August 27, 2007
Volume 18, Issue 12
P2P to Generate $28 Billion in 2011
Excerpted from Information Week Report by K.C. Jones
Peer-to-peer (P2P) networks and file-sharing services could generate up to $28 billion in annual revenue for carriers and ISPs, ramping up dramatically over the next five years, according to a study released Thursday.
Insight Research’s market analysis study, entitled Peer-to-Peer & File-Sharing Services Market 2007-2011 states that P2P and file-sharing services are part of a worldwide push by carriers to create new IP-enabled services for consumers and business users.
The 51-page report finds that mobile and fixed-line telecommunications services’ consumers are adopting P2P and file-sharing services along with other IP-enabled services.
“P2P and file-sharing services have moved into the mainstream and are now well beyond the early days when a few of the early service providers ended up in litigation,” Robert Rosenberg, President of Insight Research, said.
“Peering and file sharing have now been embraced by fixed-line and wireless operators, many of the intellectual property (IP) issues that led to legal fights have been resolved, and media and applications such as ring-tones, games, music, and large-file videos are taking off,” he explained. “We see this market continuing to grow as consumers increasingly rely on the utility of these applications.”
Insight Research found that more cellular and wireline service providers offer file-sharing and downloading services for their consumers, and P2P services are widely available on fixed-line and mobile networks.
ISPs Eye P2P as Big Money Spinner
Excerpted from VNUNet.com Report by Robert Jaques
A market research study released this week by Insight Research found that an ever increasing number of Internet service providers (ISPs) are offering file-sharing and downloading services geared to the requirements of end-users.
P2P and file-sharing services are widely available on fixed-line and mobile networks, but are being exploited more in some regions than others. Carrier revenues from the use of P2P and file-sharing services in Asia are nearly double that of North America, for example.
Insight Research’s market analysis study noted that P2P and file-sharing services are part of a worldwide push by carriers to create new IP-enabled services for consumers and business users.
Consumers of mobile and fixed-line telecom services are adopting P2P and file-sharing services along with other IP-enabled services such as video telephony, fixed-mobile convergence, streaming, location, and presence based services.
Report from CEO Marty Lafferty
 We commend The Insight Research Corporation for its excellent work in preparing the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) and File Sharing Services Market 2007-2011 report.
It details the status of the P2P marketplace today, as well as the migration through various stages of service integration and unification. P2P represents a leading example of Internet protocol (IP) based applications service development and provisioning currently being rolled-out globally.
Insight describes how Internet service providers (ISPs) are in the midst of a gradual evolution from circuit-switched infrastructures to IP-based packet-switched infrastructures. While initial conversions have taken place in the transport and access parts of their networks, now next-generation enhanced P2P and related IP services are coming to the fore.
P2P involves the exchange of audio and video files among networked peers. ISPs are now adopting P2P as part of their migration to fully-convergent IP-based networks and services.
Insight notes that while some carriers view highly personalized services enabled by P2P as the ultimate “sticky” applications that will stem the tide of customer churn, others envision new, affordable P2P service applications that will bring additional revenue streams and combat commoditization.
This report includes five additional P2P-related service-provider-hosted IP services: Residential Video Telephony (RVT), which allows end-users to have video calls among each other using personal computers (PCs), IP-based videophones, or 3G enabled mobile-phones; Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC), which enables users to employ the same end-equipment (predominantly mobile-phone) in licensed wireless public networks outside homes and offices as well as unlicensed wireless private networks inside homes and offices where network coverage is poor.
In addition, Streaming Services, which provide live and on-demand display of audio and video files and broadcasts on end-user equipment like PCs, personal digital assistants (PDAs), or 3G-enabled mobile-phones in real-time by simultaneously downloading, buffering, and playing the file on the end-user equipment; Location Based Services (LBS), which target the physical location of the user through global positioning service (GPS) or wireless network-enabled mechanisms in order to facilitate user-specific services; and Presence Based Services (PBS), which ensure personalization of modes of communication preferred by the user in defining the availability of and receptiveness towards the modes.
Insight’s research suggests that P2P file-sharing and these five related service areas will be extensively deployed during the forecast period. They are already demonstrating revenue-generating potential wherever they have been deployed and have solid backing from industry trade bodies; and they embrace open standards, offering operators flexibility in implementation without having to worry about interoperability. They may be implemented further as service enablers or components of more complex services.
The report projects that the worldwide market for these six IP services will grow from under $12 billion in 2006 to nearly $95 billion, of which P2P file sharing will represent $28 billion, in 2011, increasing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of more than 52% over the study period.
