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You might
find it a good idea
to pick up a copy of today's New York Times -- or visit their
Technology section onlinen here
-- for three very good pieces dealing with the world of streaming
Internet technology. Of course, RAIN is here to give you
at least an introduction to all three stories...
From the
New York Times: "Listening to NetRadio.com's Woodstock
69 music channel or KBAC-FM,
Santa
Fe's jazz and eclectic radio station, or some other music program
over the Internet is gaining popularity among people who spend lots
of time online. But delivering simultaneous streams of music to
thousands or even millions of listeners over an ever-more-clogged
Internet has become increasingly frustrating...
"One promising remedy involves sending
the stream up to a satellite, hopping over most of the
jam ups
on the ground and landing the music stream at a network hub closer
to the listener. That is how Viacom's MTV
Networks is
helping move the feed from SonicNet.com....
"SonicNet beams its audio stream to the Loral
Skynet Telstar 7 satellite from a station in Tulsa, Okla... The
satellite feeds SonicNet's programming to antennas around the country,
converting it back to an Internet signal that is distributed to
135 network hubs operated by America Online, Excite@Home
and other Internet service providers. Those providers then pass
it along through conventional  cables
or telephone lines to people at their PC's.
"MTVi is using competing ground-based distribution services
from  companies
like Akamai Technologies
and Digital Island
to improve the reception of its Internet music and video programs.
"The iBeam Broadcasting
Corp., which provides the satellite service to MTVi, said
it had  signed
up 250 Internet content providers the last nine months, since it
started operating its network of satellites
and fiber to bypass traffic jams on the terrestrial Internet.
"Entertainment and news providers like MSNBC
Cable
News, another iBeam customer, want to see their Web content
delivered to users in the fastest, most efficient way possible and
are willing to pay for such service.
"iBeam charges the companies monthly fees of $4,600
or more. iBeam, which had a public stock offering in May, reported
a loss of $33.1 million for the second quarter on revenue of $3.4
million..."
Read the entire
Theresa Foley
article
here.
From the
New York Times: "While.jpg)
Internet access through DSL is booming in the United States...there
are fewer than 1,000 DSL customers in Japan...
"In the United States, the incumbent Bell phone companies
and their start-up competitors... are now closing in on a
million DSL subscribers nationally... And Internet access
by high-speed cable television lines is quickly reaching even higher
numbers in the United States...
"Currently, according to InfoCom
Research, there are between 20 million and 27 million Internet
users in Japan, or approximately one of every five people in the
nation. Of that number,
nearly half -- some 10 million --
are connecting to the Internet wirelessly.
"Of these wireless customers, 7.5 million are using
a service called i-mode, offered by NTT (Nippon Telegraph
& Telephone) DoCoMo, NTT's wireless division. For
nearly two of three i-mode users, this wireless link is their only
method of access to the Internet...
"That trend suggests that people here are likely to
use and experience the Internet much differently than they .jpg) do
in the United States, where so far only a fraction of Internet users
have wireless access...
"Japanese designers seem to have understood
the user interface issues in a way that American designers have
not,' (American wireless expert Andrew) Seybold
said. 'In Japan you can get to the train schedule with two clicks,'
he said. 'When I try to find a plane flight on a U.S. cell phone,
I have to go through seven menu levels before I can even enter the
flight number.'
Read the John Markoff
piece here.
From the
New York Times: "Intertainer
and Akamai Technologies
plan to announce an alliance Monday  to
deliver video-on-demand to the computers of consumers with high-speed
Internet connections. The service is now available in two markets
and will be broadly available by the end of the year, the companies
said.
"The alliance will involve Intertainer's library, which
includes
the licensing rights to entertainment programming from more than
60 media companies, including DreamWorks
SKG, Sony Music,
Warner Bros. and Columbia
TriStar Television. The material -- including first-run
films, archived films, music videos and television specials -- is
not stored on the user's computer, but is viewed or heard as it
streams in from the Internet...
"John Taplin, Intertainer's president and chief executive,
said the service could make first-run movies available for $2.95
for viewing any time within a 24-hour period, with archive films
available for $1.95, television shows for 25 cents, and music videos
and other material free..."
Read the article by columnist Lawrence M. Fisher
here.
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Reader
feedback from last week coming shortly
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 We'll
send you RAIN's e-mail news updates on a regular basis,
plus bulletins when important news breaks. (In addition, we'll
appreciate knowing that you're reading our efforts -- and
you'll hopefully appreciate reminders to read RAIN.)
You should be receiving
a confirmation e-mail from us shortly.
Thanks!
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Reprinted from Friday's edition...
Lots of feedback is still coming in regarding this week's
conversational threads (Napster, GlobalMedia, etc.). I have to run
to Iowa for a wedding, but look for more feedback on Monday...or
discuss among yourselves
this weekend on the new RAIN Message Boards.
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Ask
questions and SHARE YOUR OPINIONS on the RAIN Message Boards!
Click here
for instructions, or if you're already familiar with how message
boards work, click here
to enter directly.
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Try it
out! Explore
the wide world of Internet audio by clicking the screenshot above.
Miss an issue?
Visit the RAIN News Archives here.
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