Meanwhile, the Pick and Shovel Sellers Cash In! - Page 3

Web developers win once again. The one certainty amid the turmoil of shifting business models and transient technical formats is that record companies, radio stations, film studios, artists, and everyone involved with media, are going to be creating more Web content than ever before. A good-quality Internet site is now a necessity for any media business, and a media site is expected to use media effectively, after all. Thus the demand for Web developers with expertise in audio and video will remain massive for the foreseeable future.

When the media industry melee settles down (if it ever does), the players with the biggest piles of chips may well be the ones who take advantage of the Internet most effectively. Over the course of the next few columns, we'll provide some examples, as we build a "perfect" radio station, an ideal record company site, and a cutting-edge artist site.

Streaming versus Downloading

Much has been written about the relative merits of each method, and which one will eventually "win out". Bruce Morris, among others, has made the argument that, once it becomes possible to stream any media, anywhere, there simply isn't any reason to want to store it locally anymore. In fact, however, there will always be a certain amount of demand for media that can be stored, copied and "owned". As the computing world moves inexorably to a server-based model, streaming will become the dominant mass-market means of delivery. However, there will always be certain applications in which it is neither practical nor desirable to connect to the Internet, to say nothing of certain people who just have to "own" something (think collectors), so the downloadable media model will always be around. Web developers need to be familiar with the ins and outs of both delivery methods.

The bright future of streaming media must seem rather ironic to those (not me!) who once predicted its early demise. Streaming media was originally touted as merely a way to get around long download times, back when the Internet was so slow that audio seemed only a pipe dream. Some pundits puffed that it would never catch on, because the audio quality was lame (apparently assuming that Internet bandwidth would remain the same forever). Other seers scoffed that, once bandwidth came up to snuff, compression and streaming would no longer be necessary, and such "stop-gap" technologies as RealAudio would disappear.

As it turns out, however, streaming media is a great way to separate the viewing or playing of multimedia content from the process of storing the data. This comes in handy for several reasons. It reduces users' hard drive needs, discourages unauthorized copying, and makes continuous Internet broadcasts possible. And conserving bandwidth is pretty useful after all, especially if you want to send audio and video wirelessly. There will probably always be some sector of the computer universe that has limited bandwidth, so there will always be a demand for various bandwidth-saving tools.

So, what technologies do Web developers need to bone up on?

Preparing Audio Files For The Web can be complex, especially when a variety of different file formats are to be offered to users. And there are many ways to include audio in Web pages, including HTML, XML, Java, JavaScript, and all the other goodies listed below. Web Audio Workshop, and my URLier WDVL articles Audio for the Worldwide Web and Web Audio 2000 explain various ways to include audio in Web sites.

Multimedia Authoring Tools are many, but Macromedia's Flash is one of the top dogs. Flash can be used to create animations ranging from simple animated banners to complete presentations, and even MP3s.

Flash resources include Flash Planet, Extremeflash and Flash Kit.

Streaming Media - Developers should be familiar with the three main streaming servers, RealNetworks, Windows Media and QuickTime. Streaming Media World is a good source for the latest news.

XML - Extensible Markup Language (XML) is far more than a replacement for HTML. It's an important building block of the universal Internet to come, and in fact the cure for all worldly ills. It's of particular interest to multimedia-oriented Internet developers, because it allows many types of content to be formatted for many types of devices (computers, TVs, stereo systems, PDAs, etc.).

One of the best places to learn about XML is right here at the WDVL, but there is also XML.com.

SMIL - The key difference between audio/video media and so-called "print media" is that the former is sequential - it takes place according to a fixed time schedule. "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" may sound cute, but

• Star
• Little
• Twinkle
• Twinkle

The distinction between a SMIL presentation and a streaming media file may be a bit confusing. A streaming media file is a discrete, self-contained audio or video file, while SMIL and its friends are markup languages that allow you to assemble a presentation from different files of different media types (including streaming media, if you like) in real time. See JustSMIL.com for more about SMIL.

Software tools addressing the technologies listed above, including media players, streaming servers and audio and video software of all kinds, can be found (most of it free stuff) on the Multimedia Goodies Page.

Next month on the Next Wave of the Web, we'll put the potential of the Internet to work, building the perfect radio station, which will deliver a completely personalized program for each user, including programming from around the world, and will be available from anywhere. Several attempts at this concept already exist, so we'll check them out and see how they stack up against the ideal. The truly perfect radio station hasn't been built yet, however. Maybe you'll be the one to build it, and become fabulously well-to-do, so don't miss next month's column!

Winners and Losers - Page 2
Next Wave of the Web