How To Add Audio Streaming To Your Website

Before launching a website, every designer, be they an experienced professional developer or a rookie with a vision, is looking at ways to improve what they have, making it stand out from the crowd. If you’re publishing music or films, one of the big issues for users is whether or not your site has streaming capabilities. 

Whether it’s an mp3, an mp4, a wav – any audio file can be made available to people visiting your site before it has fully downloaded. It’s kind of like reading a letter as its being written.

Streaming gives you a huge advantage on the internet, which is an impatient place at the best of times. Everything has to happen as fast as possible or people move on to another site. With streaming, users can quickly check out your music, without having to wait for an entire file. Connection speed will still be an issue, but with companies like Sky offering reasonably priced, fast broadband, it’s safe to assume that a large section of your potential market will have a good connection. Now you just need to uphold your  end of the bargain.

The other main advantage with streaming is maintaining your rights over your content. Without it, visitors have to download the entire file, which is now on their hard drive, and easy to copy. To keep your copyright secure, streaming is the only way to go.

It’s not even difficult to set up. You simply write a simple text file with a link pointing to the mp3 you wish to stream. Save it as a .m3u and the file will join the link on your website with the audio file, without redirecting the page. All the sound support for the streaming will be on your visitor’s machine.

If you’re not overly familiar with writing code, let’s look at an easy example. Say you have a file called ‘trumpet.mp3’, saved in a folder entitled ‘music’, which is saved on the C drive in a website folder called ‘tillysbrass’. The file path would be C:tillysbrass/music/trumpet.mp3.

Now you just have to create the .m3u to link your sweet trumpet solo to the link on your site. Using notepad, or any other straight, unformatted text software, type your file path with web address and the name of the mp3, as so: http://www.tillysbrass.co.uk/music/mellotron.mp3. Next up, save the file as C C:tillysbrass/music/trumpet.m3u and upload it to the site. Add the link pointing to the .m3u (NOT the mp3) to your website (http://www.tillysbrass.co.uk/music/mellotron.m3u. Now when someone clicks your link, the m3u file starts the media player working and the mp3 will begin to stream.

To create multiple .m4u files, simply repeat the above steps with new mp3s and filepaths.

If you want mp3s to stream concurrently, just create a .m3u as usual, but add a list of the various mp3 file paths under each other. Remember, there are plenty of forums and advice out there online, so if you get stuck embedding your streaming, take to the internet. Good luck!

Image: Digitalart

What Is A Telecom Authorized Reseller?

If you've just moved to a new place, or are considering switching internet, telephone or cable TV providers, you might want to consider looking at an authorized reseller of these services. Before you call up your local service providers, take a look at a website like Charter Cable Deals. An authorized reseller like Charter Cable Deals will search all the service providers in your area, and show you the cheapest prices from your local providers. They also offer business services, if you happen to manage a business and are in search of service providers. Take a look, it might save you some money! They even have a special on right now!

No Technology Competitive Advantage Is Safe

I've been learning a lot about personal finance and investing lately, and one of the things I've learned is that technology companies are notoriously hard to invest in. With the gift of hind-sight, it may be obvious now which tech companies one should have invested in 20 years ago. Obviously, these companies did something right, but it may or may not be a good idea to jump on board with these companies (via the stock market) now and into the future.

The key to a good business is having an unchanging product that people instantly recognize and want to buy repeatedly. Coca Cola makes a good example. They've made the same syrups and pop for over 100 years, and people still want their product even though it has changed very little from the original. Now compare this to a company like Intel or Microsoft or Apple or RIM. These companies need to constantly stay ahead of one another in the race to develop the latest technologies. If you fall behind, you'll wither. As a result, massive amounts of money must be spent on research and development. And even then, there's no guarantee that you'll develop the best new technology. And even after that, there's no guarantee that consumers will like your new technology and buy it. Just look at the tablet and mobile phone wars. These big companies might have brand name recognition, but that doesn't guarantee that their products are the best, since their product lines are constantly changing. As a result, any past success in the industry is no indication of future success.

I've considered possibly investing in well-known technology companies, but the example of RIM's stock price falling over 70% in 2011 is a constant reminder that even once-great companies can fall.