The Internet Encyclopedia (Volume 3)

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678 WEBCASTING

Figure 4: WebFN.

requests, or an affiliation or portal site registration such

as Yahoo!.

One of the earliest companies that successfully employ

the push technology on the Internet for webcasting was

PointCast. Founded in 1992 to deliver news and other

information over Internet connections, PointCast’s flag-

ship product PointCast Network sent customized news to

users’ desktops. PointCast Network was free to consumers

and supported by advertising. To use it, one needed to

download the PointCast client program, which was avail-

able from PointCast’s Web site and other affiliated sites.

The user provided preferences for customized informa-

tion, which was delivered by Pointcast as screensavers.

The company was acquired by EntryPoint in 1999 and

is now defunct, its push service discontinued shortly af-

ter the acquisition. The pioneering push technology and

proprietary software that Pointcast used encountered

many technical difficulties such as slow service to cus-

tomers, causing traffic jams on corporate networks. Other

Web sites such as Yahoo! and Excite offered similar cus-

tomized information services only when consumers used

those sites. Consumers preferred this model over Point-

cast’s push model, leading to the termination of Point-

cast’s service (Bicknell, 2000). The failure of Pointcast

does not mean that push technology is not a success-

ful model of webcasting; it underscores the importance

of bandwidth limitation in the use of pushing technol-

ogy. Electronic mail software companies successfully and

widely use the push technology to disseminate informa-

tion to their users. Software companies push product up-

dates and downloads to the users such as the latest version

of McAfee antivirus programs, Eudora, Internet Explorer,

Table 1Comparison of Three Types of Webcasting Technologies

Push On-demand Live streaming

Consumers’ effort None/Automatic High (must locate where the content is Moderate (must know the

available and know what content webcast schedule)

to ask for)

Business model Advertising and E-commerce, pay per service, and Advertising, pay per service,

e-commerce subscription subscription and syndication.