Arve Henriksen - Cartography [buy]

4. Esbjörn Svensson Trio - Leucoctye [buy]

5. Jan Garbarek - Dresden [buy]

6. Fresu Youseff Aarset - Jazz Italiano Live 2008 (CD from the Italian weekly L'Espresso)

7. Markus Stockhausen - Electronic Treasures [buy]

8. Marilyn Mazur with Jan Garbarek - Elixir [buy]

9. Vassilis Tsabropoulos - Melos [buy]

10. Zen Zadravec - Coming of Age [buy]

1. YACHT - See Mystery Lights [buy]

2. Wallpaper. - DooDoo Face [buy]

3. The Bird and the Bee - Ray Guns are Not Just the Future [buy]

4. Miike Snow - Miike Snow [buy]

5. Passion Pit - Manners [buy]

6. Starfucker - Jupiter [buy]

7. Peter, Bjorn and John - Living Thing [buy]

8. Juan Maclean - Future Will Come [buy]

9. My First Earthquake - Downstairs [buy]

10. The Raveonettes - In and Out of Control [buy}

Elise just released her list of her Top 50 for 2009.

1.	Grizzly Bear	Veckatimest	[buy]
2.	Neko Case	Middle Cyclone	[buy]
3.	The Dodos	Time To Die	[buy]
4.	Animal Collective	Merriweather Post Pavilion	[buy]
5.	Grand Archives	Keep In Mind Frankenstein	[buy]
6.	Jets Overhead	No Nations	[buy]
7.	Wilco	Wilco (the album)	[buy]
8.	Phoenix	Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix	[buy]
9.	John Vanderslice	Romanian Names	[buy]
10.	The Clientele	Bonfires On The Heath	[buy]
11.	Starfucker	Jupiter	[buy]
12.	..And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead	The Century Of Self	[buy]
13.	Amy Millan	Masters Of The Burial	[buy]
14.	The Pains of Being Pure at Heart	The Pains of Being Pure at Heart	[buy]
15.	Andrew Bird	Noble Beast	[buy]
16.	Fanfarlo	Fanfarlo	[buy]
17.	The xx	xx	[buy]
18.	Mew	No More Stories Are Told Today I'm Sorry They Washed Away No More Stories The World Is Grey I'm Tired Let's Wash Away	[buy]
19.	Gregory Pepper and His Problems	With Trumpets Flaring	[buy]
20.	Telekinesis!	Telekinesis!	[buy]
21.	Monsters Of Folk	Monsters Of Folk	[buy]
22.	A B & The Sea	Simple as Seagulls	[buy]
23.	Doves	Kingdom of Rust	[buy]
24.	David Bazan	Curse Your Branches	[buy]
25.	Tegan & Sara	Sainthood	[buy]
26.	The Wooden Birds	Magnolia	[buy]
27.	Wye Oak	The Knot	[buy]
28.	Maps	Turning The Mind	[buy]
29.	Headlights	Wildlife	[buy]
30.	Port O'Brien	Threadbare	[buy]
31.	Vandaveer	Divide & Conquer	[buy]
32.	Julian Casablancas	Phrazes For The Young	[buy]
33.	Sea Wolf	White Water, White Bloom	[buy]
34.	Division Day	Visitation	[buy]
35.	Fruit Bats	The Ruminant Band	[buy]
36.	Generationals	Con Law	[buy]
37.	Parlour Steps	The Hidden Names	[buy]
38.	The Trash Can Sinatras	In The Music	[buy]
39.	Metric	Fantasies	[buy]
40.	Islands	Vapours	[buy]
41.	Matt And Kim	Grand	[buy]
42.	The Twilight Sad	Forget the Night Ahead	[buy]
43.	The Receiver	Length of Arms	[buy]
44.	Forest City Lovers	Haunting Moon Sinking	[buy]
45.	Hope Sandoval & The Warm Inventions	Through The Devil Softly	[buy]
46.	Latvian Radio	Seven Layers Of Self-Defense	[buy]
47.	Great Northern	Remind Me Where The Light Is	[buy]
48.	Dent May & His Magnificent Ukulele	The Good Feeling Music of Dent May & His Magnificent Ukulele	[buy]
49.	Camera Obscura	My Maudlin Career	[buy]
50.	The Decemberists	The Hazards Of Love	[buy]

[a photo Ellis took of the STS- 129 lift-off]

Ellis, who lives in Florida, is our listener of the month! Lately, Ellis has had the opportunity to watch two NASA shuttle launches and on both occasions SomaFM served as his soundtrack. As he says, "at points the interplay between the music and mission communication can be epic!"

While Ellis' favorite station is usually Groove Salad - or Xmas in Frisko during the holidays - he also likes Suburbs of Goa and Beat Blender. Thanks for your support, Ellis!

The San Francisco MusicTech summit is right around the corner! The 5th annual summit will feature panels on everything from music in games to finding funding for your new music-related venture.

Speakers range from Dave Allen - founding member of Gang of Four - to Stephan Jenkins of Third Eye Blind. The summit is sure to be a great place to learn about advances in the field of music and the convergence of great tunes with great tech.

SF MusicTech is located at the Hotel Kabuki in Japantown, San Francisco. Registration begins at 8 am. Sign up for SF MusicTech here.