July 16, 2007
Volume 18, Issue 6
P2P Opens up to Advertising
According to a new survey released this week by INTENT MediaWorks, nearly three-out-of-four (74%) of US Internet users are receptive to viewing advertisements in exchange for free or discounted downloads, while more than eight-out-of-ten (83 percent) would have a more positive opinion of advertisers who offered free downloads in exchange for viewing ads.
The research, conducted by InfoSurv, strongly suggests opportunities for reaching Internet users at the point of consumption, by sponsoring free downloads to users of peer-to-peer (P2P) applications.
"When consumers search for media files - such as songs, videos or games - in P2P networks, they’re looking for instant access to today’s most popular titles," said Andy Cooper, Co-Founder & SVP of INTENT MediaWorks.
"When consumers find the files they are looking for, they share files with friends through P2P, personal blog posts, adding the files to their social networking pages, or send them via e-mail, text, or IM. If advertisers sponsor that content, their programs can reach consumers across multiple Internet channels from one source."
The survey was conducted online among 1,000 Internet users who use various tools to search for, download, and share digital media, including P2P file-sharing networks, music download sites, streaming sites, and search engines. The survey was commissioned by INTENT MediaWorks, one of the leading distributors of digital media content and advertising via P2P networks and across websites, social networks, and other Internet channels, to determine consumer P2P usage patterns and receptivity to advertising-sponsored downloads in P2P.
Only two-out-of-ten (21 percent) of survey respondents use P2P to obtain "free" downloads, bucking common perceptions that P2P is only about unauthorized downloading and file-sharing. Nearly eight-out-of-ten (78 percent) use file-sharing systems for reasons other than "free" downloads, including: 21% because search results are "media only" or P2P provides simpler search experience (don’t have to weed through websites); 17% to find individual titles versus an entire album; 13% to find unique or rare content; and 13% to listen or preview an item before purchasing.
When it comes to paying for files versus downloading unlicensed versions, three-out-of-four respondents (75%) are willing to pay for content downloaded from P2P networks to own an authorized copy of the file (including music, videos, and games) - suggesting new opportunities for content owners and advertisers alike to distribute and monetize content with P2P.
"There are currently more than 80 million US Internet users that search and download files from P2P networks each month, 10 million or more at any one time," adds Cooper. "With more than 70 percent of P2P users between the ages of 16 and 34, there is significant opportunity for advertisers to reach teens and young adults through this channel, by providing free or discounted download opportunities for licensed content.
More than seven-out-of-ten (73 percent) of respondents are willing to watch general advertising during the download process in order to obtain the content in an authorized manner and either free or at a reduced price. In addition, over six-out-of-ten (63 percent) are willing to provide personal information - such as age, gender, and zip code - in order to receive free downloads. More than eight-out-of-ten (83 percent) would have a more positive opinion of advertisers who made it possible for consumers to get "free and licensed" copies of the files they are searching for in P2P.
For complete results of the "P2P Usage Survey" from INTENT MediaWorks, please contact Andy Cooper, Co-Founder & SVP of INTENT MediaWorks, at 678-387-2410.
Report from CEO Marty Lafferty
 At the P2P MEDIA SUMMIT NY conference earlier this year, FTI Consulting’s Senior Managing Director Bruce Benson shared a chart depicting just how much "Ad Spending is Out of Whack." For example, the Internet now represents 33% of time spent with media but accounts for just 5% of ad spending, while TV represents 32% of time spent with media, but commands 38% of ad spending.
This summer, FTI’s Arnaud Levy and Roger Scadron have expanded on this observation in their report on The Music Industry at a Tipping Point.
Given that two-thirds of Internet traffic is P2P and nearly half of that is music, this suggests that there are literally hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars of un-captured advertising revenue represented by P2P music traffic.
In the past, when proposals for commercializing open P2P music distribution, rather than trying to criminalize this activity, have been presented to major players in the music industry, their response has been that this was premature.
Until litigation settlements could be reached with leading open P2P software developers and distributors, and the music industry could see the effects of the resultant conversions to authorized services, it was too soon to tell what else might be needed.
But like "whack-a-mole," when open P2P companies have shuttered, their software has gone on working and their applications have enjoyed resurgence as open-source derivatives. And as in "kill-a-dragon-and-get-a-many-headed-hydra," many more open P2Ps now proliferate, but – unlike iTunes – are increasingly interoperable, permitting cross-platform search and discovery.
And it should be intuitively obvious that targeting university students for infringement complaints in a stepped-up campaign to wean them from unauthorized file sharing will not make them want to buy CDs. It may even result in a backlash.
Industry observers have pointed to the prospect of developing business models for generating revenue from ever-expanding open unfiltered P2P usage as among the greatest upside opportunities for the music industry. Similar opportunities exist for the video and games industries.
Such models can leverage the efficiency of viral P2P distribution to reward rights holders proportionately with the amount of plays their content enjoys; they can comprise a distribution system with one of its premises that more listening means generating more revenue.
They can also help balance the current strategic over-emphasis on enforcement of restrictive transactions – i.e., trying to get people to pay for access to music rather than encouraging them to listen to music.
We respectfully submit that the place to start this transition is with a wholesale conversion of open P2P music-sharing traffic into an advertising-supported medium.
This is in no way to scale back support for standalone P2P ad-supported models like QTRAX, P2P subscription models like iMesh, or P2P paid download models like Roo’s Peer Impact, or various forms of non-P2P online music distribution. Premium offerings should certainly be layered on top of free-to-user content.
Instead this will build on the work that INTENT MediaWorks has pioneered with progressive music companies like Nettwerk Music Group in addressing the open P2P environment, and exploit the consumer research that INTENT has just released this week.
The fundamental core of this model lies in the formalization of an ad-supported "sampling file" that has the ubiquitous transferability of an MP3 and that, when played in a networked device (or any device that can periodically connect to the Internet), will report its number of plays and refresh its advertising payload.
Music labels should want these sampling files to be distributed as widely as possible, both because rights holders make money with every play and also because they represent direct cross-promotion. As twentieth century radio drove CD sales, P2P sampling files will drive sales of higher-quality ad-free versions with value-added elements like digital liner notes, DVD video content, and user bonus points. Only much more efficiently.
P2P software providers should want to support sampling files because their basic business interests in popularizing respective applications will be aligned with music content owners, consumers, and their own opportunities to generate revenue.
The DCIA would like to offer our services to help drive adoption of INTENT’s solution and similar approaches for monetizing open P2P music traffic with advertising.
