April 30, 2007
Volume 17, Issue 7
INTENT and Revver Ink Syndication Deal
INTENT MediaWorks, a leading provider of technology for the distribution of licensed digital media content and advertising via the Internet, and Revver, the first marketplace for viral videos, have entered into a strategic agreement to exchange and distribute each other’s premium video content online. The agreement will enable both companies to significantly expand the scope of their distribution and monetization efforts.
Revver will become the first online video company to distribute user-generated content (UGC) across INTENT’s digital platform, which includes peer-to-peer (P2P) networks.
While millions of videos are currently served in P2P environments, monetization is scarce. Revver will distribute thousands of its premium user-generated videos across P2P, using its pioneering technology to serve ads, thereby creating an exciting new revenue opportunity for content creators.
"Historically, P2P networks have been a hurdle for content owners, but with INTENT, Revver will tap into the enormous potential of the P2P marketplace, giving our users unprecedented access to eyeballs and revenue," said Steven Starr, Founder & CEO of Revver.
At the same time, INTENT will provide Revver with thousands of its first-rate videos, creating multiple new channels for music videos and other entertainment content from artists represented by Violator Management, Nettwerk Music Group, and more. Revver will enable INTENT to monetize these videos as they are viewed on Revver or shared virally across the web.
"INTENT and Revver are both committed to empowering those that create and share online videos," said Les Ottolenghi, President & Co-Founder of INTENT MediaWorks. "Each company has unique capabilities. Revver is the first online service to successfully utilize online, broadcast, and mobile channels.
INTENT has pioneered the technology for distributing, monitoring, and monetizing digital content over P2P and social networks. Video creators and consumers both stand to benefit from the partnership between Revver and INTENT."
INTENT is the first company to enable providers of digital entertainment to effectively deliver licensed music, video, film, games, and software via the Internet across multiple distribution channels in a profitable and consumer-friendly manner. INTENT’s digital platform makes digital music and video available to the millions of people using open P2P applications, websites, social networks, blogs, and IPTV.
QTRAX Signs Sony BMG Music Entertainment
QTRAX has reached an agreement with Sony BMG Music Entertainment under which the major record label will provide QTRAX with access to its extensive music catalog. QTRAX is owned by Brilliant Technologies Corporation and is the industry’s first fully authorized ad-supported P2P music network.
Through this agreement, users of QTRAX will be able to access songs from the Sony BMG catalog of recordings for a predefined number of times. Each time a consumer plays a track, the QTRAX player will also offer fans click-to-buy purchase options.
"We are pleased to announce that we have completed this agreement with QTRAX, and look forward to working with Brilliant Technologies as part of our ongoing campaign to build new opportunities for our artists within the digital marketplace," commented Thomas Hesse, President, Global Digital Business& US Sales,Sony BMG Music Entertainment.
Allan Klepfisz, President and CEO of Brilliant Technologies, said, "We are extremely pleased to have Sony BMG on board. QTRAX has received support and enthusiasm among stakeholders in all sectors of the music industry. The basis for the excitement differs from organization to organization and therein lies, I believe, the potential of QTRAX."
"Some see it as trailblazing the ad-supported model and allowing the possibility that in the future music downloading will be paid for, in part or in whole, by advertisers. Others see it as an effective means of encouraging consumers to sample and subsequently purchase music. Still others see it as the ultimate tool against copyright infringement."
Report from CEO Marty Lafferty
 Plan now to attend the Distributed Computing Industry Association’s (DCIA) P2P MEDIA SUMMIT LA and personally meet history-making industry leaders like Les Ottolenghi, Allan Klepfisz and Robert Levitan, featured in this week’s DCINFO lead articles, each of whom will be among this year’s summit keynoters.
This seminal industry event is scheduled for June 11th–14th and is being held in conjunction with Digital Hollywood Spring, which has doubled its capacity this year. Sign up before May 11th for early-bird rates and save up to $350 versus the normal combined registration charges for these two must-attend get-togethers.
As Aleksandra Bosnjak noted in her MIPTV 2007 Highlights, "There was a lot of buzz this year around emerging worldwide P2PTV content distributors Joost and Babelgum. These new media players promise a new technology extravaganza that combines an innovative content acquisition strategy with mixed revenue models." If you missed these rising stars this month in Cannes, please come to Santa Monica and meet them in June.
The June 11th DCIA Conference at the Doubletree Guest Suites in Santa Monica will feature keynotes from top P2P and social networking software distributors, panels of industry leaders, valuable workshops, and much more, representing cutting-edge companies, literally from Abacast to Zattoo. Please contact sari@dcia.info to save more than $50 per night on hotel accommodations.
There will be a continental breakfast, luncheon, and networking cocktail reception with live entertainment.
