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Technology Stocks : RealNetworks (NASDAQ:RNWK) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: B.D. who wrote (261)	2/24/1998 8:07:00 PM
From: Doug (Htfd,CT)	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 5843

Just because a download is possible doesn't make it preferable. Look at TV today ... most folks only videotape a show to preserve it, or to time shift it. And most just channel surf rather than load up one of the 100+ video tapes in their collection. Am I wrong? TV and radio are streaming audio ... it just comes ... in variety ...and that has impulse appeal. And offers easy variety ... click: News ... click: Comedy ... click: Spanish Channel ... click: BabeWatch! Ahhh, sit back, relax .... Commercial! Click ... etc. Can't do that with a stack of videotapes or downloads ... the couch potatoes of the world want their stream edited and delivered by someone else ... while they sit back and punch the clicker ... and RNWK provides the technology to deliver that via PC (read WebTV). Just my uninformed opinion. Doug (long RNWK)

To: B.D. who wrote (261)	2/25/1998 3:04:00 PM
From: Roger Bass	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 5843

Don't really agree that increased bandwidth weakens arguments for streaming. Aside from the point that this creates clutter on hard disks that needs managing in some way (and may not fit well with non-PC web browsing models), the key point is that @Home (and probably in the future others, once they think about it) are being very careful to build the network technology for delivering these broadband services in a way that conserves bandwidth as much as possible, or avoids using it altogether, by keeping data close to users. They have a deal with RNWK, have also deployed multicast technology. Why are they doing this ? Because when you scale up consumer broadband services to millions of consumers, the backbone requirements are truly vast. Roger