From a high-level, there are four questions we need to address: 1) What will the consumer experience be (banner, tile, flash, and other advertising formats for home-page, search window, download player, within-the-file, etc.)? 2) What will be the business obligations for participating P2P client distributors (licensing, integrating ads, tracking, reporting, etc.)? 3) What will be the opportunities for service-and-support companies (ad agencies, DRM providers, payment services, etc.)? 4) What will be the requirements for music rights holders (revenue share terms-and-conditions, streamlined licensing, payment allocations, etc.)?
Business rules need to be established that fully exploit the potential of P2P. Specifically, each content file can be globally transmitted commencing with its initial live or world-premiere presentation, and immediately made available for playback on-demand thereafter.
Each piece of content can simultaneously be offered for free with interactive advertising or branded sponsorship(s), as part of subscription offering(s), as an a la carte paid download, or in innovative combinations of multiple means for monetization. And each file can also be controlled in terms of destination devices registered to each viewer; and different terms-and-conditions can be established for different time-from-release windows as well as geographic territories.
As importantly, revenue sharing models must be solidified that recognize and reward the necessary participants in the P2P distribution channel. At the simplest level, these participants include the Internet service provider (ISP) in the role of wholesaler or transmission facility and the P2P client in the role of retailer or user interface.
Consideration should be given to each party that "touches" a licensed content file (or part of it, with swarming software applications) as it is redistributed among audience members via P2P technologies. This includes those who perform roles in ensuring the efficient delivery of the content (caching and content acceleration, for example) and those who perform roles in preventing copyright infringement.
Abacast, Altnet, arvato mobile, Babel Networks, BitTorrent, BUYDRM, CacheLogic, Cisco Systems, Digital Containers, Javien, Joost, Oversi, Pando Networks, PeerApp, Raketu Communications, RawFlow, SafeNet, Ultramercial, Unlimited Media, VeriSign, and Wambo each offer relevant services to help support advertising-based P2P.
The time is right to bring this new means for monetizing music and other forms of entertainment content mainstream in the digital marketplace. Share wisely, and take care.
Sprint Takes Lead as P2P Music Sponsor
Excerpted from NY Post Report by Peter Lauria
Sprint has signed on as the first company to underwrite a song to be distributed on file-sharing networks, agreeing to embed its logo on copies of tracks from Atlantic Records hip-hop artist Plies.
The move represents another example of the music industry’s evolving view of P2P networks as a potential new source of revenue instead of the bane of its existence.
Sprint and Atlantic Records are teaming with ArtistDirect’s MediaDefender division for the initiative, which essentially amounts to an advertising buy for the telecom company.
According to sources familiar with the deal, MediaDefender will push 16 million Plies song files embedded with the Sprint logo onto P2P networks over a three-month period in return for a "substantial six-figure" fee to be divided among MediaDefender, Atlantic Records, Plies, and his publishing company.
Once embedded, the Sprint logo will be attached to the files forever and will appear alongside Plies’ name and the song title on the screen of a desktop computer, iPod, cell-phone or any other digital music player.
The vast share of music consumption, particularly for the under 35 set, is done on file-sharing networks. ArtistDirect CEO Jon Diamond said the initiative serves the triple purpose of generating advertising income for record labels, curtailing infringement, and allowing brands to associate with key artists to reach a desired demographic.
While Diamond declined to identify Plies as the artist associated with the Sprint deal, saying only that the label and artist will be announced in two weeks, he did add that MediaDefender is currently in talks with a number of major artists and brands and expects to announce similar deals shortly.
According to Steve Yanovsky, a former record industry executive who consults for Mindshare Interactive, which counts Sprint as a client, the deal positions Sprint "as an innovator and will help drive perception of them in the marketplace."
Indeed, Ted Moran, Sprint’s Director of Digital Marketing, said part of the reason for doing the deal was to spread the word about the company’s music-related initiatives, which include the Sprint Music Store and the availability of online radio station Pandora on its phones.
Is P2P Ready for Sponsored Downloads
Excerpted from eMarketer Report
Nearly three-quarters of US Internet users are willing to view ads in exchange for free or discounted downloads, according to the INTENT MediaWorks-sponsored "P2P Usage Survey" conducted in May 2007. The study was fielded by InfoSurv among Internet users ages 16 to 40, all of whom used multiple online services for searching, downloading and sharing music.
More than six in 10 respondents were willing to provide personal information in order to receive free downloads. Only 21% of survey respondents said they had used a P2P network to get free downloads. 17% used P2P to find individual titles vs. entire albums. 17% to find unique or rare content. And 13% to listen or preview an item before purchasing.
Andy Cooper of INTENT said, "More than 80 million US Internet users search and download files from P2P networks each month, 10 million or more at any one time."
"When consumers find the files they are looking for, they share files with friends through P2P, personal blog posts, adding the files to their social networking pages, or send them via e-mail, text, or IM," Mr. Cooper added. "If advertisers sponsor that content, their programs can reach consumers across multiple Internet channels from one source."
The suggestion that music can be free, even if supported by ads, tends to draw controversy. Prince recently drew fire by giving away copies of his latest CD in copies of the UK "Mail on Sunday" — never mind that the Mail paid him do to so.
Companies like SpiralFrog and QTRAX are also appealing to consumers with the word "free." The firms have been acquiring licenses from major and independent label groups to create music destinations that are free to consumers and entirely supported by advertising revenues.
Allen Klepfisz of QTRAX argued that an ad-supported model reflects current consumer behavior. "If you have a whole generation that believes it’s their birthright to have free music, you need to monetize it," he said. "There are now about three billion transactions a month in P2P, mostly unlicensed. The closest your business model is to current consumer behavior, the better its chance of success."
An increase in licensed music downloading options has been reversing the trend in unauthorized downloads since 2003. In January 2006, a Yankee Group survey noted a substantial increase in the amount of licensed online music downloading activity from 2003 to 2005, along with an even bigger drop in the use of unauthorized P2P networks for downloading music.
To learn how the music industry is appealing to fans as music consumption habits change, read the eMarketer Global Music: Tuning Into New Opportunities report.
AdPerk Pays Users to Watch
Excerpted from Webware Report by Rafe Needleman
"You won’t see this on TV," Barry Soicher, CEO of AdPerk said as he fired up his demo. AdPerk is a company that helps magazine publishers make more money, by putting its advertisers’ videos in front of readers and potential subscribers. Readers also get paid (after a fashion) to watch the vids.
