Ask RealNetworks CEO Rob Glaser

RealNetworks has always been more Linux-friendly than other streaming media purveyors, and is now moving closer to the open source camp with its Helix Community effort. More recently, Real has made a big media splash by selling downloadable tunes in an iPod-compatible format. Does any of this matter, considering that world + dog seems to be jumping on the downloadable multimedia bandwagon? Can Real once again become "the" streaming media leader? Will Real's 49 cent "limited time only" song download price force other music download vendors to cut their prices? We have no idea, but hopefully Rob Glaser does. He's promised to answer your questions personally (rather than have PR people speak for him). So ask whatever you like. We'll forward 10 of the highest-moderated questions to him by email and post his answers soon after he gets them back to us.

Comments

Re:"Clean" Software - no Cruft?

[cjpez]

Er, they have. RealPlayer 10 for Linux is a simple stripped-down client, and doesn't install anything else. I've had it installed for some time now.

Re:What is he going to do about the player?

[cjpez]

1. It's more than one click away from the main website.

How many clicks does it take for you to click "Download" on www.real.com?

2. It tries to take over your system as a default media system and sign you up for all kinds of spam on install.

The RealPlayer available by clicking on that link I mentioned does none of these things. (Though I admit I haven't installed the Windows version)

3. It's BUTT ugly. It looks like the rejects from the XP UI team were hired to design it, when the rejects from the QuickTime UI team would have been a better choice.

Since you're obviously not familiar with what's been happening recently at Real, I should point out that the RealPlayer available at said link uses a different GUI than the previous versions.

4. I can't DL the content of RealMedia, like I can with mpeg or quickTime.

This is still true, of course.

5. It's a bit [buffering 10%] too eager [buffering 25%] to send media [buffering 40%] before it's [buffering 75%] ready. And scrubbing [buffering 85%] is nearly [buffering 95%] impossible.

I haven't had this problem on the new version, though I never really had any problems with it for the past few versions of RP either. I've just got a standard DSL line. Perhaps you've just got a sucky connection.

WHEN are you going to fix these OBVIOUS deficiencies that have plagued the player for YEARS?

When are you going to check to make sure you're not posting outdated information that's no longer true?

Re:interoperability Mod this down, wasted question

[Blakey Rat]

This is a stupid question, don't waste an interview question on something like this.

The answer is as follows:

To compete with Napster 2.0, MSN Music and iTunes, Real needs to have a similar amount of music available to them, and a similar amount of big names.

The big names are, for the most part, only available through labels that are members of the RIAA. You can gripe about this if you want, but the fact is that the artists *signed* the form to grant the label distribution rights, and that's exactly what the label is doing.

For Real to get these big names, they need to deal with the RIAA. The RIAA has shown in the past that it will not endorse any music that is not restricted in some fashion... either streaming, or DRM. If the best Steve Jobs could do was 7 playlist burns, you can bet that Real can't do any better.

There. I just answered the question and I'm not even CEO of anything at all. Poof.