Web Audio 2000

The Internet gets closer and closer to being a real multimedia experience.

A year ago I penned a little piece called Audio for the Worldwide Web, in which I attempted to cover all the different forms of Web audio. Most of the material in that article is still perfectly valid, but there have been a couple of important developments since then, and the Web audio scene looks quite different than it did in the last century.

In fact, there have been important, if gradual, shifts not only in the way we think of Internet audio, but in the way we think of Internet "sites" in general. Audio has traditionally been an afterthought on the Web - something that few sites had much use for, at least not at the quality levels available. Nowadays audio is the raison d'etre of many sites. Internet radio stations, record companies and even stranger creatures are popping up like magic mushrooms in a cow field. What's the most popular search term these days? MP3, the file format that became a buzzword with the "in" crowd.

The evolution of the Web audio scene is part of a more general shift in the way we use the Internet. Until recently most folks thought mainly in terms of Web "sites." The concept of a "site" is basically a static, non-sequential way of presenting information. The "pages" sit there, and you read them in whatever order you like, like a magazine or a book. It's not like a movie or a radio station, where information is presented in a pre-determined, sequential way. Nor is it like an "application," in which the user is as much a participant as a passive receiver of information.

The word "site" implies a static "place" that one "goes to," and that has long been the conceptual model of the Web. But nowadays, the other two ways of presenting media are coming into their own. People aren't satisfied with just "going to sites" anymore, they want to "watch programs," and "use (online) software tools."

Of course, sequential and interactive data delivery over the Web is nothing new. Many sites have audio, video, interactive applets and other goodies, and some are of long standing. But bandwidth restrictions kept the audio and video clips short and crummy (if they worked at all in your browser), and sequential or interactive elements were usually seen as minor sideshows to the bigger tent of the all-powerful Site. Dotted lines connected them to the site map, and disclaimers in fine print warded off those with older browsers or meager bandwidth.

Well, my sequentially-oriented friends, those days are waning, and the tyranny of the browser will soon be ended. As the Web converges with TV and radio, sequential delivery will become commonplace. As audio is inherently a sequential medium, this is big news for us audio types. No more will we be limited to mere "clips." Full-length features are the order of the day, and we don't even need a browser to display them, thank you very much.

The reasons for the Web audio explosion are many, and not least are simply the ever-growing power of the software available and the ever-shrinking cost of hardware and bandwidth. The biggest reason of all, however, is one that has nothing directly to do with audio - people are starting to use much faster connections to access the Web. To put it bluntly, dial-up is a dead end. No matter how many tricks they can find to cram more data into a standard phone line, there's no way that a twisted pair of puny copper wires is going to be able to deliver full-motion video on demand any time in the foreseeable future. Where there's demand, supply soon follows, and our erstwhile entrepreneurs have been busily rolling out various high-bandwidth solutions. DSL, cable modems, and a gaggle of wireless formats are growing quickly. What you can get depends on what part of the country you live in - as yet, no high-bandwidth solution has acquired national coverage. I predict, however, that cable modems eventually will, becoming the method of choice for accessing the Net. Cable already runs to millions of homes and offices, the modems hook up to standard Ethernet, and the bandwidth is plenty for full-motion video.

Contents:

Audio Formats for the Web
Time for a Timeline
Authoring Tools
Files within Files within Files

Web Audio 2000
Audio Formats for the Web