Before RealAudio, sound on the web meant waiting for a whole file to download. Rob Glaser's player started talking almost at once, over an ordinary dial-up modem. Radio stations, ball games and news broadcasts poured onto the web through it. When the Seattle company filed to go public in 1997, millions of people had installed its free player. Microsoft had just bought a stake in it, and would soon become its fiercest rival.

A Microsoft Veteran's Second Act

Glaser spent about ten years at Microsoft before leaving to start Progressive Networks in Seattle in 1994. In April 1995 it shipped RealAudio, which streamed sound in real time instead of making people download first. RealVideo followed. The bet was to give the player away and sell the server software to broadcasters and websites. The company took the name RealNetworks in 1997, shortly before it filed for its offering.

Streaming Before Its Time

RealNetworks priced its IPO at $12.50 a share in November 1997 and traded on Nasdaq as RNWK. It rode the dot-com boom, then lost ground as Microsoft bundled Windows Media Player into Windows. Real sued, and Microsoft paid $761 million to settle in 2005. Apple's iTunes and later YouTube took the audience. In 2022 Glaser bought out the other shareholders at $0.73 a share and took the company private.

Cover: A Mountainous Landscape with a Stream, Totoya Hokkei. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a mountain stream (streaming media).