The June 12th-14th DCIA Exposition is being held in conjunction with the Digital Hollywood Spring Conference, and your registration for the full DCIA Conference & Exposition includes that event as well.
Digital Hollywood has become the industry’s premier entertainment and technology conference and this spring’s expanded line-up promises to be "very serious, very crowded, critical to the industry, and critical to your life."
On Wednesday June 13th, we will present a first-ever P2P industry DCIA Luncheon Press Conference at the Merigot Hotel featuring several exciting breakthrough announcements. Please contact kelly@dcia.info for more information.
Initial DCIA Member Speakers for the P2P MEDIA SUMMIT LA are listed here, and the complete Conference Agenda can be found here.
Exhibits and demonstrations for the June 12th-14th DCIA Exposition, held in conjunction with the Digital Hollywood Spring Conference, will feature industry-leading products and services. Several DCIA Member company executives will be featured speakers at Digital Hollywood Spring.
Don’t miss the opportunity to participate in this 2007 seminal event. Register online or call 410-476-7965. For sponsor packages and speaker information, please contact Karen Kaplowitz, DCIA Member Services, at 888-890-4240 or karen@dcia.info. Share wisely, and take care.
Pando Named Top 100 Private Company
Pando Networks, a leading P2P media distribution company that makes the sharing of downloadable high-definition (HD) media a reality for millions of content owners, has been chosen as one of the OnHollywood 100 Top Private Companies.
The OnHollywood 100 is a power list of the top private emerging technology companies in digital entertainment and media today. Winners are selected from more than 1,000 companies, peer-nominated by leading venture capitalists, investment bankers, and industry analysts.
Pando was handpicked by an editorial team based on a set of five criteria – innovation, market potential, customer adoption, media buzz, and investor value creation.
Pando’s patent-pending hybrid P2P platform includes a free, 3MB desktop application that enables consumers to subscribe to and download hi-resolution, full-screen Internet TV, videos, audio, photos, and games via the web; and easily share those files, or their own, via e-mail, IM, or the web. Pando is available in Windows, Mac, and Linux versions. More than 6 million people have downloaded Pando since its public launch in May 2006.
"The Pando platform gives media companies the ability to distribute, track, and monetize their HD media assets while unleashing the network effect of the people-powered Internet," said Pando CEO Robert Levitan.
"Pando’s rapid growth proves consumer demand. This OnHollywood 100 award is a signal to the entertainment industry that now is the time to embrace disruptive technologies and advance their business interests."
New Sharing Model: Free Music with Ads
Excerpted from NY Times Report by Robert Levine
For years, music labels have been trying to prevent fans from downloading their songs on P2P file-sharing networks. Now, some of them would like to encourage people to listen to music that way – provided they view some advertising first.
Several start-up companies are pursuing the idea of advertising-supported music, including SpiralFrog and Ruckus, which caters to college students. QTRAX, one such company that plans to open for business in September, already has deals to sell music from Warner Music Group and EMI Group, and announced a similar deal with Sony BMG Music Entertainment this week.
Allan Klepfisz, the company’s President and chief executive, said QTRAX was in negotiations with the fourth major label, Universal Music Group, and Merlin, an agency that represents many independent labels.
Advertising revenue would be used to compensate the music labels that make their songs available, just as television commercials fund the production of shows. And though labels have been reluctant to legitimize the idea of free music, they are also extremely eager to find new business models. Sales of compact discs (CDs) are down sharply so far this year after previous declines, and revenue from online music stores, such as Apple’s iTunes, is not growing fast enough to compensate.
Terry McBride, the chief executive of the Nettwerk Music Group, a label and artist management company, believes an ad-supported P2P service could appeal to downloaders, simply because it works much like the programs they use now.
"My philosophy is, don’t try to get people to consume the way you want them to," he said. "Figure out how they’re consuming music, market to that, and monetize their behavior." Nettwerk works with a company called INTENT MediaWorks, which seeds P2P networks with copies of the label’s songs that contain advertising.
Labels hope that the convenience of services like QTRAX will help them compete with unauthorized offerings. "We hope this service will draw from unlicensed P2P services," said George White, Senior Vice President, Strategy & Product Development for Warner Music Group.
QTRAX started about four-and-a-half years ago as a file-sharing service run in Melbourne, Australia, although Mr. Klepfisz shut it down six months after that, before any litigation was filed. By demonstrating cooperation, he hoped that he would eventually be able to turn the program into a legitimate business.
From the user’s perspective, QTRAX works much like any file-sharing program, and it will search the Gnutella network. But QTRAX will only display files that it has permission to play, and then bring up relevant advertising, much as Google does for search terms. Although advertisers will not be able to have their messages appear with the name of only one particular artist, Mr. Klepfisz said that they will be able to buy "buckets" of a particular genre. Listeners will be able to hear songs a certain number of times – probably five in the case of most major label acts.
