One of my favorite media players when I hooked up my first computer to the Internet was RealPlayer. From streaming radio stations to movies, Real was where it was at. The first version of RealPlayer was introduced in April of 1995 as RealAudio Player which was one of the first media players capable of streaming media over the Internet. But where’s RealPlayer now? In the age of iTunes and iPods, it appears struggling RealPlayer is barely on the radar.

Briefly known also as RealOne Player, this once sophisticated application has been blasted with bad press over the years for its resource hogging ways, feature lack support and poor interface. Dominating Windows Media Player and extremely popular iTunes has all but sealed the fate of this media giant in recent years. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the name bought out by someone just to take it off the map entirely.

The only thing RealPlayer has going for it is its scalability. Unlike iTunes or Windows Media Player, you’ll find Real readily available across the board on platforms such as Windows, Mac, Palm, Symbian, Linux/Unix, etc. Real portable but real horrible. Apple should buy them out and re-name it iRealBigPlayer.