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The remarkable success of Youtube.Com on the Internet immediately shows you the power of and the wide spread interest in and use of streaming video technology. According to Alexa Youtube went on line on February 15,2005. Today (November 19, 2006) the site is number seven in the Alexa ratings. What an amazing surge in popularity in less than two years.

Many videos at Youtube may suffer in quality due to a lack of editorial control but that is likely one of the prime reasons that Youtube’s popularity is so great. At Youtube anyone with a video camera or even cell phone can upload video and be their own camera man , producer, editor, and marketing manager. To say that Youtube is empowering is a bit of an understatement.

It is interesting to note that over the past couple of years sites that are interactive and that offer their membership base a large degree of content control have had tremendous success. Another example of this approach is Myspace.Com. It seems that the youth of today want to be fiercely independent in what they do and say rather than accepting someones elses editorial content but they want to do their independent gig in huge groups. Hmmmmmm. That should be fertile material for a number of blogs.

One of the attractions of advancing Internet technology is the ability to have multimedia content delivered right to our homes 24/7. Click a button and you can hear music or watch videos that start playing almost immediately. The wizardry behind this delivery system is called ’streaming’ and can be applied to both video and audio content.

Streaming is similar in concept to broadcasting. Radio or TV broadcasts work by sending out an audio or video signal from a central broadcast tower or cable company and anyone with the proper receiver (a TV set or a radio) can tune in to that broadcast.

Streaming works almost the same way. Streaming can be done in real time just like a broadcast, but more often it is used to transmit stored material that can be viewed at any time. Wouldn’t it be great if we could flip on the TV and watch any show we wanted? Well, with video streaming that’s possible.

Live video feeds (sometimes called webcasts) are a part of video streaming, but the biggest application of video streaming technology is for ‘video-on-demand’. The video content is available for viewing at any time – 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Streaming vs Downloading

Any type of file can be downloaded to your personal computer. The problem is that if it’s a big video file it may take anywhere from 15 minutes to several hours for the download to finish before you can view it.

Streaming is different. It allows you to watch the video as it is downloading. There is usually a short delay between clicking the ‘view’ button and seeing the beginning of the video, but this delay is measured in seconds rather than hours.

The reason for this delay is that the media player is creating a buffer for the video. This buffer allows the video to continue uninterrupted in case there is a disruption in the download stream. Of course, if the disruption is too long, the video will start skipping or just stop playing.

Anyone with a web site can place a properly formatted video file on their HTTP server and create a simple hyperlink to allow viewers to watch the video. This is fine for any website that receives low to moderate traffic.

Web sites that have a significant number of visitors, however, may have to use a special streaming server that can keep up with the demand of many people watching the streaming video simultaneously. A streaming server is also needed if you want to do real time webcasts.

Some Internet Service Providers (ISPs) specialize in streaming servers so anyone serious about offering reliable streaming video to a large audience should use this type of service.

The advantages of using a streaming server include detecting the client’s connection speed so that video files of an appropriate bit rate are delivered. This spares the end-user the necessity of choosing between various formats.

YouTube has proved beyond a doubt that there is a tremendous worldwide interest in and market for videos produced by ordinary folks often performing ridiculous and funny things before a camera. I suppose that there is a bit of humor and showmanship in most folks.

With the popularity of watching videos on personal computers well established you can bet the house that online marketers will be driving tons of traffic by using clever streaming videos. At the end of the video a link will appear that if clicked will take you off to the marketers website. I’m sure that quite soon you will be able to see this technique in action.

Streaming video is also great for online lessons and instruction. Here is an example of how this is being applied by one of the Internet’s leading website and business builders. Whether for entertainment fun, artistic development, or business streaming video looks to be a killer application on the Internet.

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