If listeners like what they hear, they will be able to purchase those songs, much as they can on iTunes. Initially, those sales could generate more revenue than advertising, Mr. White said.
Over the long term, however, QTRAX plans to make most of its money selling advertising. "Our challenge is to demonstrate that ad-supported P2P is lucrative enough that everyone is going to be happy," Mr. Klepfisz said. "The real issue for the industry is that right now there are all these people paying nothing for music."
At first, QTRAX will have a revenue-sharing arrangement with labels. Eventually, though, it will have to pay the labels a royalty for each time a user plays a song, which could cost quite a bit relative to ad sales.
"I’m a believer in advertising, which pays for an awful lot of media consumption in the US," said David Card, a senior analyst at Jupiter Research. "But I have yet to see the model that makes me feel good they’ll get enough money out of advertising. The question is, can they get enough mass to lower the royalty?"
Lance Ford and Robin Kent, two advertising executives, left SpiralFrog to form a new company called Rebel Digital, which will seek to sell advertising for QTRAX.
The Nascent World of Ad-Supported Downloads
Excerpted from ClickZ Report by Zachary Rodgers
Ad-supported song downloads sure seem like a good idea. After all, most everything else online is ad-supported, and the record labels are getting so desperate they appear willing to consider anything, even doing away with digital rights management (DRM) altogether.
But giving people music in exchange for watching ads hasn’t worked out too well so far – partly because the labels always attach some strings.
Back in August, SpiralFrog was the first company to make a splash with a deal to distribute music from EMI, but it never signed any more major labels and many executives and sales staffers left in December. Also, the DRM on the songs was out of hand. A couple other similar companies appeared but generated little buzz.
Now a few former SpiralFrog execs have founded a new online rep firm called Rebel Digital to work with labels and publishers focused on music, including music download services.
Its first big customer is QTRAX, an ad-supported P2P music distribution platform that has already won the catalogs of three major labels plus a slew of minors.
"What we like about QTRAX is that it’s fishing where the fish are," said Rebel Founder Robin Kent, referring to its new client’s P2P focus. Kent expects to offer a range of ad formats, including sponsorships, video, and display units. Much of the ad revenue may come in the form of on-demand content, including videos and ring-tones from other recording artists.
QTRAX places some major restrictions on music it offers free with ad support, allowing only five or so plays for songs from the major labels.
"We believe that as the advertising starts flowing, that number will be relaxed, and the ultimate goal is completely free music," Allan Klepfisz, CEO of QTRAX parent Brilliant Technologies, said. Many indie labels offer unlimited plays on their songs.
QTRAX will also sell songs directly to consumers with no strings attached.
Klepfisz acknowledges the songs-for-ads tradeoff has yet to be tested on a large scale, but he’s optimistic the songs-for-sale model will be replaced entirely by an ad-based system.
"We will be selling music. However we don’t really see that as the future of music," said Klepfisz. "We’re pretty convinced there is enough advertising money out there. Up until now, in some ways, the music industry has not adequately embraced this possibility, but it is now happening."
Nettwerk Music Group Mobilizes Music Videos
Video fans everywhere can now watch their favorite Nettwerk Music Group band on their mobile phone with SND2MBL. Powered by mywaves, SND2MBL is a free easy-to-use mobile video service that brings web videos to mobile phones across all carriers.
Barenaked Ladies, Jars of Clay, and The Format are the first Nettwerk bands to offer this feature to their fans. Mywaves also will be mobilizing Nettwerk artists’ podcasts as channels on mywaves, including Nettwerk artist Avril Lavigne’s new "Make 5 Wishes."
SND2MBL is free for users with a video-capable phone, and a supporting data plan.
Mobile Barenaked Ladies fans can now watch "The Bathroom Sessions" from their bathroom or share them with their friends to watch on their mobile phone anywhere, anytime.
Viewers can visit BNL’s video site, click on the SND2MBL button under the video they want to send, add the number/carrier of the phone they want to send the video to, and press send.
"Working with mywaves to mobilize our artists’ web video content is another way to further extend relationships with their fans around the world. SND2MBL allows fans to access their favorite artists’ music content anywhere they want and in whatever medium they’re looking to receive it," said Terry McBride, CEO of Nettwerk.
"SND2MBL also gives our up-and-coming artists a vehicle to gain exposure through word-of-mouth and viral mobile video sharing; it will be a great means of discovery for all our artists."
"Working with such a forward-thinking record label as Nettwerk is the perfect way to connect our global audience of mobile users with their favorite music artists and provide the artists with another medium to connect with their fans," said Rajeev Raman, Mywaves CEO.
