RealPlayer Buffering
The ritual of early streaming: the "Buffering..." wheel, the mid-song stutter, the postage-stamp video window, the eternal nag to download the player. By 2000, more than 85% of streaming content on the internet ran on RealNetworks' format — which meant everyone, everywhere, was buffering.
Progressive Networks — founded in 1994 by Rob Glaser, later renamed RealNetworks — was the company that made the internet stream. RealAudio launched in 1995, and on September 5 of that year it carried one of the internet's earliest live audio broadcasts: a Yankees–Mariners baseball game. Streaming video followed in 1997, and by 2000 more than 85% of streaming content on the internet was in the Real format.
Dominance didn't mean pleasure. The experience defined a generation of dial-up frustration: you clicked a link, watched "Buffering..." creep across the window, listened to a song stutter and cut out as it re-buffered, squinted at video smaller than a playing card, and endured the constant prompts to download the latest player or upgrade to the paid one. It was the gap between what was possible and what was pleasant — and for a few years, everyone lived in it. When Microsoft and Apple started giving their own players away with their operating systems and the web moved on to Flash-era video, the Real format's dominance collapsed, and "Buffering..." became a memory with a very specific dial-up soundtrack.
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