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Webcasting.HA WL040/Bidgolio-Vol I WL040-Sample.cls September 15, 2003 8:50 Char Count= 0
680 WEBCASTINGTable 2U.S. Webcasting Audience ProfileTuned to a webcast Tuned to a webcast
Ever tuned to a webcast in the past month in the past week
In U.S. Population 80 millions 40 millions 20 millions
% age 12+ 35% 17% 9%
% Internet users 48% 24% 13%
% broadband users 26% 30% 34%
Male/female 50%/50% 56%/44% 62%/38%
Under age 35 52% 56% 60%
Time spent on Internet/day 1 hr 42 minutes 2 hr 16 minutes 2 hr 49 minutesSource: Arbitron/Edison Media Research 8 Study, 2002.sets. Multicasting is much cheaper than unicasting, which
assigns one stream to each viewer or listener. When mul-
tiple users log on to the site, the unicasting webcaster will
need to send multiple streams that take up large amounts
of bandwidth. One drawback of multicasting is that the
webcaster needs to enable multicast in routers and cannot
use automatic rate changing to accommodate the differ-
ent connection speeds of users (Austerberry, 2002).
Among the three technologies, on-demand and live
streaming are currently the most well-known webcasting
mode and most popularly used in consumer webcasting
of entertainment content. According to the latest Arbi-
tron/Edison Internet 8 study (Rose & Rosin, 2002), nearly
80 million Americans aged 12 or above have either listened
or watched a webcast online, with about 7.2 million hav-
ing tuned to one in the past week. Surprisingly, webcasting
use is not limited to young people. About 44% of webcast
users are older than 35 years of age. Table 2 provides a
profile of webcast audiences in the United States.Three Levels of Webcasting
Webcasting can be differentiated into three levels based
on the degree of sophistication in the webcasting tech-
nologies used during the webcast. An example of low-
end webcasting is pushing information by e-mails. E-mail
campaigns targeted at customers, suppliers, and business
associates that have actually requested information are
a proper use of the low-end webcasting to market prod-
ucts and build customer relations. The e-mails can include
Web page links and audio and video files. Those unso-
licited mass mailings via e-mail, usually called spams, do
not discriminate the identity of the recipients and are sent
from sources unknown to the audience. These spammers
are under the scrutiny of state antispam laws and subject
to prosecution.
The mid-range webcasting is the placing of video or
audio content on a Web site and providing customers and
associates with 24 hour access to current events and infor-
mation about a company’s products or services. The web-
casting can be accompanied with features that enhance
the video and audio experience. These features range from
search engines or directories that help visitors to find spe-
cific information, to captioned and cued slides or dia-
grams that can be displayed along with the audio or video.
High-end webcasting applications may be either push
or streaming, or a combination of the two. High-endwebcasting is similar to traditional broadcasting because
of its expected large audience. Nonetheless, it differs from
traditional broadcasting by its video library accessible on
demand, 24 hr a day. Businesses use high-end webcast-
ing to disseminate information to remote office locations
or to reach prospective customers or investors. The en-
tertainment industry is also using high-end webcasting to
enhance the viewing experience with the so-called “en-
hanced TV” and to generate additional revenue source
with file downloading services for a fee and purchase of
video content online. Webcasters need to lease high-speed
telephone lines, satellite delivery, and other ways of trans-
mitting the live webcast signal to the Internet connection.
They also need to purchase sufficient bandwidth that will
meet the demand of the large number of people logging
onto the server at the same time.TECHNICAL STANDARDS AND
PROTOCOLS OF WEBCASTING
The Internet is a collection of computer networks that are
interconnected and communicate with each other based
on a common protocol called TCP/IP (transmission con-
trol protocol/Internet protocol). Protocols define the way
in which one hardware or software component interacts
with another with respect to specific functionality. As web-
casts are shown to different people with different comput-
ers and Web display devices, protocols and standards are
needed to enable communication across networks. Proto-
cols become standards when every webcaster uses them.
Several agencies set the standards for the webcasting in-
dustry. The governing standards agency for the Internet is
the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force). Other orga-
nizations such as the ITU (International Telecommunica-
tion Union), MPEG (Motion Pictures Expert Group), and
W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) also create standards
and their standards have become more important for the
industry (Miles, 1998). Figure 5 illustrates the relation-
ships among the webcasting protocols that work collabo-
ratively to send a transmission to a user.IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force)
Standards
The IETF is an international association of network de-
signers, operators, vendors, and researchers concerned