About

crowdCaster is an audio broadcasting application, first launched in 2016 as a social enterprise by UK-based Online Radio Broadcasting Limited (“ORB”). Substantially redesigned and relaunched in 2019 with its “New Crowdcaster” format, its mission is “Giving People a Voice” through its social broadcasting web-based and mobile applications. The platform enables users to record or upload short and long form audio, create communities of listeners with its Crowds function, and host, publish and share podcasts.

“Giving people a voice”

ORB was originally formed as StudyVox Limited in 2009 by Kevin Martin, Sara Martin and Iain Rawlinson as a platform to support the needs of young people, especially the student community, through the then early days of social networking. Online Radio Broadcasting embraced the mission of “Giving People a Voice”, and became focused on online broadcasting in 2012 with the advent of early stage affordable technologies, and fulfilled this mission through the creation of an online radio studio in Oxfordshire, UK which broadcast a variety of shows for three years to March 2015.

In the years that followed, ORB recognised that the power of audio, like radio, was a relatively unexplored frontier and that the needs of many people, groups and organisations – irrespective of age – were outgrowing the experience of social networking. With the advent of new technologies with the ability to create and share new content in vast volumes, voices were being lost which needed to be shared and heard in an accessible format which was not simply written words, or words attached to still and moving images. Other technologies facilitated the creation of a new opportunities to address this through online broadcasting, and so in 2015 work was started on the creation of crowdCaster.

“We believe in the power of the spoken word...”

The platform believes in the power of the spoken word, as a positive force in:

  • social welfare and health
  • creativity and education
  • communities and raising awareness of causes Something else is needed too...

“There is a need for the authenticity of voice...”

There is a need for a return to the authenticity of voice... people of all backgrounds, communities, and a wide range of organisations wish to responsibly share their news, raise awareness of subjects of interest and the issues of the day including the challenges they face, and share their creative talent in an audio format of their choice. Online broadcasting is an important communications facility for all these individuals and organisations – and through its crowdCaster platform ORB hopes to support this need by providing everyone, wherever they are, with the ability to responsibly make and listen to broadcasts on any device, on any topic, from anywhere in the world.