From...

September 27, 1999
Web posted at: 11:42 a.m. EDT (1542 GMT)

by David Needle

(IDG) -- Entertainment on the Web is headed where no other mass media has gone before. But just where that is, no one quite knows.

The Web has some similarities to television, but ultimately will be a very different medium, say panelists at the Silicon Valley's Churchill Club, discussing the future of online entertainment.

"People think that when the Internet meets Hollywood you get 'I Dream of Jeannie' or some kind of lowest-common-denominator form of entertainment, but I don't think that perception will bear out," says John Geirland, co-author of Digital Babylon, published in September. "This technology will force Hollywood to do business differently and redefine what a hit (show) is."

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The Web hasn't lived up to its billing as the next great entertainment platform, although there have been attempts to develop it.

About five years ago, Intel and others invested in American Cybercast, which wanted to broadcast a regular series of episodes, just like a TV series, on the Internet, using text and pictures. The company went bankrupt in 1997. Similarly, Geirland notes Microsoft's failed attempts, starting in 1996, to add entertainment programming to its Microsoft Network online service.

"The first wave failed because the technology wasn't there. The Web wasn't a platform for a compelling entertainment experience," Geirland says.

Better than Sex

Now, that's changed. MP3, a popular format for downloading music, now beats "sex" as a popular search term on the Web, according to Geirland.

Geirland didn't cite a source for his remark, but it got the immediate attention of the audience.

"There's an explosion of content on the Web, and MP3 is one of the drivers," Geirland says.

A few rough years are ahead. With most users stuck using dial-up 28.8 or 56kbps modems, the Web is very much a work in progress.

"We're like back in the era of Uncle Miltie (comedian Milton Berle) in the early days of television," Geirland says. Still, advances in streaming technology enable Web sites to offer "fairly good" audio and video productions even via dial-up connections, he notes.

Jim Banister, executive vice president of Warner Brothers Online, gives a far more bullish appraisal of online entertainment. Banister argues that recent technical advances, such as Macromedia's Flash multimedia file format, enable companies to deliver a broadband experience over narrow band or traditional dial-up modem lines.

"Just like TV reaches everyone, pseudo broadband lets anyone view new programming on the Web," says Banister.

Panelists are hard-pressed to say what might be the break-out event or show on the Internet that establishes it as a new entertainment medium. Online auction house eBay was half-jokingly mentioned as the Net's biggest entertainment show. Others cited short films, particularly a Web site called Atomfilms that specializes in independent productions.

"The Internet empowers like never before, because TV never let you connect to your audience," Banister says.