Online Video Giant Tests Video Ads
Excerpted from Just an Online Minute Report
YouTube is testing video ads with the aim of rolling them out more broadly this summer, Chief Marketing Officer Suzie Reider said this week. The exact form these ads will take continues to evolve, but the company for now is testing pre- and post-roll ads.
While YouTube’s desire to make money is understandable, slapping on ads that users can’t avoid doesn’t seem like a good move. Ads that slow down content are intrinsically annoying; that’s why so many people fast-forward through them.
For now, companies boast that users can’t fast-forward through streaming ads online, but it’s inevitable that people will devise workarounds that enable them to skip web ads.
Also, people are so used to viewing content on YouTube without ads, it’s inevitable there will be a backlash when ads that interfere with the clips finally appear.
Of course, many ad execs are struggling with the question of how best to show video ads online. Jeremy Allaire, CEO of Internet TV company Brightcove, has proposed a new model of three-second pre-rolls and 10-second mid-roll ads.
This model, however, appears to have serious flaws. While a three-second pre-roll might be short enough that it won’t slow down users too much, any sort of mid-roll ad sounds like the type of thing that will cause viewers to quickly click away.
Online ads that are proven to work well – like Google’s search ads – do so in part because they don’t interfere with users’ activities.
Yes, the ads are shown in prominent positions on the results pages, but users who wish to ignore them can do so. The key is that users control whether or not to view the ad. What’s needed is to extend that principle to online video ads, rather than trying to interrupt clips with TV-style commercials.
Joost Attracts Blue-Chip Advertisers
Joost, the world’s first broadcast-quality peer-to-peer television (P2PTV) service, has signed 32 leading companies from around the world as advertising launch partners.
"The industry response to Joost has been overwhelming, as is evidenced by the caliber of our launch partners," said Nick Loria, Senior Vice President of Global Advertising, Joost.
"Online video distribution is becoming an increasingly competitive medium for advertisers, and Joost delivers a distinct environment: the ability to micro-target audiences with new and unique ads during professionally-produced programming."
Joost advertising global launch partners include the Coca-Cola Company, Hewlett-Packard (HP), Intel, and Nike.
In the United States, its advertising partners include Electronic Arts, Esurance, Garnier Fructis, Kraft, Lionsgate, Microsoft, Motorola, Nestle Purina, Procter & Gamble, Sony Electronics, Taco Bell, United Airlines, US Army, Visa, and Wrigley.
And in Europe, they include General Motors Europe, IBM, L’Oreal Paris, Nokia, Unilever, Virgin Money, Vodafone, and Warner Bros.
Joost has worked with more than 20 media and brand agencies to develop meaningful advertising campaigns for their clients. In addition, the Interpublic Group, through its Emerging Media Lab, has entered into a year-long strategic partnership with Joost.
Additionally, through a partnership with Frank N. Magid Associates, Joost will measure user consumption habits and advertising efficacy, including ad awareness, receptivity, engagement, brand enhancement, and intent-to-purchase, for launch partners.
"Joost has attracted partners from every major brand category because we offer an advertising platform that is similar to TV, with high-quality programming; and we’re providing unparalleled user statistics and insights, as well as an unmatched level of interactivity, targetability, and measurability," said David Clark, Executive Vice President of Global Advertising, Joost.
"Our launch partners and their creative teams are a tremendous asset for Joost, as we work together to create inventive ads that will allow them to reach and interact with consumers in new and compelling ways."
Creative executions, which will be added to Joost on an ongoing basis, include both conventional advertising units, similar to those found on TV and the Internet, such as stills, spots, overlays, and widgets; and innovative types of advertising, such as branded entertainment, channel sponsorship, and promotion. Users will be able to learn more about the advertised brands by clicking through the interface.
"Advertisers, and their advertisements, play a critical role on Joost, which is why we are working with them to develop innovative ads that are more targeted, effective, engaging, and relevant to viewers," said Janus Friis, Co-Founder, Joost.
"Our success in lining up leading brands from around the world is a testament to our delivery of a unique advertising value proposition."
Currently available in an expanded beta, Joost combines the best of TV and the best of the Internet by offering viewers a unique, TV-like experience enhanced with the choice, control, and flexibility of Web 2.0.
Joost is the first online, global P2PTV distribution platform, bringing together advertisers, content owners, and viewers in an interactive, community-driven environment. Joost can be accessed with a broadband Internet connection and offers broadcast-quality content to viewers for free.
Glickman Calls for DRM Interoperability
Excerpted from Variety Report by Ben Fritz
In his first public address on the increasingly controversial topic, Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) topper Dan Glickman called on high-level leaders from the entertainment and technology industries to attend a meeting "akin to a trade negotiation" in order to find common ground on digital rights management (DRM) technology.
