I bought two books yesterday, each published by a different company. The books are different in many ways - one is a novel, the other a technical manual - yet both of them work the same, as do nearly all English-language books. I open the cover, read from left to right, and from top to bottom. I know where I am. Similarly, if I were to play CDs from two different major recording companies (yes, there are still at least two), even if one is '50s rockabilly and the other is '90s techno, one piece of hardware can play them both.
It wasn't always like this. Early print technologies, like the scroll, have lost currency in most quarters, and music-reproduction technologies like acetate have long since disappeared. Print and music are mature publishing businesses able to differentiate themselves with content and design because their underlying fundamentals are solid.
Not so on the Web. When it comes to multimedia, the basis of broadband's future, some sites use RealVideo, some sites employ IPIX, some count on Shockwave, others stick to VRML, still others are experimenting with QuickTime VR ... you get the idea. The Internet Economy is still waiting for a Web multimedia standard that will make the broadband Internet a truly mainstream distribution medium. Things are so bad even individual companies push multiple standards. For example, Macromedia (MACR) owns both the Shockwave and Flash formats.
Solid, reasonably open standards are a necessity. Do you think television would have taken off half a century ago if NBC and CBS (dossier) used different display and transmission technologies? Unfortunately, the easiest and most consumer-friendly solution here is the most unlikely: All standards should be built into the browser so viewers don't have to worry about which technology is used. We're barely a year away from Windows becoming a one-browser platform; the Redmond giant won't want to share with others unless the Justice Department gets a seat on the Microsoft (MSFT) board.
The market has begun to decide. Multimedia players from RealNetworks (RNWK) and Microsoft are hijacking each other's formats. Macromedia can't decide between Shockwave and Flash, but it's made it possible to distribute Shockwave animations as Java applets, so consumers can get access to an extra format without the annoyance of having to download and install an additional plug-in. Also, Macromedia has opened the Flash source code, speeding its adoption. The InterVU (ITVU), which used to compete with the RealPlayer, now gives away a program intended to make it easier to keep the latest versions of the many players out there.
The babel of competing formats is somewhat less confusing than it was only a year ago. But it's still a mess; none of the existing formats is ideal. RealVideo is shaky even at T3 speeds, QuickTime can't decide on a consistent user interface, IPIX's 360-degree images on 21-inch screens make me dizzy.
Only a broad industry consortium can solve this standards dilemma entirely. I recognize that consortia tend to generate more PR than usable technologies, but there are too many companies spending too much money to rule multimedia for a recognized standard to develop without one. High-definition TVs were due half a decade before they showed up (in limited quantities and at ridiculous prices), in part because the two competing makers couldn't agree on a standard. One need only look at what happened when Sony (dossier) and Philips collaborated on a CD-audio standard to see how multiple players can thrive in a unified market.
The most prominent current attempt to force a multimedia standard, the World Wide Web Consor- tium's Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language, has produced a series of specifications that most multimedia purveyors support in their public statements, but ignore in their products. Today's multimedia firms can look to the audio industry in the early '90s for an ominous example. Sony, having failed to get DAT to market, pushed MiniDiscs as the post-CD digital
