Re: [-empyre-] intro

[Felix Sattler <felix@querformarte.de>]

Dear Adam & -empyreans-,

on Thursday, 01.04.04 at 20:23 adam wrote:

> Anyway, these are some of the reasons why I dont like thinking of
> streaming as a web-based media. It does not belong in the web but must
> associate itself with the web by virtue of the fact that our use and
> understanding of streaming is very primitive (perhaps limited by our
> preconceptions of what the web is - many people for example, consider
> email a web-based technology because they have only known their own
> hotmail account).

Thanks Adam, that is indeed a very interesting and seldom discussed 
point to start with.
I have come up with a couple of quick thoughts about what you said 
about streaming media's
mistakenly understood congruency with the web

While the seemingly obvious coherence of streaming media and the web 
can be easily
dissolved I guess we still have to wonder why it was there in the first 
place.
The accessibility of streaming content in the net may be one possible 
consideration
(among others).
In an environment based on TCP/IP transmission there is always the need 
to quite directly
connect to a host in order to obtain any data. The IP-address of a 
net.radio streaming
server might be compared to a traditional radio station's AM/FM 
frequency. While the
frequency range where radio is broadcasted is clearly defined and 
separated from other
aerial frequencies such as amateur radio or GSM we do not encounter 
this in the space
of the net where the web and other formats share the same type of 
TCP/IP addressing.
In this way a first technical relation in terms of protocol between the 
two is established.
Then again the question of access. The web provides us with a quite 
simple way of
"scanning" (almost in the sense of scanning a frequency spectrum on a 
radio) for web-content
and display it in a browser.  It almost retains some affinity to an 
aerial "ether".
Because this is what we also encounter in the realm of traditional 
radio's
airwaves where knowledge about a station's exact frequency is not 
necessary. Instead by
browsing a common range of frequencies all the content can be revealed.
Differentiating web from streaming content in the net is an unequally 
harder objective as both
use the same domain of IP addressing, hence the impossibility of 
"scanning a spectrum" of
streaming providers.  A search engine will therefore provide websites 
as the result of an
entry of "webcast" from which you then access streams that are not 
bound to the browser
anymore.

I believe a change to this pattern of understanding streaming media is 
made right now
as a growing number of general users begin to use services as Apple's 
iTunes to tune
into net.radio stations (keeping in mind that these may be a different 
story from artistic webcasts).
With the web-browser disappearing in favor of an almost file-browser 
similar interface I
wonder how long the confusion of web and streaming media will continue.
The Real Networks and other software already featured the concept of 
channels reintroducing
some sort of radio feel to the game. But then the dependance from a 
company's commercial
partners influences the possibility to select these services, a major 
difference to airwaves where an
initially state-controlled frequency range is open to the browsing 
process.

Ok, that was more than I intended in the beginning; now I am eager to 
see in which way this discussion is heading on.

Best

Felix