WEB MEDIA SCHOOL session - 76 ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS...SMIL
Did I get your attention? I hope so because we need to talk about SMIL and how its use can turn your streaming media presentations into television-like experiences for your web visitors. SMIL (pronounced "smile") stands for Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language and was developed by the W3C Synchronized Multimedia (SYMM) Working Group to allow the synchronization of audio, video, text and graphics in web-based presentations. It was expressly developed to enhance the quality of streaming media and can support multiple types of data, compression algorithms, and bandwidth environments. It was designed so that anyone familiar with HTML and some XML commands could employ it to create television-like presentations.
Philipp Hoschka, Chairman of the W3C group and editor of the SMIL specifications says: "...the Web lacks a simple way to express synchronization over time, for example, 'play audio file A in parallel with video file B' or 'show image C after audio file A has finished playing.' SMIL enables this type of information to be expressed quite easily, allowing television-like content to be created..."
If you create web-based advertising and would like to offer your clients a compelling new way to deliver it, this has a lot to do with you. If you're a web site owner longing for a means to showcase your products and services with economical elegance, this has a lot to do with you, too.
Why? Because the Web is inherently interactive and visitors can follow the links imbedded in a SMIL presentation directly to your web site. There they can obtain additional information or, more importantly, be taken directly to an order form for the product or service described in that presentation.
Let's talk about how you can put SMIL to work for you. In the entertainment industry? An entertainer wants his visitors to know where and when he'll be performing. Scroll the schedule of his club dates next to the window playing a video clip of his specialty. As he sets his performance schedule for future dates, the clip can be quickly updated to reflect this.
Selling real estate? Photos or slides taken with a digital camera can be coordinated with an audio commentary and text. Tell your potential clients about the geographic area, the schools, recreational opportunities and transportation situation. Place commercial messages from merchants in the area, with live links to their web sites, into the presentation and generate additional revenue to defray some of the costs.
Are you in the training business? Courses can be devised which integrate voice and images. Live links can be introduced to take the students to other sites and information pertinent to the material being taught.
Keep updated company policies online and couple them with news items and other materials relevant to the employees. Motivational trainers can use text, audio, and video to sell their training materials when their audience is most inclined to buy!
Doing e-commerce? Show photos of the product range with an audio track talking about each product as it appears. Use this in conjunction with text to take your visitors directly to the order form for the product while they're anxious and motivated to purchase.
Restaurants could show a clip of the chef preparing his "signature" meal while the recipe is read or scrolled for the visitor.
Music News Health History Sports Archaeology Geography College Courses
INDEX