Currently wireless operators have greater control over the content in their networks, and have solid billing platforms, which reassure content providers of reliable and stable revenues from content provided to wireless subscribers. Content providers are, therefore, somewhat ironically more comfortable with the wireless domain. The IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) driven paradigm calls for packetization of the access network to transform the services and applications to be network agnostic. This has given further impetus to sophisticated access protocols like high-speed packet data access (HSPDA), enhanced data rates for GSM evolution (EDGE), and others to hit the market faster.
Wireline carriers also expect operational and infrastructure savings from deploying new P2P services. Many incumbent carriers are choosing to initially implement IP-based services on an overlay network. Taking this approach, carriers do not have to replace circuit-switched network elements, which represent sunk costs and have minimal ongoing operational expenses. The packet-switched network is isolated from the circuit-switched network, and the two are connected via a gateway. Web-based applications can control the public switched telephone network (PSTN) through this gateway. This architecture preserves the wireline carrier’s investment while reducing risk as new opportunities are explored and implemented.
Proof that convergent communications and the world of P2P are moving into the mainstream, according to Insight, can be seen not only in the development of IP infrastructure elements such as gateways and soft-switches, but also in the development of IP-based application servers, which are designed to deliver major revenue-generating services for carriers. To date, most of the activity in soft-switch architectures has focused on cost reduction. Applications that used to be run on circuit-switched networks are believed to be much less expensive to implement on IP networks.
Now, the creation of new, enhanced services is becoming more strategically important for many carriers. The potential number of new P2P services that will provide value to businesses and consumers is as vast as the imagination. The focus of ISPs will be on the uptake of higher-value and higher-revenue generating services such as P2PTV and other attractive and promising P2P file-sharing services. Share wisely, and take care.
P2P is Booming in Asia
Excerpted from NewTeeVee Report by Janko Roettgers
We all know the numbers by now. Some 50 million US Internet users have used file-sharing platforms. Popular networks like Gnutella/LimeWire and eMule together make up for eight-to-nine million simultaneous users at any given time. And BitTorrent is responsible for 30-to-50 percent of all Internet traffic, give or take.
But there is a whole world of P2P services with millions of users out there that most of us have never even heard of. Hundreds of thousands of Japanese Internet users get their media through encrypted and secretive darknets. China is on the forefront of peer-to-peer television (P2PTV). And then there is Korea, where file swapping is widespread even after major P2P providers were forced to shut down.
Korea actually played a very early part in the P2P war. The Korean file-sharing network Soribada was founded only a few months after Napster, and the two co-founders fought at least as hard as Shawn Fanning and his team against attempts to shut it down. Soribada finally had to give up in 2005 and convert to a traditional, licensed download store, which completely solved the problem of unlicensed swapping over night.
Oh, wait, it didn’t. People just abandoned networks like Soribada and instead flocked to online storage providers. Recently this became a matter of politics when the Korean government promised to crack down on file swapping, “including so-called ‘webhard’ services,” as part of a free trade agreement with the US – a move that outraged local activists and probably scared the company LG, which operates the very successful Korean online storage provider Webhard.com.
Korean file sharing has always been driven by commercial enterprises. That’s completely different from the situation in Japan, where P2P has been dominated by non-commercial, encrypted swapping applications. The most popular one is Winny, which was invented to be a more secure replacement for WinMX. Winny’s development stopped after its inventor was charged with copyright infringement. The program has still up to 450,000 active users at any given time though, while up to 150,000 simultaneous users swap files over the Winny-like Share network.
China is definitely the big dog in terms of P2P in Asia. Taiwan-based enterprises like Kuro and Ezpeer were forced to change their business models under pressure from the music industry, but there are still literally hundreds of sites that facilitate file swapping and downloads based in mainland China.
Some of them have a more corporate background, like the Google-funded BitTorrent client-maker Xunlei or its competitor QQ. Others are more appealing to the non-profit P2P crowd, like the eMule-based VeryCD that lists 90,000 movies, TV shows, and applications for download.
Of course you can’t talk about Chinese P2P without talking about German soccer – or rather the companies that make it available worldwide via P2P. Chinese enterprises like PPStream and Sopcast were streaming video through their P2P infrastructure long before Joost and Babelgum, and Chinese P2P streaming start-ups are starting to see some cash for their efforts. PPStream secured $10 million in financing this spring, and UUSee got another $20 million in a second round of financing on top of $10 million it raised in late 2005. The investors include DFJ, Sequoia, and Highland Capital.
Looks like Sand Hill Road got the message: P2P isn’t just about US college kids swapping MP3s. It’s a world-wide phenomenon, and one of its epicenters is Asia.