At a Digital Rights Management Conference sponsored by LexisNexis and Variety, Glickman said conversations need to go beyond "lawyers and engineers" in order to alleviate problems with different DRM systems that don’t interoperate or confuse consumers with their limitations.
"The people who handle strategy have to get together to talk about this, not just the technical people," he told Daily Variety in a follow-up interview.
During his address, Glickman also for the first time made specific statements about DRM on behalf of all the MPAA’s member studios. His position came out of talks with studio chiefs and other top execs.
"Our goal is a diverse, high-quality, hassle-free consumer experience," he said, "one that makes the most effective case possible not merely for the legitimate consumer marketplace, but its vast superiority over infringing content."
Glickman also said the industry supports "managed copying," a policy that allows users to take films off a DVD and watch it on a PC or portable device.
He said managed copying should launch in the HD-DVD format by the end of the year, and said the industry would also like to see it enabled for standard-def DVDs. Glickman admitted the latter development would take "a bit longer." It would require an industry-wide commitment to a new DRM standard for DVDs, which don’t enable copying.
That has been a bone of contention for digital rights advocates, who argue that consumers should be allowed to make copies for personal use of movies they own.
Those in the biz, however, don’t want to allow any copying that they can’t control with DRM, as users might then make unauthorized copies for friends or put files on the Internet.
Some critics have questioned whether the movie industry should consider abandoning DRM, as music label EMI recently did in a groundbreaking deal with Apple.
However, on behalf of MPAA members, Glickman said, "We collectively affirm our ongoing support for digital rights management," and added that efforts at interoperability, including the proposed "trade negotiation," are the right way to alleviate critics’ and consumers’ concerns.
"My philosophy is that we can make interoperability and DRM work if all parties truly want to make it work," he said. "With this much brainpower at our disposal, it’s a question of collective will far more than technological capacity."
True interoperability would take a huge level of cooperation among studios, consumer electronics manufacturers, and the makers of DRM software such as Apple and Microsoft. Thus far, the industries’ diverging interests have prevented any such agreement, resulting in an array of downloadable content, DRM, and devices that don’t work together.
AT&T Announces Q1 Results
AT&T this week announced first-quarter results that included the initial activity of a merged AT&T-BellSouth-Cingular entity. Profit nearly doubled to $2.85 billion, up from $1.45 billion in the first quarter of 2006. First-quarter revenue rose 84% to $28.97 billion, up from a pre-merger tally of $15.76 billion a year earlier.
There was a 691,000 increase in high-speed Internet connections to reach 12.9 million in service, an increase of 2.3 million over the past year.
There were 187,000 total video net-adds to reach 1.7 million in service, and AT&T U-Verse video subscriptions ramped to 13,000 in service at the end of the first quarter and "approximately 20,000 currently, up from 3,000 at the beginning of the year."
"Customers that are standalone voice customers have ARPUs (average revenue per unit) in the low $40 range. As they begin to bundle, as we move them upwards to a full quad bundle where they have voice, video, data, and wireless from us, all of a sudden such customers move to a $250, $260 monthly level; and at the same time the churn rates are cut by two-thirds," said Richard Lindner, Senior Executive Vice President and CFO at AT&T.
AT&T is not only going with a quad play, but may also bid on 700 MHz spectrum that will be abandoned by broadcasters and auctioned by the FCC.
"In terms of looking at it as spectrum that would be used in our wireless and our mobile wireless operations, I would expect we would look at it the same way we did in the last spectrum auction: simply look at a forecast of the business and the traffic by market with and without that spectrum, and then determine how that impacts our capital expenditures that would be required to support various volume levels. That, in effect, determines the value that we place on that spectrum in the auctions," said Lindner.
The 700 MHz spectrum could also serve as cable’s entrée into the mobile space. "This spectrum, with its propagation characteristics, potentially could have some other applications, but we’re still early in the analysis of that," Lindner concluded.
CacheLogic Sees Revolutionized Internet
Excerpted from Cambridge Evening News Report
The great cranium is there. I can spot it looming over the desk-dividers at CacheLogic. Adam Twiss is alive and well and about to make another fortune, by the sound of things.
Rumor has it that the Internet is not in such fine fettle, in fact there has even been talk of its "death." The folks at CacheLogic think this is greatly exaggerated, in fact they reckon the big "I" is about to enter a new age.
For those who have not been following the story, CacheLogic was born five years ago out of Saviso, the consultancy set up by Adam and old school chums after they left Zeus, the company at one point valued at hundreds of millions of pounds and started in Adam’s college bedroom at Churchill College.
