Well, at least the possibilities are there....We've got streaming audio and video. And, hey, there are virtual 3-D worlds to explore. Animated objects spin and dance in delightful profusion!

So why aren’t corporate Web sites jumping on the multimedia bandwagon? It's not difficult to create dazzling, exciting multimedia stuff for the Web. It can be very difficult to deliver it. Why?

• The bandwidth available to most Web surfers is limited—meaning that those big clunky multimdia files just can’t squeeze through a skinny analog telephone line.

• The two major browsers are unable to agree on coding standards—which means that the type of audio or animation you can produce may not be easy for your audience to download because they don’t have the proper plugin, don’t know how to get the plugin, or their browser simply doesn’t support it.

What is multimedia, anyway?

Jeffrey Zeldman (alias Dr. Web) says, "Multimedia is a marketing term for stuff other than text—stuff, like sound and motion, that we take for granted in old technologies like TV."

Actually, that's the real problem. We're spoiled by TV and foolishly keep wanting the Web to be just like TV.

Personally, I just enjoy the TV for what it does best, and the Web for what it does best. After all, the Web has two big features that television doesn't have-interactivity and information-on-demand.

Wired Magazine’s Robert H. Reid predicts that "four or five years from now we'll talk about the 10 or 15 hours a week that people spend experiencing audiovisual information over the Internet. It'll be just a standard part of the media fabric of people's lives." it's true that the increasng use of broadband and DSL Internet connections brings

But where do we stand today? Judge for yourself. You can experience Web video and audio firsthand on the site of RealNetworks, the pioneers and leaders in bringing sound and video (RealAudio and RealVideo) to the Web:

And you really must visit the amazing site of those Dallas-based pioneers, Broadcast.com (formerly Audionet), who are pushing the envelope of live radio and TV:

Among other things, Broadcast.com can boast of:

• Live continuous broadcasts of over 355 radio stations and networks
• Broadcasts of 21 television stations and cable networks

Visit the Live Audio and Live Video sections. You’ll find that we’re a lot closer to emulating radio than we are video. Yet, there’s much to be optimistic about here.

If you are in on the design team that determines the content of a Web site, remember that much of the fancy stuff may add only entertainment value that may not justify a slower download time—especially if your reader is primarily looking for quick information. This means that you should:

• Test your site on all possible platforms (Mac, PC, UNIX) and all recent versions of Netscape and Internet Explorer.
• Determine how sophisticated your audience is. Are they folks who have all the necessary plugins installed or who would gladly spend fifteen minutes seeking out your required plugin, downloading and installing it?
• If your gimmick requires audio, make sure your prospective user has a sound card
• If your gimmick requires video, make sure your prospective user has a large enough hard drive and plenty of RAM.
• If using a Java applet, DHTML, or Stylesheets, test it to be sure it won’t crash the user’s system or launch an error message.

This means that if your intended audience is broad, you should proceed with extreme caution when considering using anything beyond HTML 3.0 codes.

The moral is simply this: Multimedia is ready for the Web, but the Web isn’t necessarily ready for multimedia.

Multimedia effects can add pizzaz to your Web site or make your readers so cotton-pickin’ mad, they’ll never visit your site again.