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Time To Paddle Harder (4/24/00)
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Ladies and gentlemen, the sky has officially fallen. According to a Real Networks press release, RealPlayer is squarely in the lead among the "Big 3" streaming Internet media architectures. Quoting a Nielsen//NetRatings report, the company crows that, over the course of the past three months, "usage of the RealPlayer grew by more than 2.2 million users, from 19.6 million users per month to 21.8 million users." That's a whole lotta streaming going on. Furthermore, Real notes that RealPlayer's usage growth is "far outpacing" the growth of Windows Media and our own beloved QuickTime.
But that's not the real tragedy here. See, Windows Media usage is growing more quickly than QuickTime-- that in itself isn't necessarily surprising, since QuickTime's been around a lot longer, so there are more non-Windows Media users to convert. But what's really signalling the end of the universe is that, for the first time ever, there are more people using Windows Media (8.6 million) than QuickTime (7.5 million). That's right; QuickTime is third. Somebody brain us with a large rock, because seeing Microsoft swallow up yet another market isn't a sight we're eager to see in this lifetime.
We can only hope that Nielsen's NetRatings are as flawed as its television ratings, and that a handful of web surfers with a little black box are each being counted as 1.2 million viewers, or something. Otherwise, Apple's really going to have to pull something huge; evidently exclusive movie trailers and a free streaming server aren't enough. Hey, iWon.com's doing well with the "win tons of cash" angle; why not have all QuickTime streams ping back to Apple's servers, and pick one lucky viewer a month to win a million bucks? And to promote the server end, give a million to the broadcaster who's serving the stream, too. Do something, at any rate... It's time to buy some market share.
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SceneLink (2250)
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And Now For A Word From Our Sponsors |
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 4/24/00 episode: April 24, 2000: The officials may not agree, but by our count, Larry Ellison has pulled ahead of Bill Gates in the personal wealth department. Meanwhile, Apple teams with Adobe and Microsoft to sue a Japanese law school for pirating software, and Nielsen claims that QuickTime has officially fallen behind Windows Media in the Internet streaming battle...
Other scenes from that episode: 2248: It's A Photo Finish (4/24/00) Ooooo, that's gotta smart... Folks, you may recall that last week we brought your attention to a Wired article which postulated that, given the current market climate as far as Microsoft's stock is concerned, it might not be long before Bill Gates was supplanted as the world's richest man by Oracle CEO (and Steve Jobs's bestest buddy) Larry Ellison... 2249: WHAT Ethics Class? (4/24/00) If politics make strange bedfellows, then lawsuits can be like 9 1/2 Weeks meets Caligula. According to an AsiaBizTech article, Apple's lawyers and Microsoft's-- whose interaction over the years has typically been locked into "Cobra vs. MongooseÓ mode...
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