Internet streaming audio is most prevalent form of multimedia on Internet today according to Creative, one of leading companies in sound hardware field. Over last few years, streaming audio has moved from being a curiosity to a business strategy that is adopted by many media organizations.

There are over 100,000 sites that provide streaming audio content and there is a diverse set of available content ranging from music, news, business presentations, sports, talk shows, educational material, religious sermons and company earnings call.

Streaming Audio has always been available to big corporate sites and techies. Now every one can use simple software to produce their own streaming audio from a web site.

Marketers and business people have always known that a well-placed audio stream can increase sales and signups to their products and services. The problem has always been that average person could not afford high cost of special servers or programmers to be able to use this technology.

There have been a number of products around that provide streaming audio however as they have grown and developed so have their plugins required for listening to streaming files.

With new software available today anyone can add audio to their sites without need for large plugins and complicated software. Simply add your audio file and choose a component to activate stream and click go. These programs output all necessary files, which you can then use to embed in your web pages with a quick copy and paste.

These new software programs use Macromedia Flash technology and LAME compression and resource bits to produce very high quality output from MP3 or WAV files. The web visitor can simply click and listen, even over a standard 56K modem.

So now that you're considering adding sweet sound of your voice to your site, where might you want to use it?

A: Online companies with a physical presence, or nexus, in a state are required to collect and report taxes on sales made to customers living within that same state. For example, if your online business is based in California, you must collect and report sales tax derived from fellow Californians making purchases on your site.

Internet sales taxation has always been a hot topic for those of us who make our living selling goods and services online. One of more controversial points is that no one, including our own government, has a clue how to implement a fair and logical Internet taxation process.

There are more than 7,500 state and local entities collecting sales taxes in United States, each with its own system of rates and rules. A solution that satisfies them all may be a long time coming, indeed.

Online taxation has been a thorny topic for years. Even before Amazon.com sold its first book or Priceline.com booked its first flight, foreword-thinking tax collectors knew Internet might someday generate millions of dollars in taxable goods and services. The problem then--and now--is how states would get their fair share of pie.

In 1998, Congress did what it usually does when faced with a potentially explosive issue like Internet tax collection--it decided to put off making a decision. Congress enacted a three- year moratorium on collection of taxes to give an appointed advisory board time to come up with an acceptable solution.

That moratorium ended last year, and, thus far, no one has come up with an efficient way for online businesses to easily collect and submit sales tax.