From the user’s perspective, it works like this: on the magazine’s website, you’re given a pitch to "Watch and be rewarded." You’re presented with a collection of videos, and can select which ones you want to watch. You earn credits for watching. On the Dwell Magazine site, for example, advertisers include Rheem furnaces, Delta faucets, and so on. Their promo videos are short – 30 seconds to 2 minutes – and users get one credit for each 30 seconds they watch. These credits are then applied to Dwell subscriptions. Six credits (three minutes) is good for three issues of the printed magazine.
Users get content they likely are already interested in (if you’re reading Dwell, chances are you have an interest in high-end appliances). They also get a nice payback on their time: a free subscription extension for 2 minutes of watching videos is not bad. Also, there’s no onerous step to earn the credits. There’s no blocking of content, quizzing, or anything like that, although you do have to enter a "captcha" at the end to prove you’ve played the video through.
Advertisers get a very good outlet for promotional videos they already have. That’s key – AdPerk is not recommending that advertisers create new vids for their products. Most big product companies have promo videos sitting around that aren’t getting in front of potential customers. The economics may not work for putting them on the Superbowl, but putting them in front of people who are already self-selected as potential customers is a good idea.
And it works for the publisher, who gets to increase involvement with readers and nab new subscribers for very little extra money. Subscribers who have demonstrated that they will exchange their time for a subscription are the kind of readers publishers love. AdPerk programs are also new products that ad sales people can use either for revenue or as giveaways to sweeten an existing contract.
The key to AdPerk’s success will be the three-way balance of the equation. It will fall apart if the cost/payout model becomes unpleasant for any party: if you have to watch too much video to earn your reward; if the individual videos are too long; if the advertiser has to create new videos; if the publisher offers cut-rate subscriptions (as many do) that are easily found elsewhere. But AdPerk’s first customer seems to have the relationship tuned nicely. I’ll be curious to see if this product can be used as deftly by others.
VC Funds RawFlow P2P Selfcast
Excerpted from New Media Age Report
Benchmark Capital, the VC firm behind eBay and Bebo, has invested two million pounds in London-based P2P broadcasting company RawFlow to help it produce Selfcast, which is being launched in the UK this week.
RawFlow claims this is the first service offering live broadcasting by consumers, rather than media networks.
The service is based on RawFlow’s P2P broadcasting system, which is used in the UK by Tiscali and in France by national broadcaster TF1. While P2P broadcasting is already available from companies including Zattoo, MediaZone, and Microsoft’s LiveStation, RawFlow Founder & Chief Executive Mikkel Dissing claimed this was the first time such technology has been made available to individuals.
Although anyone can use a webcam for live one-to-one interaction, the quality is too poor for wide distribution. Dissing said Selfcast is designed to be a social network of amateur broadcasters who will take advantage of RawFlow’s P2P infrastructure. Once enough users have adopted the technology, he plans to invite advertisers to exploit the content they create and the data gleaned from usage of the site.
"You have to download software to use Selfcast; so we know who’s using it and when, where, and for how long they’re broadcasting," he said.
RawFlow is also on the verge of signing several deals that will allow brands to embed the Selfcast technology in their own sites and offer it to visitors.
"Now anyone can create their own TV channel, making a vibrant and interactive environment for brands," said Dissing.
VeriSign Powers P2PTV for Top Broadcaster
Media consumers throughout Britain will soon have the chance to enjoy their favorite programs whenever they want with the BBC iPlayer, a new video-on-demand (VOD) player powered by broadband content delivery services from VeriSign, the leading provider of digital infrastructure for the networked world.
As part of the July 27th beta launch of BBC iPlayer, the world’s largest broadcaster will provide UK license-fee payers with the custom software application that enables greater flexibility over how and when they access BBC content. At launch, the broadcasting giant will make the previous week’s TV and radio content available online for playback on Windows PCs equipped with BBC-iPlayer software. After consumers download a program, they will have 30 days to view it before the file is automatically deleted. Launched files delete themselves after viewing.
The player leverages VeriSign’s P2P Kontiki Broadband Delivery Service. By allowing users to transparently share content, the P2P architecture of the VeriSign content delivery service lightens the load on servers that otherwise may be overwhelmed by the demands of delivering online video.
With VeriSign, BBC-iPlayer users can rely on secure and reliable delivery of content, fast video downloads, and high-quality media experiences. The BBC-iPlayer program builds on VeriSign’s expertise in delivering content on demand to consumer devices including the PC and mobile phone. For instance, VeriSign has worked closely with Channel 4, the first major broadcaster to make all its content available online, Sky, and AOL. Channel 4’s 4oD service enables viewers to use their PCs to catch up on popular TV shows wherever and whenever they want. For Channel 4, the 4oD service engages audiences across multiple devices and creates new revenue streams.
"Groundbreaking services such as BBC’s iPlayer and Channel 4’s 40D are defining the "Any Era," as one in which consumers are in charge and expect access to information, content, and entertainment any time, anywhere, and via any device," said Todd Johnson, Senior Vice President, Global Marketing at VeriSign. "VeriSign is proud to power the offerings that are shaping this new age. With VeriSign’s Kontiki Broadband Delivery Service, broadcasters and media giants can better engage their audience with loyalty-building services that introduce entirely new revenue streams. And all of it is underpinned by VeriSign’s secure, reliable digital infrastructure."
Joost Offers Early Look at New VH-1 Series
Excerpted from Hollywood Reporter by Alex Woodson
Joost, the service that distributes TV and video fare through P2P technology, is getting a little cozier with the TV business through a new partnership with VH-1.
The companies are expected to announce this week an unprecedented arrangement in which the Viacom-owned channel will premiere the entire season of its new scripted comedy series "I Hate My 30s" exclusively on the start-up P2PTV service on July 16th – ten days ahead of the series’ broadcast premiere.
For Joost, which was created by the founders of Internet telephony service Skype, this is the next step in advancing its content partnerships, which have been steadily announced during the past few months as the service continues to operate in expanded beta mode. The service has attracted at least 500,000 users, the company said.
"This is exactly the kind of partnership we would like to have with content owners," said Yvette Alberdingk Thijm, Executive VP Content Strategy & Acquisition at Joost. "We see this as Phase 2 in creating value with content owners."
Viacom is an investor in Joost, having joined the likes of CBS, Sequoia Capital, the Li Ka-Shing Foundation, and Index Ventures in a $45 million round of funding announced in May. Joost announced an overall content partnership with Viacom in February, getting programming from MTV, BET, Comedy Central, and Paramount Pictures.