CacheLogic is tackling the problem of Internet overload and has come up with a unique technology capable of managing the ebbs and flows of online traffic - in other words, if you want to download a movie, you will be certain of doing so without delay.
Right now, the Internet death rumors are being flamed by the hours, sometimes days, it can take for films to be downloaded from the Internet, a serious roadblock in the coming age of online everything.
CacheLogic has developed a way of sharing out capacity as and when it is needed - an idea not a million miles from Zeus’ baby, which applies this to websites.
The CacheLogic product is called Velocix and those in the know, not least among them Hermann Hauser, have already invested $27 million in the company in the sure and certain belief it is going to be a winner.
Pat Chapman-Pincher, who has been CEO since last June, portrays a dignified excitement: "It’s very like the early days of the Internet all over again, the sense of being right at the front of a real revolution. It’s a very exciting market and the Internet is about to take off again."
Pat describes Velocix as combining a content delivery network (CDN) with P2P file sharing, or "peer-assisted CDN".
She used to run UUNet International, heading an operation across 25 countries, but got out when World.com bought the business: "It all got very unpleasant and difficult, and that was before the horrors came out."
She started a consultancy group, Cavell, with former colleagues who also didn’t care for the WorldCom taste, and found herself invited to join various boards, among them, CacheLogic.
Cambridge Gateway and Pentec were the first investors in CacheLogic, followed by 3i, and then Hermann Hauser’s Amadeus last summer, at which point Pat was asked to become CEO. Adam is Chief Development Officer.
"My objective is to grow CacheLogic into a very large company," Pat says. "I never run companies with the intention of selling them, because it means you manage in the wrong way; but if someone comes round to buy, I will look."
The company currently has 61 people, 40 based in Cambridge, on the science park, five in the US, and five in Singapore. Pat reckons to be in profit by 2009, but won’t commit herself beyond that, other than to point out that CacheLogic is six-to-nine months ahead of all its competitors, all of which are in the US, and that the market will be worth $6 billion by 2011.
"I don’t see why this company should not become another ARM," she says, when asked. "Growing something really large and successful is the most fun in the entire world." And, yes, she is the daughter of famous Express journalist Harry Chapman-Pincher, who, at 93, is still working.
RawFlow Revolutionizes P2PTV with Flash
RawFlow, a leading provider of live P2P streaming technologies, now supports streaming of Adobe Flash encoded media content. The release of RawFlow’s new Intelligent Content Distribution (ICD) V. 5.3 solution, is the first ever P2P streaming solution to support live Flash media.
Flash Video has exploded in popularity over the last two years, largely due to the proliferation of user-generated content (UGC) sites such as YouTube and the recent launch of Adobe’s Flash Media Encoder (FME), a free Windows desktop program. RawFlow’s move to support the streaming of live Flash content will enable it to offer a unique service to clients that want to explore the live video capabilities of Flash.
"We are the first P2P steaming company that is truly multi-platform. RawFlow supports all the major media formats and protocols including Windows Media, RealPlayer, and now Adobe Flash," said Mikkel Dissing, CEO & Co-Founder of RawFlow.
"The launch of our latest solution, allows broadcasters for the first time to provide live broadcasts to their audiences within a modern, interactive, and exciting viewing experience, and without the usual bandwidth and server hardware costs of streaming in this format," continued Dissing.
Flash has become a preferred encoding technology for on-demand content as it works well on any computer regardless of operating system or browser, and can easily be integrated into websites and interactive features. With the introduction of P2P powered Flash streaming and increasingly better Flash codecs, Flash is becoming very attractive to the web TV market precisely because of its flexibility and interoperability.
"The Flash platform is a hotbed of innovation in the online video market, and in particular for UGC. As a leading P2P streaming provider, RawFlow is proud to now offer this unique service to our customers," said Dissing.
VeriSign Enables Nature Tones for Earth Day
Whether they prefer the call of the flycatcher or the song of a swallow, Canadians can surround themselves with nature sounds, with new ring-tones for mobile phones and PDAs. "Nature Tones" are the latest in enhanced content that VeriSign, the leading provider of digital infrastructure for the networked world, is enabling mobile carriers to deliver to consumers throughout Canada.
As the world celebrates Earth Day 2007, a number of Canadian carriers and mobile content store fronts are introducing new lifelike "bird calls" that offer Canadians a more calming alternative to the standard trills and beeps of a mobile phone.
VeriSign’s Intelligent Portal Services enables the next-generation mobile marketplace through customer branded mobile content and application storefronts for mobile carriers.
"We are helping Canadian carriers reach out to nature lovers, providing them with ring-tones that reflect their interests and passions," said Aran Hamilton, Canadian Regional Vice President for VeriSign. "There is something fun and soothing about hearing the call of the sparrow in the midst of the urban jungle."
