The brand new Radio 538-app

I’m driving my car when the most awesome song comes on the radio. Unfortunately, I’m either too late to start Shazam or I forget to remember the title of the song. Hours later, when I’m at home, I manically navigate through the radio’s online playlist of the day, hoping to recapture that song. Seems familiar, right?

Thanks to the collaboration between Hike One, Q42, and Talpa Radio, these problems are resolved through the new 538 Radio App. Now, whenever you hear a song or broadcast that you’d like to save, all you have to do is simply tap the button. The new app will save all your selected music in a playlist that you can link to your Spotify account: it enables you to have access to all your favorite songs. Anywhere, anytime.

“For radio listeners, everything has become much more simple and clear”, says David van Duinen, project manager at Hike One. David tunes into 538 himself often, mainly because of famous categories like Lieve Marianne and the De Boer brothers. “These categories in the app, which were built in React Native, are now all together so that you can have oversight of them. You can also listen to them on repeat, and you’re now able to watch the radio item’s video whenever you like”, says Van Duinen.

The app’s other subtle goal is to strengthen the connection between the listeners and the DJs. This connection enables the listener to feel more attached to the music, thanks to seamless communication functionalities the app provides - says Taher Abdel Hadi, product owner at 538.

Users of the app find it appealing that they’re able to send DJs simple messages, while for the DJs it’s a nice way to personally communicate special sales, advertisements, or give-aways. Listeners can now even send voice messages to the studio, and perhaps receive a response? “Technically, this is possible”, laughs Abdel Hadi.

Start the app, and the radio starts playing immediately. In a cleanly designed overview, you will see the most popular radio clips of the day on your app. Thus, Lieve Marianne on the passing of Amsterdam mayor Eberhard van der Laan tops the list today. A nice new option is that you can now enable any of 538’s nine sub stations, at all hours of the day. Wonderful news for all those that secretly want to listen to Die Verrückte Halbe Stunde non-stop.