Clients are often unsure how to properly use the term streaming or unsure about what this term means. In a slight misuse of terms, you could substitute broadcast for stream. For example, you might hear a person say, “Last night, I streamed Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino on Netflix”. You could think in your head, “Last night, I broadcast Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino on Netflix”. It isn’t 100% accurate to think this, but it could help you while you work on getting your head around the term streaming.

A proper definition of streaming is transmitting a continuous flow of audio and/or video data while earlier parts are being used. The term refers to the delivery method of the data rather than the data itself. Another common delivery method for audio and/or video data is downloading the data onto your computer so the data ends up being stored on your computer. Streamed data is not stored on your computer, at least not the entire data file all at one time. When audio or video is streamed to your computer, the data is being continuously sent to your computer and your computer displays earlier parts while subsequent parts are being received. Once the earlier parts have been displayed they are typically discarded. Downloading and streaming data are two contrasting ways of obtaining audio or video data.

Looking back at our movie example, if a person downloads a copy of Clint Eastwood’s movie onto her computer so she can watch it again and again then she is not streaming the movie when she watches it. However, if this same person goes to her Netflix account and clicks a button to begin to watch the movie then Netflix begins to stream the movie across the Internet to her computer. This transmission is more fleeting. At any one point in time, only a small portion of the movie is on her computer.

There are a variety of streaming media currently available. These days, one can stream movie trailers, Internet television and radio, YouTube videos and much more. Let’s look at some examples. If one lives in Boston, but wants to listen to a Seattle radio station, like KUOW, then one could go to www.kuow.org to listen to an audio stream that is identical to the radio station’s FM broadcast.  Streams can be live or on-demand. KUOW’s Internet audio stream is a live stream. Similarly, when Apple Inc. introduces a new product they will often hold an event in an auditorium and invite the press. To increase the event’s exposure they would often send out a live video stream of Steve Jobs’ presentation. Subsequently, they also often allow visitors to their web site to watch the video presentation streamed to them on-demand.

What is the difference between the words download and upload?

I’m asked these questions frequently. I have 3 answers that I offer.

1. It doesn’t matter if you use them properly. Go ahead and use the words.  People will understand what you’re trying to communicate even if you pick the incorrect word for a given situation.

2. Rather than worrying about which word is correct, just avoid the words and use alternatives. Using either copy or move will work in most situations. For example, rather then saying “There’s a problem downloading photos from my digital camera to my Mac.” you could say “There’s a problem moving photos from my digital camera to my Mac.”

3. Finally, here’s a direct answer to the question. Use download when you’re talking about moving files (such as song files, pictures or Word docments) onto your local computer. Use upload when you’re talking about moving data off of your local computer. For example,

“Yesterday, I downloaded pictures from my digital camera onto my Mac. Then I uploaded them to my Flickr account so my friends would be able to view them”

I should probably add a bit more clarifying detail. Historically, uploading referred to moving files from your local computer to some remote, typically larger, shared computer. Downloading, was thus, moving files from a shared, remote computer to your local, peripheral computer. So, one typically uploads from a smaller device to a larger device.Thus, one uploads files from a personal computer to a fancy server computer like the ones that comprise Flickr.  So, I think one could also say that one uploads files from a camera to a computer even though in my example above, I used the word download to talk about moving files from the camera to the Mac. Don’t you see why people get confused about how to use these words and thus you should just avoid these words and use move or copy!