Robison Consulting: Internet Expertise for Churches and Ministries.

The Death of Streaming Media

It's been over a year and I'm confident to say, "I told you so!"

Go ahead and lower the casket for streaming media outside of live events. From a user standpoint, the "incremental" or "hinted" media (Quicktime, Flash) blows away anything from Windows Streaming Media, Real Media and even Quicktime's streaming format. (Microsoft virtually admitted as much with the launch of Silverlight technology.) Flash has fewer buffering stutters, a faster start and much better quality.

Quality went up, cost went down.

From the programming end, it's much cheaper and easier to crunch a Flash file and put it on a regular HTTP server than go through the pain of streaming. When I moved our company off of the Windows media server to an incremental download on a global content delivery network, our cost dropped by over 60 percent. The quality is so much better that I received a phone call from Australia asking me what we were doing to deliver such fast, beautiful video!

For video, we deliver a Flash file and Quicktime file. The Flash file looks a little better and downloads quicker than Quicktime, but users can right-click the Quicktime file and save it to their hard drives. If they're really savvy, they can burn a DVD.

For audio, we post an MP3. Forget streaming audio. Unless it's live, it's a total waste of time. With an MP3, users can open it with almost any player, download it, burn it to a CD or place it on their portable player (iPod, MP3 player, laptop).

If you're a ministry and you're worried about controlling your media, stop worrying now. You do not control your media. Quit trying. Get it out there as much as possible in the easiest format possible. Go for distribution. To put it spiritually, keep casting your bread on the water and soon it will come back home on every wave. For the not-so-spiritual, it's the Grateful Dead model. Let them record, rip, forward, burn or whatever. You're just creating a larger, more loyal fan base and it will pay off in the long run.

Streaming was a nice step in the early days of the internet. But as technology continues to move at the speed of light, streaming is quickly becoming a thing of the past. So good-bye streaming. Nice knowing you. Rest in peace.

- Randy Robison

The Internet: From Expense To Revenue Stream (Tulsa Symposium Outline)

Robison Consulting White Paper:
Ministry 2.0

Other publications and research:

Web Analysts Top 4 Frustrations

Web 2.0 and Rich Internet Applications

10 Steps To Creating A Podcast Program

Online Video Becomes A Real Business