Net Effect of Technological Evolution
Excerpted from C21Media.Net Report
Ahead of delivering the Alternative MacTaggart Lecture at the Edinburgh Television Festival this weekend, Google VP and chief Internet evangelist Vint Cerf reflected on how traditional media companies need to re-evaluate their relationships with consumers.
“Technological advancement has become a truism of modern life. Moore’s Law, which states that the number of transistors on an integrated circuit for minimum component cost doubles every 24 months, was profound when it was coined by one of Intel’s founders in 1965. Today, it has proven so consistently accurate that it has been extended to related phenomena like processor speed and storage capacity. And it has lost its ability to shock. We have grown accustomed to our Internet connections getting faster and our laptop computers getting smaller. New, high density storage media allow all forms of content (books, magazines, music, videos, movies, software, and virtually anything that can be represented digitally) to be stored, shipped, and exchanged physically and, increasingly, electronically. Programmable digital devices do everything from defrosting dinner and opening doors to answering the phone and organizing our calendars.
The media world has not been immune to this revolution. As advances in digital technology have changed the way people communicate, consumer expectations about media consumption have begun to change. Take the telephone. The traditional world of international telephone services has itself been turned on its head by the rapid expansion of the Internet and the spread of broadband Internet access services. Mobile telephones, meanwhile, have become general-purpose instruments for all manner of digital presentations and interactions, from sending SMS messages to viewing or downloading feature-length films. The maturation of these technologies, which will doubtless occur alongside the introduction of new creative technologies, will open up new audiences for a variety of media.
Another emerging trend is the increasing autonomy and control consumers are gaining over their consumption of traditional mass media whose producers, heretofore, have had the upper hand in deciding what we will see, hear, and read; and when we will do that. The Internet itself has shown us that users enjoy deciding for themselves what will capture their attention, including advertising. Putting users in charge is a huge shift for the information industry, in general, and especially for the advertising industry. It has had to find ways to attract user attention when it cannot force users to watch or listen to advertisements that interrupt the program for an important announcement, so to speak.
The enduringly popular broadcast media will continue to thrive, complemented by new forms of entertainment and information consumption. Look at the Internet over the past five years: blogs and (more recently) video-sharing websites have opened up new creative outlets to tens of millions of people around the world. At the same time, the appetite for professionally produced content, be it news reporting or romantic comedies, continues to grow. Audiences have more choice, not only over what to consume, but also how they consume it. Regardless of the specific medium people choose, however, there will always be demand for high-quality content.
These media-specific effects of technological progress exist alongside more general issues that face the Internet as it continues to grow and take on new functions. These, too, will affect the media industry as it interacts more with its audiences through the web. Privacy will continue to be an important concern for users of the Internet. The robustness and security of the Internet will climb in importance as we rely increasingly on it and its services.
The information we seek so readily on the World Wide Web may vary in quality from completely useless or even damaging to stunningly valuable. It is our problem to determine which, although the search engines do their best to draw the most relevant to our attention. It seems inevitable that the netizens of the world will look for improvements in identifying the authenticity of the sources of online information and assurances that it has not been modified since its incarnation on the net. As we accumulate more information online, we may encounter a kind of ‘information decay’ in which digital objects become less and less interpretable owing to the age of the software that created it. As an example, it is already a challenge to play the videos posted on the BBC website in 1997. Imagine trying to access the same video in 100 years. Or in 1,000.
These are just some of the issues that we’ll have to wrap our minds around in the coming years, as technologists, indeed, but also as a society. Every year, humanity produces more information. How we choose to share it, or find it, or remember it, or interpret it are questions that are too important not to answer.”
Joost’s Friis and Volpi Interviewed
Mike Volpi, the new CEO of industry-leading P2PTV service Joost, this week spoke about television advertising, P2P, and the cool factor with Wallstrip host Lindsay Campbell. Please click here to view his interview.
Meanwhile, this weekend, Joost Co-Founder Janus Friis delivered the inaugural Futureview Lecture at the Edinburgh Television Festival. Please click here for coverage.
Brits Embrace New Media
Excerpted from Variety Report by Steve Clarke
The Brits are turning away from traditional media such as TV, radio, and DVDs to spend more time online and use portable entertainment devices and cell-phones.
UK consumers now spend 50 hours per week on the phone, surfing the Internet, watching television, or listening to the radio, according to regulator Ofcom’s annual survey of the British communications market.
Average daily Internet use in 2006 (36 minutes) increased by 158% since 2002 and time spent on the mobile phone (almost 4 minutes per day) was up 58%.
Time spent watching TV was down 4% to 3 hours and 36 minutes, listening to radio was down 2% to 2 hours and 50 minutes and time spent on a fixed-line phone was down 8% to 7 minutes.
