In current online parlance, the act of "streaming" is defined as listening or viewing media in real time as it comes across the Internet. Prior to streaming technology, users waited upwards of an hour or two (often considerably more) to completely download a media file before they could hear or view it. The earliest form of publicly streamed media events arrived around 1993, through technologies like the MBONE and CU-SeeMe, both of which required the kind of Internet connections only large corporations and universities had access to. (Interestingly, those "super-fast" connections are paltry compared to modern-day home DSL service.)

The process of streaming requires two simple parts. First, there must be a client player, such as RealPlayer or Sonique, which runs on your computer. Second, your computer must connect to another computer called a "server." The server is the computer containing the files (sometimes called "content") to be streamed and also houses the technology to stream it, upon demand, over the Internet. Upon receiving instructions from your computer, the server delivers the content (in this case streaming files) to the client player application running on your computer. It may all sound complex, but just imagine that you're eating some red licorice. Now imagine a good friend with a 100-foot high spool of licorice unfurling as much of that delicious red vine as you want to eat. It's sort of like that.

Over the past decade, dozens of players have attempted to be the last word in streaming technology. Currently, the six most popular players are evenly divided in two opposing camps, reflecting their core technology. Three are proprietary, owner-operated multimedia solutions: RealNetworks' RealMedia, Microsoft's Windows Media, and Apple Computer's QuickTime. Then there are others based on the open standard audio compression algorithm, MP3: Nullsoft's Shoutcast, Icecast (an open-source MP3 cousin to Shoutcast), and Macromedia's Shockwave.

Remember this is a long time ago, a veritable glacial age. Say, six years. Many companies saw the need to provide decent quality Internet-based audio and (at least somewhat legible) video delivery. They staked their claims and almost every one died a loser's death, augering into the dirt at high velocity through corporate buyout and burial, obsolete technology and good old American mismanagement. Some who have fallen by the wayside include VDO, VXtreme, and Xing, all of which have been consumed (continuing as small fish in larger oceans) by Microsoft and RealNetworks. Competition remains stiff between RealNetworks and Microsoft, who alternate between cutting deals between themselves and then arguing about the deals in court.

Of course, the hurtling juggernaut of technology continues to hurtle. People get faster connections and fitting more information in less space makes it possible to get full-screen streaming video into the home. The push for interactivity (the primary advantage streaming media has over one-to-many broadcast television) has resulted in applications cobbled together in strange hybrids of audio, video, user feedback and "interaction" with other viewers. Whereas television allows only limited opportunities for broadcasting content, the Internet opens up this technology to all and offers the possibility of reaching a worldwide audience.

Artist and entertainment sites -- Beck, Comedy Central and CNN, for example -- are some of the heavy-duty streamers. Other sites compile (authorized) content from a number of groups and make those files available for streaming: Spinner, Riffage, and IUMA, to name a few.

You've decided to stream for yourself. How to do it? What format? What technology? Do you need to be a server? Do you need to have a huge (and pricey) T3 Internet connection? Let's identify some frequently asked questions to determine what's most appropriate for a given need.

1) What do you want to stream?

If you are streaming audio only, there are several choices. You can use an MP3-based, audio-only technology like Icecast or Shoutcast. Or, choose an online service like Live365.com, or even MP3.com. You can also use the more advanced streaming solutions such as RealNetworks' RealMedia, Microsoft's Windows Media, or Apple's QuickTime. If you wish to stream video and audio together or desire to offer any sort of interactivity (ie: feedback with users), you'll need one of the more advanced systems.

2) How many people do you want to stream to simultaneously?

The more users a streaming server delivers content to, the more resources (Internet connectivity and computer processing power) are required. This quickly becomes more pronounced when you improve the quality of your content by encoding at higher bit rates. Streaming a song to two people simultaneously doesn't require as beefy a server and as much raw Internet bandwidth as streaming a Bjork concert live to 10,000 people. You might be able to stream the former from a Linux machine on a home DSL connection, but there's no chance to do the latter without a rack of computers and many megabits of bandwidth.

3) How much can you afford to pay?

(Insert laugh track here.) So you don't have the gross national product of a landlocked country in the sub-Sahara at your disposal? *Sniff!* You may find price to be a limiting factor in getting your streaming content online. Thankfully, there are some affordable options available if you don't need to reach thousands of people. Unfortunately, these "affordable options" are still rather murky waters to navigate.

Some software is limited by what it can stream, some is limited by what type of computer it uses and some is limited by how many people can access a stream at the same time.

If you plan to stream MP3 audio only, Nullsoft's Shoutcast and Icecast work on the freely available Linux operating system and the ever-present Windows. These software packages will let you stream to as many concurrent listeners as your computer and Internet connection can handle. If you're comfortable being limited to only 25 simultaneous streams, download the free "Basic" version of RealNetworks' RealServer. By comparison, their fully loaded version allowing only a paltry 400 simultaneous streams runs a whopping $54,420. Of course, if you want to bite the bullet buy Windows NT, you get the Windows Media Server bundled with the NT operating system software. Windows Media Server will also stream to as many users as your hardware and Internet connectivity can handle. If you are planning on streaming to a large number of users simultaneously beware of Internet bandwidth charges from co-location facilities. They add up quickly.

4) How comfortable are you with technology?

Does this all sound confusing? Does the idea of fiddling for days with your own Unix server machine over a DSL connection in your bedroom make you feel nauseous? If you, like almost all of us, want only to make a bunch of your songs available to friends and fans, then an online service is an appropriate choice.

Live365.com allows you to upload your music in MP3 format. They'll handle all of the technical complexities, all of the money-sucking parts and do it all for free. There aren't any sites we're currently aware of that will do the same for other media types (like video) but it's inevitable that any moment now some poor soul is going to have a light bulb of interactive- hosted-video-content-website-for-free pop up above her head while sucking down that third latte. You might have luck finding an independent-minded site that will do so on a case-by-case basis. Dropping a polite email inquiry can often lead to surprisingly useful results.

Hopefully, reading through these questions may have already helped guide your decision making process. If, however, you're looking at more advanced features like ad insertion, digital rights management, or multiple track synchronization, you'll want to spend some quality time researching RealMedia, Windows Media and QuickTime.

The potential for a truly awesome multimedia experience does exist. But guard against euphoria, friends! As anyone who doesn't live in California or New York can tell you, DSL and cable-modems aren't yet available at the corner store and many urban areas are still cost-prohibitive even when they are available. That said, the standard dialup modem speed has standardized upwards to 56k which, when combined with improvements in the compression technology, allows for only FM-quality stereo audio to stream. Or, if you must have video as well, it allows mono with low-resolution video (or you could choose to leave a little bandwidth to browse the Web while listening).

Let's take a deep breath and remember together: Streaming media is still in its infancy. Consider it about as advanced as a 5-year-old child. Except, of course, it's causing a big shakeup in the biggest entertainment industries in the world. OK, maybe it's like a mutant 5-year old towering 20 stories tall, but still can only speak in partial sentences with the cutest lisp you ever heard.

Remember, the 10 years it took for CDs to become the standard format for consumer audio delivery is still considered "fast adoption." And that was a single format. With streaming technology, we have dozens of different companies pushing to become your media player, streaming server or kitchen sink of choice. It's a confusing time. Maybe the format war fallout will offer up a plug-and-play environment, where latest and greatest compression codes automatically download into your embedded ear-chip before you even realize it. But that's silly, just like the hype.