He courted Excite earlier this year until At Home snatched it away from him, then immediately bought Geocities, the big community-based Web service, and Broadcast.com, an Internet audio and video service.

Three of the world's largest record companies said today that they had struck a deal with RealNetworks, the Seattle-based Internet audio and video distribution company, to make music available online based on a subscription model.

As the Internet moves to broad band, the market for Internet audio and video, so-called streaming media, is expected to explode.

Internet audio and video channels are available to the public via the WorldDirector streaming network operated by Wornex International, and published either on the association's web sites or directly on its members'.

The early Internet audio and Streamium devices had both constant broadband Internet connectivity and a back-end service provided by Philips to aggregate services for its users.

But now software technology from the two leading Internet audio and video suppliers and from two newcomers to the field promises much clearer sound with standard 28,800-bits-per-second modems and regular phone lines.

Their vision might be called "everywhere Internet audio."

But crucial to the future of everywhere Internet audio, many believe, lies in widespread wireless Internet access, because wireless means portability.

Competitors include Broadcast.com, an aggregator of Internet audio, which the Internet portal Yahoo has announced plans to buy, and the audio streaming software maker Realnetworks.

And most of the stations that have made the leap into Internet audio are simply simulcasting - that is, streaming the same audio through the Web site that regular listeners are hearing over the airwaves.