Everyone who is involved in streaming media - even journalists who are supposed to stand back and give an unbiased overview - tends to be too close to the subject and often can't see the forest for the trees. And, if your living is made through streaming, there are big, bad wolves in that forest that can eat you up if you don't know where to look for them. The bottom of the Internet food chain is not where you want to be.

That fact certainly caught our attention when the summary of a media analyst's report came in over the transom recently. Entitled "IP Video and Streaming Media 2000: Server, Services, and Content Market Forecast and Analysis - 2000-2004" it did not appear exactly prepossessing at first glance, but when we looked at the price tag on the whole report -- $5,242 - we had to take notice. On a per-ounce basis, people buying this thing were paying a higher price than pure gold. Must be something to it.

So, we called up its principal author, Gary Schultz, president and principal analyst, Multimedia Research Group, Inc. to get the skinny on the deal, and found out what people were really paying for. It was a view of the whole streaming forest, and some of that view was quite surprising. And, if your bread-and-butter comes from producing streaming, the price is every bit worth it.

So here's what it said, with some comments from Schultz tailored just for StreamingMediaWorld. It starts a bit dry and obvious, but quickly warms up:

"The demand for bandwidth has not gone away. As the number of people connected to the Internet reaches 400 million worldwide, increased demand for rich media and more infrastructure follows this trend. Demand for pure bandwidth has changed into the demand for "smart networks," as the industry realizes that adding raw backbone capacity is not enough to solve the ongoing bandwidth shortage.

Bandwidth Solutions

"Back in mid-1999, media hosting companies like Akamai Technologies or Digital Island were only shadows of their size in mid-2000. While IP (Internet Protocol) Media caching and server suppliers like Inktomi, Entera, Network Appliance (and others like them) were relatively unknown in mid-1999, by mid 2000 they hold center stage in the exciting arena of digital content distribution. Edge media serving (or caching), and even caching and buffering on the desktop, are creating new ways to use cheap storage, added to smart network management software, that will energize the business of streaming media.