January 31st, 2000

[Updated 2:00 PM] CNN Compares The Most Popular Streaming Media, But Where Is QuickTime? by Staff Updated [2:00 PM]: Observer Brian Halbrook also had some pertinent information on this article: You have a brief about how curious you are why CNN is leaving QT out of a streaming server article. Since it's just a reprint of a PCWorld article it's pretty obvious how QT was left out. What's interesting is that PCworld DID do a separate article on QT4.1 and streaming [dated January 26th, 2000]. It talks about Apple partnering with a lot of media folks, including CNN, which may be a reason why CNN didn't pick up this article to reprint. Thanks Brian! Updated [1:20 PM]: Many Observers have written to let us know that despite being left out of the article, QuickTime is leading the poll with some 60% of the vote as of this writing. Internet polls are notoriously unreliable, but it is interesting to see how well QuickTime is performing. Thanks to everyone who has written in. [Originally posted 11:00 AM] CNN.com is curious as to which streaming media player you prefer. An extensive write up covers the benefits of RealPlayer vs. Windows Media Player...with not one mention of QuickTime. While the article claims that near 100 million copies of RealPlayer have been downloaded and nearly 50 million copies of the Windows Media Player, it fails to mention how many millions of people are using QuickTime 4. As of MACWORLD SF, nearly 25 million copies of QuickTime 4 had been downloaded, due in large part to the popularity of the Star Wars Episode One trailer. According to Apple, this constitutes nearly 35% of the market share in the streaming market. This is not enough for CNN. However, in the CNN poll, they do offer QuickTime as a voting option despite the lack of mention in the comparison article. It is almost as if QuickTime, like many other Apple related technologies, are still an afterthought in mainstream media. You can read the full CNN article on their web site. CNN.com