The Internet, Intranets, and Extranets - Principles of Information Systems - page 295

eBay is a popular auction Web site.
Internet and listen to it anywhere using small, portable digital audio players. Subscribers to
a music service such as Napster or Rhapsody can download an unlimited number of songs
from the site, as long as they pay the annual subscription service fee. Pay-per-song services
such as those offered by Apple iTunes and Amazon allow users to purchase songs for around
$0.99 per song. 26 A music service called SpiralFrog supports free music downloads for users
willing to provide marketing information and watch ads. 27
Radio broadcasts are now available on the Internet. Entire audio topics can also be
downloaded for later listening using services such as Audible.com. Audible provides a sub-
scription service that allows users to download one or more topics per month that can then
be played using PC media software and portable digital music players.
Video and TV are also becoming available on the Internet. One way to put TV pro-
gramming on the Internet is to use the Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) protocol. With
the potential of offering an almost unlimited number of programs, IPTV can serve a vast
array of programming on specialty areas, such as yoga, vegetarian food, unusual sporting
events, and news from a city or region of a state. Google offers a service that allows people
to download selected television shows, movies, and other video. Some episodes of television
shows cost users $1.99 to download. According to Jennifer Feikin, director of Google Video,
“It's the biggest marketplace of content that was previously offline and is now brought on-
line.” Devices such as Apple's video-enabled iPod can be used to view the video content. Cell
phones are being designed to receive and display Internet television and video. 28
Other Web sites providing television content include Joost ( joost.com ), which offers over
20,000 free TV shows on over 400 channels. 29 Hulu streams popular television programming
from broadcast and cable networks at www.hulu.com . 30
A number of innovative devices let you record TV programs and view them at any time
and place. 31 A California company called Sling Media ( www.slingmedia.com ), for example,
offers a device that can broadcast any TV program coming into your home to a broadband
Internet-connected PC. 32 Once on the Internet, you can watch the TV program at any time
and place that has broadband Internet service. The device, called a Slingbox, costs about
$250 and doesn't require monthly service fees.