In landing "I Hate My 30s," Joost is elbowing for position among the growing pack of digital platforms such as Apple’s iTunes and Microsoft’s Xbox that are striking exclusive content deals. For Viacom, the deal indicates the continuation of its digital distribution strategy that involves neither Google’s YouTube, which it targeted with a $1 billion lawsuit in February, nor the upcoming joint venture between NBC Universal and News Corp.
Joost also has made deals with Warner Music Group, Turner Broadcasting, and Sony Pictures Television and will be part of the CBS Interactive Audience Network set to launch this summer.
"30s" is a half-hour, eight-episode series developed by the MTV Networks unit and comedy troupe Drama 3/4 that focuses on the changes adults go through when they hit 30. This marks the first time VH-1 will put an entire season online before its network debut.
MTVN has experimented before with full-season premieres on third-party platforms. In March, iTunes began selling the entire third season of the MTV2 series "The Andy Milonakis Show" for $9.99 a full month before its broadcast airdate.
Alberdingk Thijm and VH-1 Executive VP & General Manager Tom Calderone said that "30s" was the right show to premiere on Joost because, as the show’s name implies, it is aimed at adults nearing or just past age 30 – a demographic "sweet spot" for both companies. Calderone said "30s" has a "different voice" than most VH-1 programs, with a more sarcastic, cynical tone.
"This is one of those shows that will travel well and get in to the pop-culture ether," Calderone said. "It’s a really cool, clever show, and this will get it into the hands of people that can share it and blog about it."
Calderone believes that establishing an early online presence won’t take eyeballs away from the TV set, in part because his network has had a good amount of success with online programming and promotions. Last year, VH-1 premiered the debut episodes of "The Surreal Life" and "Hogan Knows Best" on its Web site before those shows’ broadcast premieres.
"The couple of times we’ve done it, it creates a lot of buzz," he said. "We don’t do it all the time. We want to pick the right shows."
"30s" will run with advertising on Joost. The premiere episode also will get sneak peeks on VH1.com as well as the channel’s mobile and video-on-demand offerings.
Babelgum Partners with Giffoni Film Festival
Excerpted from Moraaz Report
Babelgum, the peer-to-peer television (P2PTV) company, has launched a new channel that’s dedicated to the 37th annual Giffoni Film Festival.
The Giffoni Film Festival is among the largest, youth-oriented film festivals in Europe, and the combined effort with Babelgum aims to bring additional opportunities to indie producers around the world. The annual film festival is in Italy, but now everyone has access to the festival, through Babelgum’s new channel. Some short films from 2006 and 2007 will be featured on the channel, available now through July 21st.
Users will be able to vote on the festival’s own short film clips, and the winner will get the Babelgum Award for the 2007 Giffoni Film Festival Online, which will sync up with the general award ceremony on July 21st at the Giffoni Village.
In addition, seven Babelgum viewers (the most active) will win VIP tickets to Rushes Soho Shorts Festival award in London, on August 2nd.
This is a pretty neat prize pack, and is a nod to the collaborative efforts of traditional and new media to further engage users online. Others taking similar approaches include Imeem, Treemo, and Microsoft.
The Boat is about to Rock
Excerpted from NY Times Report by Brad Stone
Dmitry Shapiro brings an unlikely gadget into meetings these days: a TV remote control.
As chief executive of Veoh Networks, a P2PTV company based in San Diego, Mr. Shapiro uses the remote to navigate the company’s new software program, VeohTV, on his laptop. The software acts like a web browser but displays only Internet video, presenting full-length television shows and popular clips from the web’s largest video sites, like NBC.com and YouTube. It lists those videos in a program guide and plays them in a small window or across the entire screen.
The product, now in a private testing phase, will be available to the public later this year. It has the potential to be a popular and practical way to watch online video. But like a long line of other innovative high-tech tools, VeohTV could also threaten and alienate traditional media companies and even cause some of Veoh’s Internet rivals to consider legal remedies.
For the last two years, Veoh Networks has operated a video-hosting Web site, Veoh.com. The site works much the way YouTube does, with a few notable exceptions. The company does not impose any time limits on the length of videos and does not use digital fingerprinting technology to filter out copyrighted material. That has led to some rights holders to complain that Veoh has fallen behind in protecting intellectual property.
Nevertheless, Veoh.com has been growing fast: it draws about 15 million visitors a month, up from 4.5 million in January. Veoh Networks is a private company and does not release financial data. YouTube, by contrast, gets more than 100 million visitors and serves up more than three billion video clips a month, according to several market research firms.
"It’s impossible to compete with YouTube as a video sharing site now," said Josh Bernoff, a Vice President at Forrester Research. "Veoh is a good example of a company that decided to go off in a new direction."
That direction is VeohTV. To support the new effort, the company raised about $26 million this summer from investors, including TimeWarner; Goldman Sachs; Spark Capital, a venture capital firm in Boston; and the former Disney chairman Michael Eisner, who joined the Veoh board and counsels Mr. Shapiro, a 38-year-old, Russian-born engineer. The company introduced VeohTV as a beta product last month, making it available for testing to a group of invited users.
I found VeohTV to be easy to use. Once the software is downloaded to a computer, it offers an easy-to-navigate directory of 114 video channels, including listings for CBS, NBC, Fox, and YouTube. On the NBC channel, there are dozens of episodes of "Heroes," "30 Rock," and "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip." On the Fox channel, there are several full-length episodes of the dramas "Bones" and "24."
Those shows are free and available for streaming on the NBC and Fox sites. The VeohTV player, Mr. Shapiro said, is just giving them a new audience.
"There are full-length episodes at Fox.com, but many customers don’t know how to find them," he said. "The Web browser is fine for short clips. But if you just want to sit back and watch video on the Web, this is what you will want to use."
Major media companies, however, are more interested in protecting their copyrighted programs. Veoh does not ask for permission to play material from other Web sites, though Mr. Shapiro says he wants to strike advertising-sharing deals with content owners to ensure that shows appear in high-quality video. But Veoh does not think that it needs consent because VeohTV is doing nothing more than playing what is already online, including any commercials shown during the programs.
The networks may disagree. By only offering video, VeohTV omits all the other advertisements on the network sites. For example, people who watched an episode of "Heroes" on NBC.com last week also saw for 40 minutes a banner ad for McDonald’s on the same page. VeohTV users watching the same episode would not see the banner.
