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GLOSSARY 685on the Internet and censorship issues. The Communica-
tion Decency Act of 1996 was ruled unconstitutional by
the Supreme Court, which established that the Internet
enjoys the same First Amendment rights as other print
media formats. Essentially, the access and cost to use In-
ternet services determine how many will be able to use
webcast.WEBCASTING AROUND THE GLOBE
The United States is taking the lead in the webcasting
market development by promoting private investment for
universal Internet access. Europe is lagging behind in we-
bcasting market development because of the charge per
use rate structure of local phone service and the high price
of leased lines and dedicated circuits. Asia is also gener-
ally underdeveloped in consumer webcasting because of
limited press freedom in most Asian countries. Neverthe-
less, the high broadband adoption rate in the Four Little
Dragons in Asia (Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea,
and Taiwan) and the vibrant business environment fos-
ter a fertile ground for business-to-business webcasting.
B2BCast is a webcasting company based in Asia provid-
ing business-to-business webcasting. It focuses on pro-
viding business executives on-demand access to business
events and conferences 24 hr a day, such as the Asian Cor-
porate Branding Symposium. The Hong Kong Trade De-
velopment Council’s web site features business webcasts
with eight different channels (http://www.tdctrade.com).
Consumer webcasting is blossoming in Taiwan with the
encouragement of the government on broadband devel-
opment. For instance, HiNet, a Taiwan broadband In-
ternet service provider (http://www.hichannel.hinet.net),
provides its subscribers live webcasts of swimsuit model
shows every evening and celebrity interviews. Latin Amer-
ica’s webcasting industry is hampered by its low Internet
usage rate. Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and Mexico are the
most highly developed Internet markets in Latin America.
However, less than 5% of their population uses the Inter-
net (Cyberatlas, 2002).CONCLUSION
Webcasting is still an infant industry with many small
entrepreneurs and large enterprises experimenting their
way. A liberal regulatory climate and broadband Internet
access adoption are key environmental factors to foster
the growth of this industry. Either willingly or unwill-
ingly, traditional broadcast media such as radio and tele-
vision have participated in the brave new world of we-
bcasting. Does webcasting pose a threat to traditional
broadcast media or will its presence further strengthen
the value of the traditional media? Media history repeat-
edly shows that each medium will modify itself to adapt
to the changes in the environment, find its own niche, and
survive the threat of new media, unless the new media can
completely substitute for the functions of the traditional
medium such as the replacement of vinyl records by com-
pact discs and cassettes. Just as television was unable to
displace radio, and radio was unable to displace newspa-
pers, the Web will not displace television or radio. Instead,
audiences are given more choices with webcasting. De-livering of multimedia content is much easier now than
before with the different webcasting technologies and ad-
vancement in webcasting protocols. By integrating the lat-
est technology on the Web and the traditional media con-
tent, broadcasters may find higher value in their media
content and a much larger audience in the workplace and
home and around the world. The interactive capability of
the Web opens the door for a variety of revenue streams
for the most creative broadcasters/webcasters who best
serve the needs of consumers and know how to maximize
the value of their content.GLOSSARY
CUME (cumulative measured audience) The num-
ber of different or unduplicated homes/people exposed
to a program at least once across a stated period of
time.
Extranet An external Web site created by an organiza-
tion to provide information and support services with
restricted access, such as passwords or security codes,
to its customers, clients, suppliers, or members.
FTP (file transfer protocol) The Internet application
of moving files across the Internet using the TCP/IP
protocol by either uploading a file to a computer server
or downloading a file to a user’s local computer drive.
Intranet An internal Web site created by an organiza-
tion to provide information and communication for its
employees, its purpose being primarily for business us-
age but also to be used as an internal corporate com-
munication tool.
NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) A broad-
cast industry association representing the interests of
free, over-the-air radio and television broadcasters.
Pull The process of using software to find information
on the Web for the consumer to view through a browser
or e-mail; can be initiated by the consumer or automat-
ically processed by the Web site server.
Push The delivery of information by a company to a
user’s computer on a regular basis, ranging from sim-
ply sending regular e-mails to providing customized
information in multimedia format based on either the
user’s request or automatic intelligence agents that de-
termine the user’s tastes and preferences.
Real time The delivery of media content, data, audio, or
video at almost the same moment it originates on the
Web; equivalent to a “live” broadcast on the computer
screen.
Repurpose The media content management strategy of
using the same text, audio, or graphics content again
in other media channels by the copyright owner of the
content, the term originating from content created for
one purpose (a TV newscast) being used for another
(a webcast), which can be longer or shorter than the
original content or exactly identical. Also the media
content is still considered the same and under the pro-
tection of copyright law even though the distribution
media have changed.
RTP (real-time transport protocol) An Internet proto-
col that provides a timestamp and sequence number to
facilitate the data transport timing and to control the
media server so that the video stream is served at the