Streaming media is scary. Despite the ever growing use of streaming media, I still find a great deal of intimidation in Web producers when it comes to working with streaming media. HTML seems easier to understand than transmitting an audio or video signal to the other side of the world. In their mind, streaming media borders on pure wizardry.

But streaming media is easy. These days, it is simple to create and to implement in your Web site. In fact most producers will find it far less intimidating than their first work with HTML or JavaScript. The only challenge is in understanding the range of choices and directions the streaming media industry offers.

Over the next several weeks, I'm going to be your tour guide through the world of streaming media. We'll start with the basics. What is streaming media? How does it work? Where are the standards? Where is it going? We'll take a look at the major players. We'll look at Windows Media Technologies, QuickTime, and RealNetworks. How do you make something in a particular streaming format? How do you add it to your Web site? Along the way, we'll take some side trips and make a few new discoveries.