Rick Cotton, the Executive Vice President & General Counsel of NBC Universal, said that streaming full-length television episodes drives traffic to other parts of NBC’s site and exposes users to the ads on it. And the right to play those shows is valuable, he said, pointing to the still-unnamed venture between NBC Universal and the News Corp. to create an online repository of their TV shows and movies. Sites like MySpace, AOL, and MSN have already entered into commercial agreements to display the venture’s content.
"This material has value," Mr. Cotton said. "The notion of taking it and generating traffic with it needs to be negotiated and needs to be done with the agreement of content owners." That’s why NBC and the other major studios are keeping close tabs on VeohTV’s business model.
For some video content, VeohTV can act as a digital video recorder, turning a video stream – meant to be viewed on the web – into a downloaded file on a user’s hard drive. VeohTV users can record a YouTube video, for example, even though YouTube, owned by Google, says its terms of service specify that videos uploaded to the site will only be streamed.
Other software, like the recently released RealPlayer 11, by RealNetworks, can turn streaming video into downloads as well. But according to Ricardo Reyes, a YouTube spokesman, VeohTV steers users away from its ads while violating YouTube’s contract with its users. Mr. Reyes says the company is watching Veoh carefully. In response, Mr. Shapiro says his software provides an easier way to do something that is already technically possible on YouTube.
Mr. Shapiro and his backers are aware their product will disrupt current business models. So have many technological innovations in the past, he argued, and Veoh hopes to build a large audience while courting large media companies. That creates an apparent contradiction that will be hard to resolve. Veoh maintains that it does not need permission to list and play other companies’ videos inside VeohTV. But it also wants to play nice.
"We are going to try to be friendly to content owners," said Todd Dagres, a partner at Spark Capital who serves on the Veoh board. "We are going to try to be the white-hat company."
Yoomba Launches P2P Open Communications
Excerpted from TMCnet Report by Susan Campbell
A new open communications experience is now available and the world has been invited to participate. Yoomba has just launched its P2P application. This software sits on top of every e-mail network and turns any e-mail address into a phone or messenger, allowing users to talk to friends, family, or colleagues around the world for free.
Yoomba provides users the ability for the first time to simply and instantly talk to all e-mail addresses at the touch of a button. The solution uniquely integrates into e-mail applications, adding buttons next to contact details in all of the major web-mails, Outlook, and Outlook Express. These buttons provide users with one-click access to all their contacts using voice or instant messaging (IM).
"At Yoomba, we are changing the way people communicate by providing the first open P2P network, putting consumers back in control," said Elad Hemar, Co-Founder & CEO of Yoomba.
"With Yoomba, there is no registration, no need to create a new email address or a special number - just activate at www.yoomba.com. You are no longer limited by the boundaries of an individual e-mail or VoIP network. Yoomba has created e-mail calling and e-mail chat in the simplest way possible."
Before the launch of this solution, online communications offerings existed as part of closed networks. To communicate with friends, family or colleagues, users were required to join the network, register, create a new online identity and then search and add contacts one-by-one to each individual network.
Yoomba seamlessly loads all e-mail contacts during activation to provide users instant access at a glance and in order of popularity. The top 20 people in each user’s Yoomba contact list will be the top 20 people they most frequently e-mail.
"Our vision is to open the world of communications and create one universal experience that enables everyone to simply and instantly communicate for free." said Hemar. "There are one billion e-mail addresses around the world, and Yoomba - as an open communications platform - allows everyone to talk to any one of them."
The ability that Yoomba is delivering to anyone with an e-mail address is staggering. Never before have we had access to such a system that delivers so much while requiring so little. While this P2P network is likely to attract millions of users, the questions remain as the level of quality of the communications.
Can Yoomba really handle that much volume? And can it handle it while providing the same quality to each and every user? Sure the service is free, but consumers will pay for quality. We’ll have to try the service and determine for ourselves.
Investors Digg Kevin Rose
Excerpted from Business Week Report by Aaron Ricadela
Venture capitalists would love to do business with web entrepreneur Kevin Rose, who has yet to cash in on his first two ventures, the popular Digg news site and the web-video production house, Revision3. But since neither company is accepting any more venture funding, investors angling for a piece of Rose’s stardust will have to settle for Pownce.
This third endeavor, which went live on June 26th, is a hybrid site that seeks to combine social networking, instant messaging, and file sharing.
Users assemble a list of buddies, then swap messages, invitations, photos, music, and other files with one another. Created by Rose merely to distract himself in his spare time – with heftier input from three associates – Pownce is a classic next-generation Internet company: built on the cheap, reliant on users for much of its content, and launched with a low profile. Yet investors are already clamoring for a share.
"I probably would invest in Pownce if he’s going out for funding," says high-tech angel investor Ron Conway, who’s invested in Digg and Revision3.
"I like to invest in great entrepreneurs, and he’s a great entrepreneur." Conway cites the potential size of the social networking market and the "pedigree" of Rose’s team as reasons to invest.
Another Silicon Valley investor says he plans to quiz Rose at an upcoming meeting on how Pownce will differ from Twitter, a cell-phone-oriented social network, and other services within the increasingly crowded field. But Rose’s history of creating sites that draw "a lot of excited users" could trump those concerns, this investor says, on condition of anonymity. "Kevin has been a source of much joy the last couple of years," he says. "Whatever he decides to do, I’ll pay attention."
Launched in 2004, Digg has become one of the web’s most popular sites – recently ranking 95th among the top 100 online destinations, according to audience measurement company Alexa.com – by letting users vote for their favorite online news stories about technology and other topics. The ad-supported site attracts about 20 million unique visitors a month, according to Jay Adelson, Chairman & CEO of both Digg and Revision3.
Digg has raised $11.3 million from Greylock Partners, the Omidyar Network, and angel investors. If Rose and his backers decide to sell Digg, the site could draw interest from major technology companies such as Microsoft and Google as well as from media concerns like TimeWarner or News Corp.
Revision3 – think Internet video with better production values – was launched last year and closed an $8 million financing round from Greylock and others on June 25th, adding to $1 million in startup financing. Each month, users download 2 million episodes of the site’s homemade shows. The most popular, Diggnation, draws 250,000 unique viewers a week to watch Rose and sidekick Alex Albrecht sit on a couch with beers and laptops, riffing on Digg’s most popular stories. The company plans to quadruple its advertising sales staff of two in an effort to generate more revenue from its shows, says Adelson.
There’s no question Rose, 30, has learned to generate industry buzz and is quickly becoming a serial entrepreneur of the new, user-driven web.
