IDEA No 59
WEB STREAMING
On 24 June 1993, Severe Tire Damage performed the first live concert on the Net. Their 152 x 76-pixel live stream used about half the available bandwidth of the entire internet.
Severe Tire Damage (STD) were based in the San Francisco Bay area of California. Band members worked at Apple, DEC and Xerox PARC. In the summer of 1993, they were asked to play in Xerox PARC’s car park, and they decided to stream the gig over the internet. Slightly worried about copyright, they rang Sony Music to check if they needed to pay royalties on a cover version they intended to perform. Sony’s response was ‘Music on the internet? Don’t worry, it’s not an issue.’
The following year, the Rolling Stones broadcast their Voodoo Lounge tour over the Net using the same technology, the Internet Multicast Backbone. Mick Jagger opened the concert saying, ‘I want to say a special welcome to everyone that’s climbed into the internet tonight and has got into the Mbone. I hope it doesn’t all collapse.’
STD decided to open up for them – without asking. There was no way of locking down the channel – it was just open. STD’s drummer compared it to the early days of flight. ‘It was OK to land in a farmer’s field because there weren’t any other options. There’s not many people using the internet in this way, so anything goes for now. We’re still exploring brand new space.’ The drummer was Mark Weiser, Chief Scientist at Xerox PARC, the father of ubiquitous computing.
The Stones play on, but the Mbone is no more. By the end of the 90s the technology had been replaced by RealNetworks, Windows Media Player and Quicktime. Web streaming was becoming mainstream. Seven years to the day after the first live gig, in June 2000, Bill Clinton’s weekly radio address was broadcast on the Web.
A turning point came in 2002: Macromedia Flash 6.0 added video streaming. The Flash plug-in came pre-installed with many browsers, simplifying the process of watching online video. In 2005, ex-PayPal employees Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim took the logical next step – they launched a video-sharing site.
YouTube is now the third most visited site on the Web. As with the internet’s second ever live gig, amateur and professional content sits side by side (see YouTube). After STD gatecrashed the Rolling Stones’ live streaming, Mick Jagger called them ‘Furry Geeks’, but he also went on to say the surprise opening act was ‘a good reminder of the democratic nature of the internet.’ Well said, Mick.■
‘The Stones play on, but the Mbone is no more.’
Mick Jagger on the Rolling Stones Voodoo Lounge tour, which included the first mainstream concert to be broadcast on the internet.