Anyone who doubted the
importance of multimedia to the Web should be convinced by this week’s
doings at RealNetworks’ developer conference…not just the excited
attendees, but the announcements.
A few weeks ago, the big news was Microsoft’s introduction of new codecs
and streaming formats. This week, RealNetworks turned things around by
introducing RealJukebox, a consumer-friendly interface for virtually all
digital music, and RealSystem MP, an open architecture multimedia
management system.
Perhaps just as important for long-term strategy, they
also came out with an advertising application (which could use a better
name than Advertising Application) that lets ad materials be integrated
with multimedia delivered from their RealServer G2 using SMIL support.
RealNetworks weren’t the only ones with new products aimed at the
commercial market, though. Telos Systemsand Digital
Bitcasting came out with an “MP3 radio station in a
box” that lets anyone plunk down $10,000 and walk away with a setup that
can take high-quality audio in one end and live-stream it to the Internet
at the other.
Also, Cognicity released AudioKey Lite, which allows content creators to watermark audio files.