"Kevin has become a really savvy businessman in the last few years," absorbing lessons in product development, fund-raising, and public relations, says Adelson. "He’s learned a lot about starting companies." Given Revision3’s recent capital infusion, Rose’s first two ventures are "fully funded to profitability," Adelson says – meaning they have enough money to eventually turn a profit without needing to raise more.
That leaves Pownce, which also looks to generate profit from ads as well as premium subscriptions. Available by invitation only for its test phase, the service is accessible through either a web browser or desktop software built with technology from Adobe Systems that can speed performance.
Sponsors can buy text ads that appear on users’ profile and message pages. A version with no ads and support for large file transfers costs $20 a year.
While Pownce could struggle to find a mass market, it may appeal to the roughly 20% of web users who are early adopters of new online media, says JupiterResearch Media Analyst Barry Parr. "This definitely feels like a product for that 20% and their friends," he says. "That’s not necessarily a bad thing. You’re talking about a pretty elite audience – they’re the social backbone of the Internet."
Megatechtronium, the company behind Pownce, has begun talking to potential investors. Likewise, the public relations firm for both Digg and Revision3, Karbo/Fonkalsrud Communications, has started handling some Pownce work. Notably, invitations to join Pownce (free if you know someone in the network) have been showing up on eBay auctions with asking prices of up to $10.
But the site clearly faces headwinds, from industry heavyweights such as News Corp.’s MySpace to the professional networking site LinkedIn and newer entrants like Twitter, which has soared in popularity by letting users broadcast text messages about what they’re doing from moment-to-moment.
Pownce’s launch also comes as web companies wrestle with the knottier implications of user-generated content. When the audience supplies the reading matter, a site risks losing control of what’s posted. Case in point: Digg in May sparked a user revolt after it removed links to articles containing a code to bypass the copy protection on high-definition DVDs. Users then flooded Digg’s site with even more links to the code, overwhelming Digg’s attempts to remove them.
Then there’s the relative obscurity of Pownce’s other principals, including 24-year-old programmer Leah Culver and Digg designer Daniel Burka. While they have street credentials in San Francisco web circles, they aren’t known quantities when it comes to launching companies, according to investors.
Adelson says his compact with Rose allows each to try side projects to see if they stick. "One of the greatest things about our relationship is we’re very free about letting each other experiment and try things," he says. "There are probably going to be many more."
Tubearoo Searching for Acquisitions
Excerpted from Digital Media Wire Report by Mark Hefflinger
Video-sharing site Tubearoo said on Friday that it is looking more closely at a number of possible acquisition targets to grow its business.
The company trades on the over-the-counter market for micro-cap stocks. "With relatively high market fragmentation, the Internet video business is primed for consolidation and acquisitions, and we have had the opportunity to loosely review a few acquisition opportunities," said Paul Medvedev, Tubearoo’s President & CEO.
The Virginia-based company, which currently operates Tubearoo, Shoutwire, and Teleroo, said that it is looking to develop and acquire other sites to add to its network.
Vakaka May Become the Chinese Joost
Vakaka provides VOD and live streaming via P2P for free. Unlike Joost or Babelgum, Vakaka X-TV provides VOD and live streaming at the same time. So you can both view a VOD film from Vakaka X-TV and a real-time concert scene. Vakaka X-TV has a Joost-like user interface (UI), including channel zone, widget zone, playing control zone, and setting zone.
3,000 hours of video programs are available including "the latest films and the hottest soap dramas in China," with many under 500 kbps to accommodate lower bandwidth users.
Vakaka CEO William Shi said the company has no external funding to date. Other Chinese competitors in the P2PTV space include PPlive, PPstream, UUsee, and QQlive, though they are focused on streaming rather than VOD.
Microsoft’s LiveStation Sets Web Buzzing
Excerpted from Media Connection Report by Michael Estrin
A video post demonstration of Microsoft’s LiveStation has unleashed a flurry of Internet buzz, even though the product, which some bloggers have labeled a Joost-killer, won’t likely be released until October.
LiveStation, which was co-developed by Microsoft with Skinkers, uses Silverlight technology to enable live video to be more effectively broadcast over the Internet.
Some of the fury over LiveStation, which was announced in April, erupted when Ars Technica reported that LiveStation would compete with Joost.
LiveStation responded to the post saying they were trying to create a complementary product that would do something different.
Verizon Joins P2P Best Practices Effort
Excerpted from ScreenPlays Magazine Report by Peter Lambert
P4P Working Group, a new industry consortium designed to foster collaboration between P2P service providers and broadband operators, has issued its mission statement, objectives, strategic plan, and a call-for-participants.
Co-Chaired by Doug Pasko of Verizon Communications and Laird Popkin of Pando Networks, and sponsored by the Distributed Computing Industry Association (DCIA), the P4P Working Group (P4PWG) held its formative meeting in late June.
Two top-10 US cable operators also are poised to participate, "and their participation will not be contingent on their formally becoming DCIA Member companies," said DCIA CEO Marty Lafferty. Both AT&T and Verizon joined the DCIA late last year.
Both broadband operators and peer-to-peer (P2P) purveyors "readily saw the benefits" of participating in the Working Group, especially at a time when Internet service providers (ISPs) "can see that P2P is representing 50 to 80 percent of traffic on the Internet," Lafferty adds. "Therefore work done to make that traffic more efficient and to satisfy customers without misusing network bandwidth should be worth pursuing."
Indeed, compared to similar consortia DCIA has sponsored in digital watermarking and other areas, he says, "Momentum and the advantage of P2P efficiencies for savings on plant upgrades and better service to end-users made this opportunity immediately attractive to core participants."
The genesis of the Working Group earlier this year points to a cooperative spirit contrary to the ‘Net neutrality’ standoffs of the past 18 months. According to Lafferty, two DCIA Member companies – one an ISP, the other a BitTorrent P2P application company – became aware of new research being conducted by Yale University, Carnegie Mellon, and other entities. That research is "showing in simulation mode that P2P could use far less network resources and produce higher speed, higher accuracy P2P content delivery," he said. "The two Members started talking with each other, we talked to the research folks, and all agreed this would be a very worthwhile endeavor for consumers, P2P developers, and ISPs alike."
The group defines "P4P" as a set of business practices and integrated network topology awareness models designed to enable high-quality P2P-based content delivery while also optimizing ISP network resources utilization. The Working Group intends to ascertain appropriate and voluntary best practices for the use of P4P mechanisms to achieve those mutually beneficial ends.