Fifteen per cent of British people have a digital video recorder (DVR) and up to 78% of adults who own them say they always, or almost always, skip ads when viewing recorded shows.
Bucking the viewing trend are the handful of Brits that subscribe to HD services — some 450,000. Of those interviewed by Ofcom, 43% said they watched more TV since buying into HDTV.
In some age groups women are the most committed surfers, but it is seniors who are spending most time online. Among Brits aged 25-34, women account for 55% of the time this group spends using the web. Among Brits aged 65 and older, 16% spend more than 42 hours per month online – making them the heaviest online users.
Online advertising rose by nearly half in 2006 to $4 billion. Total TV television revenue was almost $21.6 billion in 2006, up 1.4% on 2005. The gap between subscription and advertising revenue increased further during the year; subscriptions rose by 3.5% to over $8 billion while advertising fell by 2.2% to $7 billion.
A BitTorrent for Cell-Phones
Excerpted from Business 2.0 Report by Chris Morrison
By grabbing small pieces of big files from multiple computers simultaneously, BitTorrent became the fastest – and most popular – way to share large amounts of content like music collections and movies among PCs. Now a Malaysian company is setting up a similar P2P system for cell-phones.
Singapore-based mBit, a subsidiary of Malaysian tech firm mTouche, wants to sell its BitTorrent-like mBit service to 3G and 4G providers across Asia.
First up is Japan, where mBit is in talks with NTT DoCoMo and two other carriers. The pitch: millions of users can send large files, like 50MB movies captured on a cell-phone, to one another simultaneously without clogging up DoCoMo’s servers.
“It’s about making more efficient use of their services,” said mBit CEO Chun Yan See. Cost: $2.50 per user per month.
BitTorrent software has been modified for cell-phones before but required an Internet connection, just like a PC. mBit allows the carrier to run a sharing network on its own airwaves, making it the first mobile super-distribution network.
“MBit should fly in the more sophisticated mobile markets of the world,” said Peter Evans, a senior analyst at BuddeComm.
James Bidzos Returns to VeriSign as Chairman
VeriSign has named company founder D. James Bidzos Chairman of the Board, replacing Edward A. Mueller, who resigned recently to join Qwest Communications.
This is Bidzos’ second term on VeriSign’s Board. In 1995, he launched the company to develop digital certificate infrastructure for online businesses and served as the firm’s first President & CEO.
Under the Chairmanship of Bidzos, analysts believe, the firm could look to provide infrastructure to new markets including mobile messaging and identity services.
Bidzos said that he will be “an active Chairman,” and that the company will be looking to launch new products and enter different markets under his guidance.
Bidzos was named one of Time Magazine’s “Digital 50” and is in CRN’s “Computer Industry Hall of Fame.”
In February, VeriSign announced that it will spend more than $100 million for improving its global Internet infrastructure to tackle the growing number of hacking attacks and manage the increase in online activity.
Named “Project Titan,” the initiative aims to expand the firm’s infrastructure tenfold by 2010, in order to cope with the surge in online traffic.
“It was Jim’s vision that launched VeriSign over a decade ago, and his leadership and experience make him the ideal person to take over as our new Chairman,” said Bill Roper, President & CEO of VeriSign.
Roper added, “Jim’s return injects VeriSign with the entrepreneurial and visionary energy that I believe will serve us well as we focus on expanding our core businesses while investing in several exciting new growth areas.”
VeriSign plans to increase the capacity of its switching system to 4 trillion transactions a day from its current daily level of approximately 400 billion. The company expects to complete the work by 2010. The system handles about 26 billion transactions on a typical day.
DigitalContainers Receives Patent
DigitalContainers Inc. (DCI) has been granted a patent on its Secure Media Player technologies. This is an invention that makes the playing of audio and video files more secure and reliable than do current technologies. The technology is covered by a recently granted patent from the US Patent Office called, “Secure Streaming Container,” US Patent No. 7,251,832.
The patented invention facilitates secure playback of any kind of digital media. It encourages super-distribution by virtually guaranteeing that media will play, no matter what kind of device it is authorized to and whether it is delivered via peer-to-peer (P2P) or social network distribution, search-engine marketing, advertising on websites, e-mail, or instant messaging.
When taken in conjunction with the company’s previously awarded patents, “Regulating Access to Digital Content,” US Patent No. 6,389,541, “Tracking Electronic Content,” US Patent No. 6,751,670, and “Delivering Electronic Content,” US Patent No. 7,127,515, the new patent adds an important building block in the architecture for a super-distribution system that delivers, protects, tracks, authorizes, and monetizes any type of digital good across the entire spectrum of broadband networks.
