But Cuban is the first to admit that no one has yet figured out the business of distributing audiovisual media over the Net. The only thing to be sure of, he said, is that things will look very different in two or four years. He warned that the biggest players on the field today might not even exist in two years' time. RealNetworks Inc., for example, which makes the industry-leading RealMedia streaming media platform, could be bought by a larger company. Streaming media will just be too important for Real to remain independent, Cuban insisted.
Distribution is everything.
Network television stations as we know them will disappear, but local TV stations will thrive by reselling the downstream bandwidth available on the HDTV spectrum. But Cuban said he's unworried by the competition. After a year of first-class cruising on DSL, I got bumped back to steerage. Custom News ZDNet News brings you a summary of top headlines each business day. Diskeeper Get Max System Performance.