"It's so confusing," lamented my friend, a graphic designer. "I've got Winamp, a RealPlayer, QuickTime, and the Windows Media Player — all just to handle the media-rich email I get."

It's a common enough complaint. Our need to store and transmit data digitally has resulted in a zoo of file formats. In 1996, we thought things would sort themselves out better and faster than this, probably in the form of a Microsoft product bundled into Windows or something. But here we are three years later, and even professional Web developers can barely keep track of which multimedia player does what.

A single player for all audio and video on the Web would make life easier for both developers and consumers. This is still within the realm of possibility, but it seems that vector-based animation like Macromedia Flash will settle in an associated but separate market from the more traditional multimedia formats (rasterized images, non-MIDI audio files). So will we ever get a sleek, sophisticated, hassle-free means of delivering multimedia over the Web? If so, which player will be the one to realize this dream?

This is a key question for developers, who all want to know what skills we should learn. The decision is in our hands, but we're like sheep who go along with the flock: We end up going with whatever's the most popular, which can change from day to day.

Once upon a time (1995), Progressive Networks was smiled upon as an independent savior with a great technology: a tool that enabled us to stream audio on the Internet. Along the way it changed its name to Real and had a near-total domination of the streaming media-player market up through the middle of 1998.

Then the MP3 revolution hit, causing a fracture. As incompatible MP3 players proliferated everywhere, Real was in full-fledged e-commerce mode with its servers. It was even selling the once-free RealPlayer. Concurrently, it introduced the G2 Player, which was a quality product but incompatible with older RealMedia files, causing a disastrous split in the market. It's been a mess for developers, and many have abandoned the platform altogether.

These days, most audiophiles prefer MP3 players like MacAMP or Sonique (or Macromedia Shockwave, for that matter) over the hisses, pops, skips, and streaming delays typical of RealAudio technology. And a G2 RealVideo of Jordan dunking still looks like a blurry mess (although it is possible to make a slide show look great).

No one else can play the proprietary Real format, so the universal player will likely be the RealJukebox, at least until the percentage of audio and video produced in RealMedia declines sharply. And this seems unlikely because of Real's ability to persuade major vendors like CNN to use its technology.

This new program means that Real is now competing against MP3.com, a2b, Liquid Audio, Green Witch, and the mushrooming crop of smaller digital music labels. Its foray has been tentative thus far, but the requisite Public Enemy single is available for free download in MP3 format, and it looks like numerous deals with traditional record labels are in the works. These deals will attempt to leverage the many eyeballs viewing Real's Web site into promotional and marketing dollars from companies that wish to reach the millions of Web-savvy music fans.

The vision is an obvious one: Control the player for Web multimedia and you control the market. Real clearly has the advantage here, but its product is still sub-par and is now facing some serious competition from the latest version of Apple's QuickTime.

QuickTime has been around for quite a while but has been slow to become a household name. QuickTime 4 just might change all that. Key additions to this version are numerous. It now supports the MP3 format, creates high-end streaming (HTTP, RTP, and RTSP) media, and is compatible with a number of multimedia developer favorites such as Cakewalk, Premiere, and After Effects. QuickTime supports Timecode tracks and MIDI standards and is, in general, much more compliant with digital multimedia standards like SMPTE.

I asked a hard-core musician/computer type about her experience with QuickTime, and she hinted at the possibilities of a QuickTime-based Web. "It's nice for demo purposes," she told me. "The files can be really big — I'm just getting into streaming — but they can be reduced gracefully. When you do the audio production for the piece of video via ProTools, you can bounce right to a QuickTime video with 16-bit audio and lock to picture. The QuickTime MIDI instruments are a whole different aspect. You can play music right off of your Web site. And because it's MIDI, the files are tiny. It sounds crude and kind of mechanical, but I had drums, bass, guitar, and strings in this industrial composition, all from QT instruments."

QuickTime's newest campaign is to "keep our streams free," alluding to the per-stream charge that Real levies on those who broadcast media through its service at a high-volume level. Anyone considering paying Real's rent-a-stream fees may want to check out QuickTime first, which has no such charge.

Apple successfully pulled off a top-notch publicity coup by securing an arrangement with LucasArts to offer a number of trailers for The Phantom Menace. So although it's still struggling for market share, Apple is making the right move by creating a better technology than its competitors and cutting some good deals. While these efforts may not make QuickTime 4 the standard for Web multimedia, they could establish it as a tempting alternative.

In this game, it's all about owning the means to distribute your player to the majority of Web multimedia consumers. For this reason, I'm frankly amazed that the Windows Media Player isn't the dominant product. But don't count it out.

Microsoft is solidifying Netshow, a business tool, as a viable high-bandwidth network MPEG platform that streams multimedia at 500 Kbps to 8 Mbps. And of course, it has serious deal-making power — increasingly so in the entertainment world. Microsoft's offering is years behind in terms of mind share, but look out if it decides to go after this market. It owns the playing field (the OS), and deals with Apple and Real can be "negotiated."