Media Objects
The “media objects” are generally objects that serve to illustrate certain contents on a website. The construction and filling of a website with content sometimes means a lot of work for the website operator. Media objects can be used to make the website more descriptive for users and thus more user-friendly. Media objects are therefore design tools to emphasize or explain certain content.
What are media objects?
Anyone who takes the trouble to build a website and fill it with interesting content should not do without media objects – regardless of whether the website is used for private or business purposes. Media objects are all conceivable audiovisual forms of presentation. These include still images, video objects, audio files, but also text and graphics. If a web page contains a text, for example, further information can be added to it by the media objects graphic or table. At the same time, media objects can also appear on a web page in the form of cartoons, drawings, videos or music files. However, photos are by far the most popular media objects. They depict the content of a web page visually and thus make it clear to the user at a glance what the text document is about. In the visual field, media objects are also known as video objects or VOs for short. When audio and video files are combined, they are referred to as audio-visual objects, or AVOs for short.
Integrating media objects into a website
Media objects can be integrated into the HTML document of a web page in various formats. Conceivable formats include images in JPEG or GIF format, PDF files, and HotJava programs. There is no limit to the number of media objects on a single web page. However, website operators should bear in mind that media objects have to be loaded. If a user enters a website with many media objects, it will take a correspondingly long time to load the entire page. This could possibly disturb the user and cause him to leave the page again.
Observe copyrights of media objects
It makes sense for website operators to use media objects to support and illustrate their content. However, it must be remembered that copyrights must also be observed for media objects. If a photo or graphic is integrated into the website that was not taken or created by the website operator himself, a fee must be paid to the creator of these media objects. Particularly in the case of photos, website operators can make use of appropriate photo databases such as Fotolia or iStockphoto, which offer photos and images for a relatively low fee.
