The quality of your streaming presentation will only be as good as quality of source material for which it was originally created. This is extremely important! (You can't expect a videotape with bad color and contrast to look better in a stream than it did when you played it on your home VHS machine.) The company that you select to do encoding and compression of your media should be able to provide you with good guidelines for your original production. For example, we always tell our clients that too much movement on a videotape will cause blurring and "smeariness" when video is streamed. (As bandwidth continues to improve, many restrictions that exist today will disappear.) Your streaming vendor is best source of information regarding tape formats and equipment required to create original production. Streaming media is already being used effectively by a number of industries and organizations that are striving to stand out in crowded Internet business world. Streaming media still has its limitations especially in area of delivering full- screen, full-quality video. But most of big players on Internet, even those in head-to-head competition for fast-growing streaming audience, know that as bandwidth continues to improve, streaming is inevitable.

Streaming media advertising substantially increases brand recall, brand awareness, and positive brand perception. This really gives you opportunity to deliver a powerful message about your products or services. It is affordable, exciting, and inviting. It creates "stickiness" that keeps your web visitors at your site and gives them that extra incentive to click on "Order Now" icon.

Outline Format - Perhaps most common format for a site map is a simple outline. This is most similar to table of contents of a book, with everything listed from top to bottom in a specific order.

This format is most useful for smaller, less complicated sites (under a hundred pages) with a straightforward design. The main disadvantage is that as your site grows, site map grows and takes longer to load into your visitors browsers. It is, however, by far easiest of all for your visitors to grasp and understand, as your entire site is presented on a single page in a logical manner.

Multi-column outline - Many web sites use this format. It is similar to Outline format, but with several columns. It has same advantages and disadvantages as outline format, although it can be slightly more confusing to your visitors.

Portal Format - This format consists of a main page which indexes additional pages, which may in turn index additional pages. Thus your main page may consist of overall general contents, with links to more specific contents. This format is most useful for very large sites or sites with complicated organizations. It is a little more difficult for your visitors as it requires more clicks to move around, but it is better than Outline format for large sites.

JavaScript and other formats - Some webmasters like to use JavaScript or Java applets to make their site maps very fancy. I would recommend against this, as they are far less intuitive than a simple outline or portal format. In addition, you can be reasonably sure that a straight HTML outline will display on anyone's browser - JavaScript or Java may be restricted by many users.

No matter what you decide, important thing to remember is to make it easy on your visitors. They are reason why you created your web site, after all, and easier you make it for them to get around, more they will explore and more you will meet goals you made when you created your site.