Just a few years ago IP telephony and instant messenging were the new buzzes on the internet. They offered free ways for people to communicate with one another using the power of the internet. Corporate businesses were using them to communicate with other businesses and home users were using them to keep in touch with their friends and family all over the world. Today, the new buzz seems to be video technology and the transmission of live or streaming video through the internet. In this project I plan to study the use of video telecommunications over the internet, most notably the use of streaming video by both home users and by corporations. The project will be divided into several parts:

--how streaming video technology works--the use of RealPlayer or Windows Media Player, use of a streaming video server.

--examining RealNetworks as a case study of their use of streaming video as a business and their competition with Microsoft's version of video technology.

--examining how businesses such as cnn.com can benefit from the use of video technology

--studying video conferencing and its effects on corporate businesses.

--creating a web page with streaming video as a practical part of the project.