Did you dream of being a radio DJ as a kid? What motivated you to start up your radio station?
As a kid, I've always wanted to be in the entertainment business. My first taste of showbiz started when my family became concert promoters in New York. When my family quit the business, I realized how much I missed the excitement, allure and glamour.

After graduating from design school, I became an online brand consultant in New York. At the time, the firm was hit hard by the economic downturns from September 11. When I started to worry about the future of my job, I realized what I was doing was the wrong path for me. I was surfing the net at work one day, and went to Google and searched "how to start a radio station". I found Live365 and signed up for a broadcasting account that day. Twenty-four hours later, I debuted my hour-long playlist and had my first listener. It's been 17 months since that day.

I followed Cantonese pop music since I was 5 years old. After 1997, I stopped listening to Cantonese pop, all due to its deterioration in quality. I believe the Hong Kong entertainment industry has lost its way, and HKVPRadio.com is my first step in rebuilding the business the way I see it should be.

Early on, I also made a conscious decision to build a Chinese-American and Chinese-Canadian brand, a market that's undercapitalized by entertainment companies in Asia. HKVPRadio.com is the first online radio station to market Cantonese music in English. We deliver quality music and programming that makes people nostalgic, but in a sophisticated way that the Westernized Chinese require. The most frequent feedback I hear from customers is that HKVPRadio.com is something people have always dreamed of having, but haven't found until now.

Over the past 17 months we've added a lot of bells and whistles to our product. Request Hour is the most popular weekly program we broadcast. People can vote for or against songs to make up our Top 40 charts. We have an advice column and showcase authentic recipes for Chinese food that even American Born Chinese can handle. Our forum attracts the intellectual music fan. We translate the daily gossip news into English so it's a cinch to keep up with your favorite celebrities. People are attracted to HKVPRadio.com because of the music, but they stay because it's relevant to their lifestyle in more ways than one.

Our goal is to position HKVPRadio.com as an international hub for music excellence, good life and enriching entertainment. When thinking about music excellence, few, if none, of our direct competitors come to mind. Building a community, streaming independently from Live365 or building an online magazine - in its individual form - is not the end goal. We don't confuse revenue streams, products or business models for what our brand stands for.

HKVPRadio.com promises that you will have a good time - whether you are tuning in, interacting in our chat room, reading an article, responding to a Forum post or voting for your favorite artists. Can any other Chinese radio station live up to that promise? Whenever customers describe HKVPRadio.com, the word 'love' is heard quite often.

From what I can tell, HKVPRadio.com is a commercial venture, like any other radio station. What are the advantages of listening to your radio station over other mainstream stations?
When I set out to create HKVPRadio.com, it was intended for a very niche audience - people now in their late 20s to mid 40s, who grew up with Cantonese pop during the 70s and 80s era. The biggest advantage with listening to HKVPRadio.com is the music - and not many other stations can say that. HKVPRadio.com competes for consumers' time on many fronts - listeners can tune into their local Chinese radio stations, pop in a CD or listen to their own mp3 collection. But, listeners will find that their local Chinese radio is dominated by talk content, geared toward first generation Chinese. If they listen to their own music collection, they will find that HKVPRadio.com's music library has more breadth and depth, and is fueled by interactive features like Request Hour and Top/Bottom 40 voting countdowns. And most importantly, listeners look to HKVPRadio.com as a source of music information and opinion. Because our criteria selection is so high, we ensure only the best songs are played. And occasionally when we do introduce current music, we only sample from the best - so that listeners can get a taste of new music, filtered through our criteria.

The other advantage is being able to tune in from the Internet, and the U.S. workforce makes up our largest market. It's now possible for residents in Sydney, Hawaii, Tokyo and New York to hear the same program simultaneously. You can now dedicate a song to a friend who lives halfway around the world, and it isn't bound by geography. Listeners can logon to the chat room and discuss the music and programs as they broadcast. When we broadcast a TV Theme Song marathon, listeners flock to the chat room to play trivia games about their favorite TV series. When we ran our self-produced documentary on Leslie Cheung, fans from all over the world logged on to talk about their beloved idol.

Listeners from Singapore, our 3rd largest market, tune in because Cantonese music is censored from their local radio stations. In the U.S., the work force turns on HKVPRadio.com the minute they boot up their workstations and leave the music on all day long until they head home. Many fans are requesting that we expand to satellite radio so that they can tune in from their cars. I've heard people say they are willing to buy an XM Satellite Radio receiver and subscription package just to hear HKVPRadio.com. Their desire is extremely flattering.

How many hours do you put into the station per week? Is running the station a full-time job for you?
Running HKVPRadio.com is a full time job plus more. I also have a team of volunteers based worldwide, from Hong Kong and Australia to San Francisco. Initially when I started the station, it was a part time hobby. But after a couple of months, it hit me that there are viable opportunities that can grow from this. Currently, I delegate most of the HKVPRadio.com projects to my interns and volunteer staff, from web development to word-of-mouth marketing. I spend my time overseeing those projects as well as working on profitable business ventures outside of HKVPRadio.com. Earlier this year I started Parcca Music to handle concert promotion, artist marketing, music publishing and music licensing. I also spend a lot of time getting to know our listeners, through email, the chat room and the forum. It keeps me abreast of marketplace needs and helps gauge our performance - a commitment that most Hong Kong entertainment companies don't practice.

