Shockwave Plug-in for Netscape 2.0 -- Macromedia's plug-in Shockwave technology bridges the gap between standalone Macromedia Director movie presentations and the interactive frenzy that is the Internet. As Jonathan Paijon, executive vice president of 2-Lane Media, says, "Shockwave opens exciting new doors for everything from original online entertainment to interactive product demos...The potential for this product is absolutely tremendous." Shockwave delivers high-impact, interactive multimedia productions to the World Wide Web for Netscape 2.0 users (versions for additional browsers are expected to be released later this year). Interactive graphics, audio, and video can be combined to form amazing Shockwave sites -- image maps take on an entirely new dimension, interactive games (like the cool Toy Story concentration-style game) can be played over the 'net, multimedia ads grace the 'net with profound radiance (and Courtney Cox is nothing to scoff at either :-), and web front pages can finally shine in all their glorious splendor. You will of course need both Netscape 2.0 and the Shockwave Plug-in module in order to get the full effect of the above sites. Shockwave has the potential of taking the web to the next level (like so many other clients, these days), and all you need to check it out is the free for evaluation plug-in module. Unfortunately, if you want to take part in creating your own shocking sites, you'll need to have a serious nest egg tucked away -- Director alone (the Macromedia program designed to create the multimedia movie format for Shockwave) will cost you nearly $800. In addition, as with any good thing, developing a Director movie is no easy task; unlike creating a web page, you won't be spending just a couple of hours in order to design an attractive site. For these reasons, Shockwave sites will likely be limited to companies that actually have the resources necessary to create one. Also, while the Afterburner add-on helps to compress the huge files for use on the net, the result is still a large file that can take several minutes to download for 14.4 Kb users -- a con that many VRML users are also entirely too familiar with. And unlike apps like RealAudio and VDOLive, Shockwave is nowhere close to delivering real-time multimedia presentations to the web. Yes, Shockwave does have what it takes to speed us on to the next generation of the World Wide Web, but the two questions that remain for the common nethead are whether or not we can afford the trip and whether or not we'll still be awake by the time we get there. Pros: An unprecedented multimedia experience, interactive audio/visual presentations possible Cons: Shockwave sites are expensive to create, the sites can also be quite slow to download New: Now works with the beta release of Director 5.0 as well as Authorware and Freehand Version Reviewed: Release 4 Date of Review: 7/7/96 Reviewer: Forrest Stroud apps conference Main Menu