Lionell Go Macahilig's Blog
Lionell Go Macahilig male Associate Editor (Online)
Building on the learnings that he earned from the academe and his almost three-year professional experience in the outsourcing industry, Lionell joined HardwareZone Philippines in 2007. In his free time, he runs his PC shop and reads various articles online. He also likes cats and jogging.
Media streaming has been around since the 1990s, but because of several technological limitations and high associated cost during that period, it was not a popular method among consumers to enjoy multimedia content. For a long time, consumers have been contented with listening to music and watching videos through nonstreaming means. A few classic examples of nonstreaming media consumption methods include playing back of content from an optical drive and downloading files from an online server.
However, with waves of advancements in computing and consumer electronics have been successively coming since the past decade, the way how consumers access and use multimedia content has significantly changed. With today’s wide variety of computing and multimedia-playing platforms that feature powerful processors, compelling graphics, and mammoth-size storage, consumers have now the liberty of creating and playing content in a more fluid manner.
The emergence of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets clearly suggests that consumers now demand access to content regardless of place and time – from the cloud to the device. By 2015, experts anticipate that two-thirds of computing devices will be composed of smartphones and tablets. Together with these developments, Internet service providers now offer super-fast, reliable wireless connectivity options like LTE and WiMAX, in addition to the traditional cable-based broadband connection, at a more reasonable price points and flexible plans. Another wireless standard, DLNA allows localized, short-range media streaming between two DLNA-certified devices such as a smartphone and a Smart TV.
The choices do not stop there. Media streaming is supported by different operating systems, Web browsers, and software applications, whether they are mobile or desktop-based. Media streaming is the core feature of content hosting and social networking websites, such as Facebook and YouTube, each owning a lion’s share of world’s population of netizens. Streamed and livestreamed content have significant impact on today’s Internet culture – the age of Web 2.0 – resulting in rapid change and exchange of thoughts, the definition of Warholian fame, and further realization of the concept of a global village. Taking into account the breadth of its impact, media streaming can now be considered as a common language that binds today’s babel of people and platforms.
