Shockwave Plug-in New Standard for Multimedia Web Content Forrest Stroud
The Flash Player that is included with Shockwave (it's also available as a separate download) is a new standard for displaying vector graphics and animations on the Web. Like Shockwave, the Flash technology has been developed by Macromedia to deliver content on the Web that is currently unavailable by any other means as well as to do so with the best possible performance and quality. Both technologies have done an impressive job to date and the soon-to-be-released Shockwave 7 will up the ante even more with an optimized, completely redesigned playback engine and a comprehensive set of new Internet features like smart media streaming, optimized event processing, XML support, and auto-update capabilities.
Like a number of recently released apps, Shockwave has the potential to take the Web to the next level, and all you need to check it out is the free-for-evaluation plug-in module. (Older versions are included in Windows 95/98, Internet Explorer 4.x, and Netscape 4.x, but you'll need to download the packages featured here for the latest Shockwave and Flash files.) Unfortunately, if you want to take part in creating your own shocking sites, you'll need to have a serious nest egg tucked away -- Director alone (the Macromedia program designed to create one of the multimedia formats for Shockwave) will cost you nearly $800. In addition, as with any good thing, developing a Director movie is no easy task; unlike creating a Web page, you won't be spending just a couple of hours in order to design an attractive site.
For these reasons, sites that offer Shockwave content will likely be limited to a small number of companies that actually have the resources necessary to create one. Also, while advanced compression capabilities help to compact the huge files for use on the net, the overall result is still a large file that can take several minutes to download for 28.8/33.6 Kbps users — a con that many VRML users are also entirely too familiar with. Yes, Shockwave does have what it takes to speed us on to the next generation of the Web, but the two questions that remain for the common netizen are whether or not we can afford the trip and whether or not we'll still be awake by the time we get there.
Pros: An unprecedented multimedia experience, interactive audio/visual presentations possible
Cons: Shockwave sites are expensive to create, the sites can also be quite slow to download, for Web developers - adding Shockwave content can have a negative impact on search engine placement
