I selected NPR.com for my first analysis, as I use it on a nearly daily basis. (It's one of a few streaming media sites that help to keep me sane at my desk job during the day!!) In regards to our class discussion about accessibility, speed, and general ease of use, NPR offers one of the best streaming services I've seen. National Public Radio maintains a large online audience and seems to have embraced its web presence on a comparable level to its traditional radio broadcast. What I enjoy most is its audio archives. An extremely wide range of catalogued news stories, interviews, and various monologues are offered in both RealPlayer and Windows Media Player formats. In terms of hinderances, older audio files seem to be limited to RealPlayer, and there are occasionally issues in trying to access them with an incompatible codec. Access to the live broadcast is also available. NPR also does a great job of incorporating video and other visual media when news stories incorporate them as an integral part of the story. Audio pieces are usually uploaded to the website in a short matter of hours from original broadcast.

One of the better sites I've used in terms of streaming video is MTV.com, surprisingly. The site is dynamically designed-using Flash animation almost shamelessly and is very generous with well-placed hyperlinks. The organization of the video/audio files is very easy to understand and accessible through multiple links. Streaming video programs are offered via a web program called "Overdrive", which organizes its content in genres of "Television", "Movies", "Music", "News", and occasional promotional titles. Some programs are available to watch almost in their entirety online. Users can cycle through video programs easily. Downsides are that users, I believe, must download MTV's own codec and are often required to download security upgrades to have access to these videos. However, the video/audio library is quite extensive, is accessible, and offered in an energetic format.