This marks the last installment of my column, and August will be the first month since June of 1993 that I won’t be working at OffBeat in some capacity — from intern, to Louisiana Music Directory Coordinator, to New Media Manager, and a contributing writer throughout. While I’m sorry not to be working with OffBeat as the magazine proceeds into its second decade, I’m confident Jan and the rest of the staff will continue to develop New Orleans’ most comprehensive source for music news.

A great deal has changed at the magazine since I began. The most exciting development, for me, was the implementation and development of OffBeat’s Web site. Begun in March 1995, the OffBeat site was the first of any local media. While I appreciate the credit I receive for work on the Web site, it wouldn’t have gotten such a jump on other local media without the foresight of OffBeat publisher Jan Ramsey.

As local sites began to come on-line in increasing numbers, it became clear that traditional media would be the biggest players among local Internet presence. WWOZ (wwoz.org), WTUL (www.tulane.edu/~wtul), WWL (www.wwl-tv.com), WDSU (www.wdsu.com), Shot In LA (www.shotinla.com), Gambit (www.bestofneworleans.com) and the Times-Picayune (neworleans.net) are just some local media sites, and those just in New Orleans. What has been encouraging to see is that while larger organizations jumped on-line, the environment was, and is, a new enough one that smaller sites can compete for traffic with larger sites. This is especially encouraging for musicians, since the Internet — the World Wide Web in particular — provides a potentially huge amount of exposure for a minimum outlay of money and resources.

Space limitations prevent a complete list of local band sites in this column, unfortunately, but suffice it to say that New Orleans and Louisiana music is well represented on the Web. Early projects to bring multiple bands on-line at one site, like Brad Brewster’s Bent Media (www.bentmedia.com, currently featuring the Neville Brothers and Lump), Turnipseed Music (turnipseed.com), Iko Iko (ikoiko.com) and OffBeat’s Band Showcase (offbeat.com/showcase.html) continue to promote the local music scene even as more and more bands go it alone and create their own sites.

The race to get bands on the Web continues. Recently Iris May Tango debuted a site (members.aol.com/imaytango) to promote their unique hybrid of jazz, funk, hip-hop and rock. Along with press clips, a bio, and funky original graphics are RealAudio clips of the band’s entire debut record, scheduled for release in early fall. Over at OffBeat’s Band Showcase, the Le Bon Ton band established their own Web presence (offbeat.com/lebonton). Band personnel bios accompany tour dates, track listing from the band’s eponymous debut, and sound clips in both RealAudio and .wav formats.

Audio on the Internet has also developed dramatically in the last years, to the benefit of bands promoting their music and delight of fans listening to or shopping for it. Probably the most important development in on-line audio, so far, is the continuing compression of audio files and increase of transfer rates, allowing companies like Liquid Audio, Macromedia and RealAudio to create streaming audio, permitting users to listen to clips without having to download them first. In the past, sound quality was so poor and transfer rates so choppy that the technology seemed better in theory than in practice. Recently, however, AM radio-quality audio is achievable on most home users’ computers. This allows for broadcasts of radio programs, like WWOZ, CD Jukeboxes at sites like Broadcast.com, live concert broadcasts and archives at sites including LiveConcerts.com, sound clips at on-line record stores for users to preview CDs before purchase, and has given rise to an entirely new media, ‘netradio, that “broadcasts” only on the Internet.

With RealAudio’s dominance over Internet audio, it seems unlikely that technology will do anything but grow. However, for years to come the technology will prevent CD-quality sound from streaming over the Web — there’s just too much data to pump over current Internet connections. This is not such a bad thing for bands, as it encourages music fans to actually purchase records they’ve heard on the ‘net. The next big step for marketing and sales of music on-line is a compression algorithm that reduces the size of audio files to a manageable size without compromising the sound quality to a noticeable degree. Currently, MPEG layer 3, or mp3, files are undoubtedly the best (I’ve said this before in this column and stand by it). With a compression ratio of about 20:1, the average CD tracks compresses to about 5 megs — not small, but certainly manageable for downloading over the ‘net. Unfortunately, apparently due to fear of piracy, there’s been little commercial interest in mp3 files. This format would be the first viable means for on-line stores to sell individual tracks, which users could buy, download, then store on their computer or burn onto CD with a CD-recorder (currently shipping in many desktop computers). The sound quality is only slightly less than CD, a loss probably only discernible by hardcore audiophiles but they’ll never be happy with digital, anyway. With so many Web sites that offer mp3 files being threatened with legal action for distributing pirated music, the best place to look for sound clips is the Usenet newsgroup alt.binaries.sounds.mp3, and for the latest information, check out www.mp3.com.

So, what will the next three years hold for the Internet and local music? It’s impossible to say, of course, but as evidenced by the changes in New Orleans, the overall shift to a few larger sites over assorted small ones will probably continue. It makes sense that those places that deal in information gathering and dissemination — newspapers, magazines, radio and television — will continue to provide the most up-to-date content, and therefore attract the most visitors. However, this shouldn’t dissuade bands from promoting their music on Web sites, or from creating their own. If a fan is looking for you, the Web is a great way for them to find you by use of domain names, search engines, and links from related sites. But to ensure you receive traffic beyond your fanbase, work on associating your site — either by free links or paid banner ads — with some of the larger, high-traffic sites, especially if you’ve just launched yours. Having a Web page is great, but unless people are looking at it, it won’t help to spread the word about your tour dates, records, news and, eventually, your big, fat, lucrative contract with a major label. Good luck.