In the Working Group’s own words, its primary mission is to "determine, validate, and encourage the adoption of methods for ISPs and P2P software distributors to work together to enable and support consumer service improvements as P2P adoption and resultant traffic evolves." The Group also intends to "provide researchers who are developing P4P mechanisms with the support to advance, and the ability to publish, their work."
In practice, Lafferty says, P2P "payload acceleration" complemented by increased ISP bandwidth efficiency will be accomplished through shared quality of service (QoS) mechanisms such as packet prioritization, bandwidth reservation, policy decision, enforcement, and other standardized mechanisms now emerging in the marketplace. Additionally, DCIA Members including Cisco Systems and VeriSign are offering technology solutions that promise to enable ISPs to expose their internal resource allocation controls to P2P partners without compromising internal ISP policies or control.
Urgency has been heightened this year among P2P purveyors who have become aware of traffic shaping efforts in some European countries designed to protect network resource over-utilization by throttling down bandwidth allocation to certain applications.
In addition to concern about such efforts, the P2P community is reaching a consensus that the ISPs are positioned at the network edge to help P2P services like Babelgum and Joost not only ensure QoS, but also contribute to content protection with higher level security mechanisms. "For the channel to really work, we need ISPs to apply filtering and copyright protection to secure the channel efficiently," Lafferty says. "There’s a lot of drama around the notion of forcing P2P clients to filter alone, when a lot of participants actually touch the content. To really civilize the distribution channel, so that it’s sufficiently secure for major content owners, it’s necessary for the ISPs to step up. Caching and filtering technology suppliers are there to help provide this function."
Concern about potentially invasive regulatory efforts also has added to the urgency of the effort. "We need to define roles, and industry participants need to negotiate their revenue sharing arrangements, and we see this Working Group fitting into that bigger picture of developing this channel to work for everyone in the value chain, including the consumer," he said. "Our view is that this type of collaboration from the private sector side on technology solutions and business practices for working together has a much better chance of producing better services for consumers than a government flat-rate edict. We agree with the FTC report two weeks ago, which was cautionary to lawmakers regarding introducing new regulation that might stifle this kind of innovation and discourage investment."
ISPs Stand Firm after P2P Ruling
Excerpted from ZDNet Report by David Meyer
Speaking onWednesdayin the wake of a controversial ruling in a Belgian court and comments made by the Conservative leader David Cameron, a spokesperson for the Internet Service Providers’ Association (ISPA) maintained that ISPs should not be "set up to play judge and jury" over alleged copyright infringement.
Last week a Belgian court ruled that the ISP Scarlet – formerly Tiscali – had the technology available to it to block or filter copyright-infringing material being sent over its network via P2P traffic, and had six months to start doing so.
The judgment drew praise from John Kennedy, chief executive of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), who claimed that it proved that "the Internet’s gatekeepers, the ISPs, have a responsibility to help control copyright-infringing traffic on their networks."
The court’s decision – which sets a precedent in European law but seems likely to be challenged – will not be repeated in the UK anytime soon, according to telecoms lawyer Danny Preiskel of Preiskel & Co. "I think we are a way away from reaching a similar decision in the UK in imposing such liability," he told ZDNet, adding that such a case here would be "fiercely resisted" by ISPs.
But ISPs in the UKare opening themselves up to some degree of liability by moving away from being "pure conduits." They might be responsible for anything defamatory contained within the value-added content many ISPs are now trying to sell to their customers, added Preiskel.
However, he confirmed that P2P steered clear of this pitfall by virtue of the fact that no content is hosted.
An ISPA spokesperson agreed, telling ZDNet that "ISPs are recognized in the eCommerce Directive (2002) as mere conduits of information".
The spokesperson also responded to David Cameron’s recent claims that, if ISPs could remove criminally obscene content from their servers, they should also be willing to shut down the transmission of copyright-infringing material. "We are talking about different things here — one involves criminal activity while the other, copyright infringement, is a civil matter."
"ISPs shouldn’t be set up to play judge and jury," the spokesperson continued. "What we wouldn’t want is corporate censorship. Any kind of censorship of the Internet has to be at the government level – ISPs are not law enforcement. We understand that ISPs play a part in combating instances of illegal activity on the Internet, which is why we engage with rights holders and work with government authorities on that basis, but we wouldn’t say we’re the gatekeepers of the Internet. The people responsible for unlawful content going up on the Internet are the people who put it there."
A New Way of Looking at the Internet
Excerpted from IEEE Spectrum Report
As the old adage goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. But when you’re talking about a picture of the Internet, it’s worth a whole lot more (about 100 trillion words according to Google’s director of research, Peter Norvig). Creating a complete map of the Internet is a goal that has remained largely elusive because of the ever-growing, highly complex nature of the Net.
Now, through the efforts of researchers in Israel – from Bar-Ilan University, in Ramat Gan, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Tel-Aviv University – the fuzzy image of the Internet has just gotten a bit clearer. The Israeli team recently published a paper in proceedings of the National Academy of Science in which they construct a new, more accurate picture of the Internet using a combination of graph-theory analysis and distributed computing.
A network like the Internet is composed of various nodes, or devices, such as computers, routers, PDAs, and so on, that are linked by one or more physical or virtual paths. To determine the structure of the Internet, researchers had to map out all these nodes and links and their relationships to one another. The main problem previous Internet cartographers faced was insufficient information.
Data about network structure had been acquired through a limited number of observation points—computers using a software tool called traceroute to determine the path taken by data packets as they moved from source to destination through a network. The trouble was there were too few of these data points to generate a complete picture – a task comparable to a handful of people walking around and trying to map out the entire world.
In order to overcome this limitation, a team of researchers at Tel Aviv University headed by Yuval Shavitt developed the Distributed Internet Measurement and Simulation (DIMES) project. DIMES gathered network structure information through a technique known as distributed computing.
Volunteers download an agent program that runs in the background onto their personal computers – in a similar fashion to SETI@home or Folding@home – gathering network data without interfering with system processes. This data, consisting of information related to 20 000 network nodes, is then processed by using a technique of graph theory called k-shell decomposition.
According to Shai Carmi of Bar-Ilan University, who performed much of the data analysis, k-shell decomposition breaks up the nodes in the network into nested hierarchical shells. It starts by finding all the nodes having only one connection. Those nodes are removed from the network and assigned the outermost shell, the 1-shell. Next, the nodes having two or fewer remaining connections are removed to the 2-shell. The process continues until all the nodes have been indexed. Using this technique, the team categorized the various shells as belonging to the network’s crust, core, or nucleus – the best-connected nodes.
