This document discusses content networking and the issues surrounding delivering content over the internet and intranets. It notes that organizations increasingly rely on web-enabled applications to deliver resources to users. A key issue is that users will wait no more than 5-6 seconds for a page to load before giving up. Additionally, web content is continually changing and growing in volume, with an estimated 700 million online users by 2005. The document examines technologies for reliably and quickly delivering different types of content, such as text, images, sounds and videos.

1. Content Networking
1. Introduction
This document looks at the issues and technologies surrounding Internet and Intranet traffic.
More and more organisations are relying upon web-enabled applications to deliver resources and
'Content' to the end-user. Web-sites and Intranets are becoming more essential to organisations
so that not only is reliable data delivery very important, but also the user-experience of that
delivery has to be of the highest quality.
HTTP is typically used as the navigational protocol, which then leads to other protocols such as
FTP and RTP being called into play. The HTTP protocol is specifically discussed in HTTP, so use
this for reference.
2. Issues
A user who has to wait for too long for a page to load will more likely find some other site to visit.
Studies have shown that a person will wait for a maximum of 5-6 seconds before giving up on a
page loading.
Another issue with web content is that it is continually changing and increasing in volume (an
estimated 700 million on line by 2005!). The very nature of the web is such that users are
encouraged to revisit regularly, that they can contribute and interact and this leads to a very fluid
and flexible information base. The type of data varies too, from traditional text-based information,
through to pictures, photographs, sounds, music and videos.