Joan Osborne performs LIVE online via MediaCast (click for plain text version) San Francisco--On May 31, while the Warfield theater is packed with physical fans for Mercury/Blue Gorilla recording artist Joan Osborne's show, MediaCast--a full service multimedia company that specializes in Internet broadcasting--will be busy transmitting live streams of video and audio to her virtual audience on the Internet. The event site will also feature backstage interviews, photo galleries, and a preshow online chat session with Joan, all of which will be posted on the MediaCast site at www.mediacast.com. Participants who log on to the MediaCast site that evening will be able to see and hear the event regardless of their modem speed, computer system or level of connectivity to the Internet. MediaCast's own Living Web Pages will allow viewers with little or no technological expertise to interact with the event as it's happening. For those who can take advantage of advanced technologies such as CU-SeeMe and RealAudio, the Web site provides pointers to all of the software, instructions and technical support needed to experience these applications without difficulty. Visitors to the netcast will also be able to enter to win prizes such as CDs, posters, and autographed photos. The key difference between a Living Web Page and any other web page is that most of the content is acquired live. The Web pages are then constructed on-the-spot and made accessible while the event is taking place. These pages feature a photo gallery of digital images with accompanying text that may include background information, on site commentary, or interviews with the fans. Sound clips are added to the pages in the form of RealAudio, MPEG, and AU files. Video clips, in the form of QuickTime movie files, are also posted to the Living Web Page as they are captured, edited, and digitized. Joan Osborne's career has exploded internationally since the release of her Blue Gorilla/Mercury debut, Relish. She is currently touring the U.S., and will head to Europe this summer to, among other things, sing with world-renown opera singer Luciano Pavarotti. Since her first two releases (both on her own Womanly Hips label) Joan has become known world-wide as an authoritative singer and a compelling songwriter with songs like "Right Hand Man," "St. Teresa" and "Spider Web" to name a few. Despite her rigorous tour schedule, Joan has managed to find her way into the studio for a guest appearance on Cracker's latest release, and to work with Bethenia Rouse, a Gospel singer from upstate New York, whose album Joan is producing. Joan was February's "Artist of the Month" on VH1 and Relish was named the #1 album of 1995 by Entertainment Weekly. It has been praised as "riveting" by Rolling Stone, "a stunner" by USA Today and "one of the strongest major-label debut albums of 1995" by the New York Times. Osborne also made a recent trip to New Delhi, India where she studied Qawwali singing, an ancient form of religious, Indian music. Her television appearances include Saturday Night Live, Late Show with David Letterman (her third visit coming just weeks ago), The Tonight Show and Good Morning America to name a few. On April 28, Joan joined Peter Gabriel, Michael Stipe, Don Henley, Natalie Merchant, Nusrat Fateh Ali Kahn and more in Los Angeles for the 1996 "VH1 Honors" concert. The concert paid tribute to the global human rights organization Witness. The broad appeal of Joan's music has already reached the Internet and the World Wide Web. In addition to her own officially sanctioned site, which was created by cutting edge web designers Rockweb (www.rockweb.com/bands/joan-osborne/), numerous unofficial Joan Osborne Web sites and fan-generated pages have cropped up. MediaCast is a full service company specialized in providing live and on demand Internet broadcasts. Whether it be a rock concert in Sao Paulo, Brazil or a Keynote address from San Francisco, MediaCast's services can bring events live--in real time--to the global audience of the Internet and the World Wide Web. About the netcast: MediaCast presents live events via the worldwide distribution channels of the Internet. The company is a collaboration between Media Synergy and WildCast. Media Synergy has a five year history of audio, video, and multimedia production. This experience includes broadcast quality programs for more than 300 live corporate as well as cultural events for use on national television, radio, and CD's. WildCast features many of the pioneers from the emerging field of Internet multicasting. Their team features a founding member of the Internet Underground Music Archive (I.U.M.A.). Other members include the Director of Information Systems for the largest online shopping Web site, and is also the former Manager of Worldwide Networking for the Interop Trade shows. The company also includes team members who have played instrumental roles since the inception of the online music magazine, Addicted To Noise (ATN). JetPack Magazine will contribute graphics and content before, during and after the show. Their talented Web design crew has collaborated with MediaCast on past events to bring their unique style and skills to the site. Addicted To Noise will have staff on hand to moderate the online chat, as well as produce reviews of the show which will be available on both the ATN and MediaCast sites. InterNex, the Santa Clara based Internet Service Provider will be supplying the network backbone for the show, which is expected to be the biggest netcast in MediaCast's history. AudioNet will be supplying RealAudio streams for the live audio feed during the concert for people to listen to from home. Farallon Computing Inc. will be supplying the ISDN modems and and ethernet hubs which facilitate the transfer content from the venue to MediaCast's servers. Yahoo, one of the World Wide Web's most popular search engines, will be promoting the event throughout their Web site. Yahoo tee shirts and hats will be included as prizes for the online contest portion of the evenings festivities.