The Earth Day release includes 13 bird calls – from blue jays and blackbirds to roosters and owls – and will soon be expanded to include other animals.
NFT Presents Air Show Live on P2P
Barksdale Air Force Base and Network Foundation Technologies (NFT) joined forces this weekend to provide live streaming video of the 2007 Defenders of Liberty Air Show free to the public using NFT’s distributed broadcasting, or live streaming P2P, technology.
According to Air Force officials, this was the first such air show to be broadcast live over the Internet, and was a historical moment for live streaming P2P, as there has never been a military event of this size ever streamed live using P2P.
NFT also partnered with local NBC Affiliate, KTAL Channel 6, which provided mobile uplink and production facilities in exchange for broadcast time in the stream, demonstrating that new P2P technology and old media can have a synergistic working relationship.
Viewers of the live webcast represented at least 46 of the 50 United States and over 13 additional nations. The exciting thing for advertisers was that the typical average time watching (ATW) of 1 hour 36 minutes dramatically increased with this event to nearly 3 hours per viewer.
APM Music and Indie911 Partner
APM Music and Indie911 have created a new partnership to provide television networks, film studios, trailer houses, videogame companies, and other producers, including user-generated content (UGC) creators using P2P networks, with direct access to independent music for licensing opportunities.
Now, artists on Indie911 – the online social network, artist service provider, and music store – can submit music for consideration to APM, the EMI/BMG co-venture production music library that supplies material to thousands of TV shows, films, commercials and internet-based media every year. Revenue earned by the licensing of music through the APM Music/Indie911 partnership will be divided between the two entities. Indie911 will make payments directly to the artists.
"With the arrival of P2P, video podcasts, UGC sites, mash-up sites, digital television channels, mobile platforms, and Internet television, there has never been a greater need for a wide variety of music to fill the needs of an expanding production community," said APM Music President, Adam Taylor. "APM Music’s relationship with Indie911 provides our clients with a large and ever-growing collection of quality independent music. This combination will be enormously beneficial to Indie911’s artists and APM’s clients alike."
For Indie911’s independent artists, the potential for exposure and revenue is immeasurable. As the music business continues to move to the Internet, artists are seeking to retain their independence and are searching for non-traditional means of distribution – no longer hanging their hopes on radio and major label deals.
"Indie911 is not simply an online space for artists to display their work," said Justin Goldberg, CEO & Founder of Indie911 and the Hoooka. "We’re finding ways to enhance the artist services we provide - uniting the best independent music resource with the biggest and best music library in the business allows our artists to generate ongoing revenue from their work while retaining ownership of their music in other areas."
Digital Economics Eroding Scarcity
Excerpted from Digital Music News Report by Paul Resnikoff
The digital disruption is generating high levels of uncertainty, and most businesses and entrepreneurs are charting a foggy course. Attendees at the Digital Summit in Nashville this week were consumed with a contentious and unsettled body of rights and licensing procedures, a situation that prevails despite ever-ramping levels of unlicensed content acquisition. As formats mature, so will licensing arrangements, though bigger questions continue to cloud the prospects of paid music platforms. That includes the once-celebrated paid download, a format that is now nearing the three billion mark.
That sounds like a big number, though the cumulative tally took years to achieve, raising concerns that a broader, sustainable segment may never materialize. Discussing P2P-based file-sharing volumes, BigChampagne Vice President of Sales & Marketing Joe Fleisher estimated that monthly swaps easily cross one billion. Quoting IFPI estimates of swapping levels across a number of different protocols, Fleisher also tossed out a larger figure of three billion, a tally that surpasses the total number of purchased tracks since 2003.
According to Fleisher, the comparison is a critical one to make, and highlights a fundamental flaw with paid models: lack of scarcity. "Competing with free means you have lost," Fleisher declared, a depressing possibility for many start-ups.
Referencing basic supply-and-demand curves, the executive noted that the recording industry now lacks a way to restrict access to its product, and that is marginalizing a number of paid concepts.
Others disagreed, including PassAlong Networks Co-Founder Dave Jaworski.PassAlong offers backend digital music e-commerce services, including a platform that allows real-time price variation based on consumer demand.
Surveying the landscape, Jaworski noted that digital formats are largely incompatible, a frustrating reality that could be dampening adoption."The CD is easier to use than the digital file," Jaworski said, a state of affairs that could change if labels shift away from DRM.
Most Share Files without Fear
Excerpted from Wired News Report by Eliot Van Buskirk
Record labels are in the business of making copies, so they have a big problem with technology that makes copies for free, such as P2P networks.
Rather than capitalize on these more efficient distribution methods, the label-backed RIAA has tried to goad file sharers off of the networks using legal threats.
