[TWIAR] Realaudio

[Greg Williams]

I’d like to ask if any of our affiliates or listeners are using the
RealAudio format for their repeater or for their web site?

According to the web stats from the last several months, the use of
RealAudio is almost negligible.  An average of 20 visits per week to the
RA page as opposed to about 6-10 times as many for MP3.  In December,
none of the RealAudio ZIP files were downloaded more than 20 times.

As we gear up for 2005, it appears as though few are actually
downloading the RA files zipped up.  Therefore, if there is no showing
of interest in keeping RA, we will do away with the RealAudio format
EXCEPT IN STREAMING THE CURRENT WEEK’S EDITION come February 1.

If you would like us to keep the RealAudio format, please let us know.
It’s not that we do not want to bring the option tour listeners,
however, a lot of time and effort is put in to encoding the formats (hi
and low) and to only have a few people using it is near pointless.

I’m not trying to make an ultimatum or anything.  There may be people
using it that we are not aware of and the stats sometimes do not show
the whole story.  If you prefer RA but have other methods of listening
to the audio (MP3 or MP4) please feel free to express your opinion to me
as well.

On a side note, whether you use RealAudio or not, would you favor
Windows Media Audio (WMA) over RealAudio?  Please feel free to let me
know as well.  Thanks and 73.

Please email me at webmaster at twiar.org or k4hsm at knology.net to give me
your thoughts.

Gregory S. Williams
k4hsm at knology.net