Business-to-Business Internet Marketing, Fourth Edition - Lifecycle ...

140 BUSINESS-TO-BUSINESS INTERNET MARKETING
Media Player is gaining ground. RealSystem software is used to deliver
content on more than 85% of all streaming media–enabled Web pages,
according to the company. In June 2000, Real claimed that over 125
million unique RealPlayer users had been registered. The user base grows
by over 200,000 users per day, an increase of more than 300% since the
end of 1998. Users can download a free RealPlayer, through which
RealAudio (sound) and RealVideo (full-motion video) can be received.
RealPresenter permits PowerPoint slide shows to be enhanced with a
synchronized audio track, and RealFlash enables animations that can
be synchronized with RealAudio. Real products can stream both prerecorded
and live presentations over the Web.
Real took another step toward dominating multimedia on the
Internet with its purchase of Xing Technology in April 1999. Xing was
the developer of MP3 software, used to stream music across the Web.
At the same time, RealNetworks announced a partnership with IBM to
create a universal standard for digital distribution of music.
Services such as Activate (www.activate.com), Yahoo Events
(www.fusion.yahoo.com), Education News and Entertainment
Network’s NetSeminar (www.netseminar.com), and Webcasts
(www.webcasts.com) offer the ability to send Webcasts (live or prerecorded
video presentations) in real time over the Internet or to take a
telephone feed of audio, translate it, and broadcast it in real time over
the Internet. Yahoo! announced in June 2001 that it would offer a suite
of products targeting corporate marketing users.
Other companies are quickly entering this market. For example, Internet
content delivery service Akamai Technologies (www.akamai.com) announced
in June 2000 that it would offer online conference call services to
telecommunications giants AT&T and WorldCom, among others. Earlier
in 2000, Akamai acquired Internet conferencing company Intervu, whose
product NetPodium was popular for online conferences and seminars. This
is useful for virtual seminars, because it means a speaker can be using a
telephone and have his or her voice seamlessly transmitted to Web listeners.
The speaker can also be prerecorded, so the event can be staged “live”
at a later time, and the speech can be archived for ongoing use as well.
Numerous technology conferences, trade shows, and symposiums have used
live video streaming to put a unique twist on their offerings.
The most common form of Internet event presentation is currently
the combination Web/teleconference event. A variety of technologies
are used for implementation, but the basic concept is the same: The
attendee goes to a URL to see Web content but calls an 800 number to