Webcast Providers - The Various Categories
A webcast is a broadcast of streaming audio or streaming video content over the Internet. Webcast providers are the people who make webcasts available to people who want to listen to streaming audio content or watch streaming video content. Webcast providers can be classified under four major categories.
* Conventional media corporations as webcast providers: A number of conventional media organizations that include radio and television channels act as webcast providers when they make available their programmed content over the Internet. The main benefit for these webcast providers is that they can reach a global audience. This makes it possible for people, who do not have access to the channel's content through the use of conventional means, to access the content through the use of webcast services. The conventional media corporation that also acts as a webcast provider can increase its audience base and improve advertisement revenues as well. The conventional media corporation that also acts as a webcast provider avoids any potential intellectual property issues as it normally streams the same content in its webcasts over the Internet that it has already broadcast over conventional media channels such as radio and television.
|
|
* Dedicated Internet-based webcast providers: These are commercial organizations that use the webcast as their primary mode of transmission. When dedicated Internet-based web providers come into the picture, the content becomes more Internet-specific as these webcast providers prepare content only for webcasting purposes. They rely on their role as webcast providers to act as main revenue earners, unlike the first case in which conventional media corporations act as webcast providers to ensure that the streamed content brings more consumers to the conventional media channels. These dedicated Internet-based webcast providers are considered to be more dynamic as they do not restrict themselves to one source for all their content. In some cases, these Internet-based webcast providers have also claimed to offer better quality content, because in the first case, the content is first routed through the use of conventional methods of transmission for which the quality of the content need not be as good as that required for transmission over the Internet as a webcast. In case of dedicated Internet-based webcast providers, however, the content is optimized for distribution as a webcast from the very beginning and so good quality of the content is maintained.
* Businesses that act as webcast providers for promotion purposes: A number of companies act as webcast providers in order to promote their business activities. These webcast providers focus on their areas of business. A hotel-booking website may provide webcasts related to the hospitality industry. Some universities and educational institutions also act as webcast providers in which students are provided lessons through the use of webcasting technologies. * Enthusiasts that act as webcast providers: Bloggers and other people also act as webcast providers. In the present era of user-generated content and multimedia content-creation and manipulation having become easier than ever before, every person can use free webcasting services such as YouTube, Odeo, and Podshow to become webcast providers through the creation of webcasts on any topic that they can think of. It takes all the four classes of webcast providers described above to cater to the requirements of different people and segments of businesses in the world.
Privacy Policy
|