Internet Radio Essay -- Expository Technology Essays

Internet Radio When a new technology is pioneered or discovered it is often the case that this new technology is used to emulate the function of old technologies, for example, when Marconi was inventing the radio he was trying to emulate the function of the telegraph system and saw the defracation of radio waves as an obstacle. Eventually these new technologies mature and the advantages and disadvantages are weighed up and used in their most effective capacity. Internet radio is a prime example of this kind of technology convergence, which uses the world wide web, â€Å"the publicly available worldwide system of interconnected computer networks that transmit data by packet switching over the internet protocol (IP)†¦..made up of thousands of other, smaller business, academic, and government networks†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (WWW.WORDIQ.COM 2004) to transmit live, streaming audio information from all over the world. Whilst this media cross over is still in its relative infancy, current developments show t hat internet radio has the potential to make local broadcast radio almost obsolete. Arguably, the first regular internet radio ‘broadcast’ started in 1993 when Carl Malamud established Internet Talk Radio featuring a regular Geek of the Week interview segment. (Naughton, John 2004) This was radio by name only, in reality the radio show had to be down loaded in full as a sound file before it could be listened to, the technology had not progressed far enough to listen to the interviews ‘live’. The other down side to this system was that the files were exceptionally large and took a long time to down load. This all changed in 1994 (Naughton, John. 2004) when a company called ProgressiveNetworks created audio streaming technology in which a file could be p... ...ssed 11 September, 2004] Naughton, J. (July 21, 2002), "The Golden Age of Internet Radio", (The Guardian), Available: http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,759023,00.html(Accessed: 2004, September11). Naraine, Ryan (July 26, 2002) â€Å"Web Radio Law Changes Introduced† (www.internetnews.com) available at http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/1433921 [accessed 11 September, 2004] Reed, Fred (August 5, 2004), " Internet Radio - Redefining through Personalization ", (Knight Ridder Tribune Buisness News), Available: http://www.digitalhollywood.com/SanJoseWedSix.html [Accessed 11 September 2004]. Sawhney, Harmeet and Lee, Seungwhan (October 2000), â€Å"Areas of Innovation, Fringe Groups and Discovery of New Liberties of Action†, (www.slis.indiana.edu), [Available] http://www.slis.indiana.edu/CSI/WP/wp00-03B.html (Accessed September 11, 2004)