According to a new study, these efforts have tanked.
As early as 2001, more people had downloaded music over a P2P network than had voted for both Al Gore and George W. Bush combined. You can’t deal with those kinds of numbers by suing a few college kids.
Out of 1,080 respondents, nearly 70% reported that they shared files online, but only about 6% said the RIAA lawsuits had had anything to do with their decision.
Just under 2% of respondents said they felt they were guaranteed to be sued themselves if they kept sharing files, despite the fact that just over 8% of respondents said they knew someone who had been sued.
Studies are notorious for their ability to produce just about any kind of results, depending on who is organizing them, but the results are interesting and generally backed up by anecdotal evidence. People are going to share files whether or not labels want a part of the action, and regardless of the RIAA’s lawsuits.
A Hollywood Promoter on Both Coasts
Excerpted from Washington Post Report by Adam Bernstein
Jack Valenti, 85, a onetime confidant of President Lyndon B. Johnson who spent nearly four decades as Hollywood’s chief Washington lobbyist and helped devise the "G" to "X" movie-rating system, died Thursday at his home in Washington, DC of complications from a stroke in March.
As president of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) from 1966 to 2004, Valenti represented such powerful studios as Disney, Sony, Warner Bros., Paramount, MGM, 20th Century Fox and Universal, as well as several leading independent producers. Earlier, he established political connections as a Texas advertising and public relations executive that led to his strong ties to Johnson.
With an instinctive showman’s flair – notably his grandiloquent speaking style and access to movie stars – Valenti became the dominant power broker connecting Capitol Hill and the film colony. Besides his work on the ratings system in the late 1960s, he helped open up world markets for American-made films and secured passage of copyright legislation to protect movies into the digital age, which led to the proliferation of DVDs.
He also was a major gateway to Hollywood’s financial largesse during the campaign season. On any given week, Valenti met with actors, world leaders, and newspaper editors and was regarded as a brilliant and aggressive wielder of his glamorous pulpit.
Harry C. McPherson Jr., also a Johnson intimate who became a Washington lobbyist, called Valenti "an extremely successful advocate of the movie industry. You’d be hard-pressed to find any lobbyist for any industry who did a more successful job than Valenti. I can’t think of many times when Jack Valenti lost."
Please click here for the full report.
Coming Events of Interest
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MUSEXPO – An unprecedented group of global entertainment executives will congregate in West Hollywood, CA April 30th - May 2nd for A&R WORLDWIDE’s international music and media forum. Designated "a united nations of the music industry," top tier music, media and technology global executives unite to participate in a series of timely industry forums kicked-off by a round-table keynote event moderated by Emmy Award-winning CNN host Larry King.
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CONNECTIONS 2007 – May 1st-3rd in Santa Clara, CA. Now in its eleventh year, CONNECTIONS: The Digital Living Conference and Showcase, produced by Parks Associates in partnership with the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), is the largest executive conference and showcase dedicated to advanced digital lifestyle solutions for residential and mobile environments.
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Streaming Media East - The Business & Technology of Online Video - May 15th-16th at the Hilton New York, NY. Streaming Media East is the only trade show dedicated to coverage of both the business of video on the net and the technology of streaming, downloading, IPTV and mobile video delivery. The DCIA is a show sponsor, and DCIA Member BUYDRM’s Christopher Levy will speak on the P2P for Large Scale Video Delivery panel.
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P2P MEDIA SUMMIT LA – June 11th in Santa Monica, CA. This is the DCIA’s must-attend event for everyone interested in P2P. Keynotes, panels, and workshops on the latest breakthroughs. Held in conjunction with the new Digital Hollywood Spring conference and exposition.
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Digital Hollywood Spring – June 12th–14th in Santa Monica, CA. Now expanded to Le Merigot as well as Loews Anatole Hotel. With many new sessions and feature events, this has become the premiere digital entertainment conference and expositions. DCIA Members will exhibit and speak on a number of panels.
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NXTcomm – June 18th–20th in Chicago, IL. The next-generation global forum and marketplace for the business of information, communications, and entertainment technology. The forces that drive communication and the solutions to harness it converge here. The DCIA will participate with Digital Hollywood.
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International Broadcasting Convention (IBC) – September 6th-11th in Amsterdam, Holland. IBC is committed to providing the world’s best event for everyone involved in the creation, management, and delivery of content for the entertainment industry, including DCIA Members. Run by the industry for the industry, convention organizers are drawn from participating companies.
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PT/EXPO COMM – October 23rd-27th at the China International Exhibition Center in Beijing, China. The largest telecommunications/IT industry event in the world’s fastest growing telecom sector. PT/EXPO COMM offers DCIA participants from all over the world a high profile promotional platform in a sales environment that is rich in capital investment.
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