What advantages do you get by broadcasting via the net? Would your desire to manage a radio station have been possible without the Internet?
The beauty of Internet radio is that anyone can start one. My desire of starting a radio station could not have been made possible so quickly without the Internet. Going online solves all the investments, licenses, labor and technological hurdles you would have to cross. However, there are significant challenges facing Internet radio that make this an unproven business model. For one, traditional radio generates its revenue through local advertising. Selling ads on Internet radio is a huge challenge. Most advertisers and agencies haven't recognized this medium. Moreover, the audience is worldwide, so small, local advertisers cannot target a niche. If Joe's Car Wash on Main Street in Miami advertised on HKVPRadio.com, it wouldn't make a dent. There are also too many Internet radio stations, and there is no consolidated ad network that allows advertisers to buy ads at a single time. The second biggest challenge is the fact that listeners aren't willing to pay for content. Without ads and without a demand for subscription, you are left with two weak revenue streams. Thirdly, the legalities surrounding royalties have crippled many Internet stations.

What sense of satisfaction have you had from your station?
I love this job because it's everything that I want to do rolled into one. I get to be creative when I work on producing documentaries, selecting the rotation or designing a new look for the homepage. I get to be strategic and analytical when I sell to potential clients or negotiate artist contracts. I get to be a leader to motivate a volunteer staff, which is challenging. But most importantly, I get to be daring. The most rewarding part about my job is having total control. I'm terrified of being employed by someone else, and if I can help it, I will never work for anyone ever again. While there are many people out there who are more qualified to do my job, I take pride in my youth and I use it as an advantage. Everyday, it's a learning experience and everyday, I'm a little closer to my goal. Some of my family members don't take me seriously and I've met lots of skeptics. But I've met enough respectful industry people who've given me their full support, and that's what keeps me going. I'm aware I don't have enough capability to do what I want to do. But at some point, you realize that no one does, and the best way is to hire the right people to walk along your journey. As long as you have an idea and a client, you're all set.

The other satisfaction I get from HKVPRadio.com is making a difference in the Hong Kong music business. By reaching out to one listener at a time, I hope I'm making an impact on their lives.

Do you think the mainstream radio stations will be worrying about Internet radio? Why?
Right now, mainstream radio stations, record labels and advertisers don't take advantage of Internet radio, but at some point, they will, and by that time, they will have a lot of catching up to do. They will worry because they will realize Internet radio will become a dominant source for music and product marketing. I don't think there's any money to be made with Internet radio, at least not the amount of money that's satisfies me. But someday when HKVPRadio.com reaches millions of listeners, record labels will start to pay attention - not only because we're reaching their customers, but because they'll realize it's how information and products will be marketed. Internet radio is going to mimic a lot of the traits of traditional radio. Some people want to believe that Internet radio will replace AM and FM, but people still need to get their local weather and traffic reports. In the U.S., radio airplay is a huge deal and record labels invest in getting hit singles to play on the air. Once Internet radio reaches critical mass, it would make sense for record labels to use Internet radio in the same way. And because the listenership is global, Internet radio is that much more powerful. HKVPRadio.com and Parcca Music will change the landscape of how Chinese entertainment is marketed. It will also force Chinese record labels to keep up with the changing times - at the pace of North American consumers, whose demands turn faster than customers in Hong Kong because our music and web technology move much faster.

Your station has the ability to request songs - how many requests do you get per week?
We run Request Hour three times a week, and the time slots are catered to United States, Asia and European listeners. We broadcast about 15 song requests per time slot on a first-come, first-served basis. Sometimes, we are booked two weeks out in advance.

Contrary to what most people think, we developed Request Hour not because it's a programming staple. We developed Request Hour as a marketing device. It's a way to entice listeners to repeatedly listen to our broadcast, as well as get their friends to participate. If you dedicate a song to a friend who's new to HKVPRadio.com, we will send your friend an email, inviting them to tune in.

A court in the US decided that internet radio stations must now pay royalties for playing songs - what effect do you think this will have on HKVPRadio.com?
Currently, it hasn't had a lot of effect on HKVPRadio.com because we pay royalties through Live365. However, when we plan expansion and stream independently, royalties will become a large liability to our net profit. One of our solutions is to entice record labels and publishers to waive royalties, in exchange for marketing and advertising power.

What are your plans for HKVPRadio.com?
There are many plans for HKVPRadio.com, and in many ways, this is just the initial proof of concept for something much more grand. Our primary goal is to increase our listenership. To that end, we hope to stream as an independent radio station, add on additional channels to target the youth market, as well as develop a Chinese-language website to target listeners in Asia. Our customer database will become our most profitable and marketable asset - something that we will capitalize on when the time is ripe. Like any start up firm, our goal is to get investor funding. People are still skeptical about Internet-based companies, and when you add on Internet radio, it's additional uncertainty. But, I will bootstrap my way till I see the end of this. I won't give up and go back to a job, working hard to make someone else's dreams come true.