SAN FRANCISCO -- RealNetworks, which began as a simple platform for playing music over the Web, is morphing into a "streaming media ecosystem."
That's how CEO Rob Glaser phrased it, anyway, as he outlined the all-in-one platform at RealNetworks' annual convention Wednesday. The platform will manage interactive media, advertising, and customized news, as well as searching and navigation features. It was a bullish presentation.
Glaser said that in the future, the Internet will take precedence as the best mass medium for combining different types of media, and declared that already "the Internet PC is the best way to experience music."
He said that digital distribution of music, "deep personalization," and universal broadband access represent some of the most important shifts for presenting media on the Internet.
"By 2002, half of streaming users will have access to broadband for a significant part of the day," Glaser noted. As a foretaste, he showed flicker-free news streams at 300 Kbps, and an Austin Powers movie trailer at 800 Kbps.
Glaser also demonstrated Real's new advertising server platform, which will allow companies to measure impressions by time and duration, and to embed ad streams that kick in during audio and video presentations. The company's new "Project Janus" is aimed at creating a standard categorization method for audio and video on the Web, allowing users to search by keyword, similar to a system AltaVista has had in place since last year.
Glaser said that streaming products and content is only a small fraction of the overall broadcasting market -- about US$300 million versus $120 billion. But times are changing. Music is the first market to propel the streaming industry, he said, since it isn't hampered by display issues that text and video have to deal with.
To bolster his case for Net-based music, Glaser pointed to the access and integration possibilities when consumers can mix and match their collections between existing CDs and content downloaded from the Internet. After demonstrating the new RealJukebox software, Glaser said, "we think it has the fastest uptake of any software product in history." On its first day, more than 100,000 people downloaded the product, he said.
Glaser also stressed the importance of digital rights management, and said the Real player will support many of the existing secure formats, such as AT&T's a2b, IBM's EMMS, and Liquid Audio.
In the new products category, Glaser also showed off an alpha version of Real's next player release -- due in the third quarter -- which features multiple playback windows and a URL locater bar with navigation features.
But the most applause came when he announced that the final version of the G2 player for Macintosh users is now available, then proceeded to give a G2-on-G3 demo.
Deals with Inktomi, including a new RealProxy server, and @Home are aimed at beefing up the infrastructure for caching and broadband access, and integration with Lotus' Notes and Domino Web server allows streaming audio/video files to be distributed inside email messages.