The nucleus consisted of more than one type of node. It included nodes like ATT Worldnet, having more than 2500 direct connections, and nodes like Google, which links to only 50 other nodes. The reason Google is in the nucleus is that it connects almost exclusively to the best-connected nodes in the Internet.
Peer-to-Peer Pressure
Excerpted from C21 Media Report by Jonathan Webdale
The BBC’s iPlayer launches later this month and is among a growing array of online video services using P2P technology to make them more efficient. But some believe the Internet isn’t capable of taking the strain.
When, in the 1960s, the Advanced Research Projects Agency started exploring ways in which the US military could securely share sensitive information, little could its founders have imagined that decades later their work would allow teenagers to show themselves setting fire to their farts on Google Video.
It’s easy to forget that we’re only two years away from the Internet’s 40th anniversary, and like most approaching such a milestone, there’s a tendency to find things don’t function quite the way they used to. Indeed, some believe the Internet is beginning to creak and, at worst, is in danger of collapsing altogether.
The reason? Well, largely it’s to do with those farting teenagers, or at least the rather more diverse array of online video they are actually consuming, combined with the rapidly expanding amount of content being made available to them.
YouTube is serving up more than 100 million clips per day and is destined to move towards long-form; MySpace has recently unveiled an array of branded video channels; and parent News Corp has partnered with NBC Universal to launch the "the largest Internet video distribution network ever assembled" later this year.
Both News Corp and NBC are already delivering millions of video streams via their own-branded TV station websites, as are ABC and CBS in the US, plus other broadcasters like Sky and Channel 4 in the UK, where the BBC’s long-awaited iPlayer is also due to debut on July 27th.
Some of these services are relying on P2P technology, the mechanism behind a string of start-ups including Babelgum, BitTorrent, Joost, and Vuze.
P2P is designed to make the Internet a more efficient distribution medium - something that’s critical when it comes to large data files, like video. It breaks up these files into ‘packets,’ which are seeded across a network of Internet-connected computers. This makes the bandwidth between them more efficient and places less strain on central servers.
To put this into English, if I want to watch the latest edition of my favorite TV program and I’m using a P2P-based service, unbeknown to me the show will actually come to my computer screen via other users’ computers, rather than direct from my service provider.
While advocates claim this improves the Internet’s performance, speeding data transfer and making online TV viewing a viable experience, others warn that P2P is in fact only speeding the demise of an infrastructure that is already under severe pressure.
In short, a company like Joost may claim it is creating the "world’s first global TV platform" but some argue the very foundation on which it and all the other applications that use the Internet are based is being pushed to breaking point.
"A lot of people have been blind-sided by the technology and there’s been a real feeling of the Emperor’s New Clothes about a lot of the different technological developments in terms of the new platforms," says Arash Amel, analyst at Screen Digest. "Companies like Joost and Babelgum definitely fall within that category. Really what this is all about is whether the open Internet infrastructure can support mass video content delivery, and that’s still a big question mark."
Screen Digest predicts that there will be more than 90 billion streams of video served up in the US alone by 2011, a figure double today’s and it’s still a conservative estimate, according to Amel.
"We’re really going to be in serious trouble unless we do something within the next three-to-five years. The level of pressure that it being brought on the actual backbone, and specifically on the last mile, is something that will need to be taken into account because the Internet is still very young and it was never really envisaged with such large volumes of data traffic," says Amel.
It’s in this ‘last mile’ - the stretch of cable between a person’s home computer and the local telephone exchange - where the growing pains of online video are arguably most acutely felt. It’s here that Internet service providers (ISPs) reside, operating the port to and from the Internet’s high seas. As with any port, amid the respectable traders and citizens, there’s always a pirate contingent.
"Overall we frown upon P2P activity because most of it, for the time being, is infringing and it tends to be a very hard core of users who are taking up a disproportionate amount of your bandwidth," says Neal McCleave, MD of media services at European ISP Tiscali.
Indeed, some estimates suggest that unauthorized file sharing via P2P accounts for as much as 80% of the Internet traffic that flows through ISPs. Companies like Tiscali do have the ability to switch off such users if they choose, but this drags them into issues concerning their very role within the information superhighway. Currently, from a legal point of view, ISPs are generally regarded as conduits.
They don’t identify the particular applications being used courtesy of the bandwidth they supply - whether these are authorized in nature or not - but they do identify the kind of traffic that’s flowing through their networks. This may be mere web surfing, e-mail, instant messaging, or P2P, and in peak traffic periods ISPs do act to limit the amount of bandwidth that’s available for the latter since this slows other applications being used by the broader audience. The extent to which this will affect legitimate P2P services will depend on how popular they become.
"Joost seems to be making good inroads, especially in terms of the content relationships it’s putting in place. If it does that, if it gets its positioning right, yes, it could have detrimental effects on our and other people’s networks in terms of the amount of traffic that’s taking," said McCleave.
"If it is successful it will clog networks in the peak hours. The experience will not be fantastic. We’ve got several ways we can go with that - either restrict the bandwidth that we’re providing to certain applications (which would require a certain amount of investment), charge the customers more, or strike some kind of relationship with the likes of Joost."
It’s clear the matter will come to a head in the not too distant future. McCleave says conversations have already taken place with some of these parties to try to avert a crisis, but nothing is as yet agreed. He mentions the possibility that P2P purveyors in some way contribute towards bandwidth and network costs, or charge consumers for using different kinds of applications - more for P2P, say, than simple surfing.
The latter suggestion raises the debate about "net neutrality," a relatively recent discussion that has been prompted by concerns among major network providers like AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and TimeWarner in the US. These companies are contemplating precisely what McCleave describes - the creation of a "two tier" Internet, where consumers pay different tolls according to the kind of online activities they indulge in.
Coming Events of Interest
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Edinburgh Television Festival – August 24th-26th in Edinburgh, Scotland. Janus Friis, Co-Founder of P2PTV service Joost, will deliver the inaugural Futureview Lecture at this year’s festival. The aim of this year’s event is to assemble a cast list from the hottest shows, the most exciting new technologies, and the biggest TV controversies of the year.
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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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P2P Advertising Upfront – Sponsored by the DCIA October 26th in New York, NY and October 29th in Los Angeles, CA in conjunction with Digital Hollywood Fall. The industry’s first bicoastal marketplace focused on the unique global advertising, sponsorship, and cross-promotional opportunities available in the steadily growing universe of open and closed P2P, file-sharing, P2PTV, and social networks, as well as peer-assisted content delivery networks (CDNs).
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