According to Barry Phillips, VP of Intellectual Property at DCI, “We’re very excited about this new Secure Media Player technology as it gives DigitalContainers powerful new functionality and strong intellectual property (IP) protection for our super-distribution e-commerce and rights management systems (SuperCommerce). It complements our other technology and patents by serving as the way to make sure that media will always playback, no matter what device it lands on, and do it in a very secure manner.
As proof of the potential power of super-distribution, a recent nationwide survey found that almost 90% of adult Internet users share content with others according to Sharpe Partners. Three-out-of-five respondents said they shared content at least once a week, 25% do so more frequently. SuperCommerce supports this powerful distribution trend by allowing digital information to be freely distributed over the Internet via P2P and social networks or otherwise while simultaneously protecting the information, tracking the usage, and collecting payments when appropriate.
CacheLogic Names EMEA VP-GM and CMO
CacheLogic has appointed Haran Sold as Vice President & General Manager for Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA), and John Dillon as Chief Marketing Officer (CMO).
CacheLogic provides VelociX - the worlds leading Digital Asset Delivery Network, a new generation of content delivery network (CDN) designed from the ground up to offer unparalleled delivery performance, economics, and control for owners of large digital assets including video, audio, software downloads, and gaming.
VelociX recently powered an Internet video broadcast of the Singapore National Day Parade (NDP) live to an on-line global audience that far exceeded the organizer’s pre-event forecasts. NDP is now available via the VelociX network on-demand. “We were delighted to have worked with CacheLogic to extend the reach of this webcast to Singaporeans around the globe,” said Chung Tying Chun, Chairman of Branding and Publicity for NDP 2007.
Haran Sold joins CacheLogic from Keynote Systems, where he was Vice President & Managing Director for EMEA. He will report to recently named CacheLogic CEO Phill Robinson, and brings over 15 years of international management experience in enterprise and consumer technology markets to CacheLogic, including a variety of management positions at Keynote Systems, Peoplesoft, NEC, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and Oracle.
John Dillon joins CacheLogic from Surfcontrol, where he was also CMO, responsible for the Internet security firm’s global field marketing, corporate communications, product marketing, and management. He will be responsible for developing the CacheLogic brand, lead generation, and market awareness across the globe, also reporting directly to CEO Phill Robinson.
“We are delighted to be able to attract this caliber of personnel heading-up our sales and marketing functions,” said Phill Robinson, CEO of CacheLogic. “As we continue to grow our global revenue streams, we require a world-class management team with outstanding credentials and a proven track record. CacheLogic is now exceptionally well positioned for aggressive growth.”
“I am very excited to be joining a team with such a positive and growth oriented plan for Europe,” said Haran Sold. “I look forward to increasing our revenues in this key territory and helping deliver continued value for CacheLogic’s customers, partners, and other stakeholders”.
“CacheLogic has all the attributes to be a successful global company,” said John Dillon. “As we continue to build the business worldwide, I look forward to developing our brand and rolling-out our global marketing strategy.”
Consumer expectations of the Internet have risen sharply with the proliferation of broadband and Web 2.0. Delivery of rich-media enabled services represents the next major evolution – including peer-to-peer television (P2PTV), video-on-demand (VOD), and online movies, games, and software distribution. CacheLogic’s VelociX leads in the distribution of large digital assets required to support these services with quality of service (Qos) to the consumer.
Watching Ads for Air-Time Minutes
Excerpted from MediaPost Report by Steve Smith
At Virgin Mobile’s Sugar Mama program, there is a hard value placed on the time a visitor spends with a sponsor’s ad. “The general value is one minute of your time for one minute of air-time credits,” said Scott Kelliher, Director of Mobile Advertising.
Users of the youth-oriented carrier come to the Virgin Mobile site, view ads from Ultramercial, and get pre-paid credits to their wireless accounts.
And the company is not wanting for takers. According to Ultramercial, over 425,000 customers subscribe to the program, which has given away over 10 million free minutes. Kelliher says about 1,000 new users sign up each day.
Advertisers include Pepsi, Xbox, New Balance, Subway, and about a dozen others. Kelliher said the average click-through rate on the ads is 5.5%, and the most successful campaigns spike multiples higher.
Of course, the history of digital media is littered with similar attempts to trade ad viewings for content in an explicit way. Ultramercial, which powers the Sugar Mama initiative, may be the closest thing to success we have seen in this arena, since it famously runs the day-pass model at Salon.com.
At Sugar Mama, Kelliher credits success with a combination of audience, model, and timing. These young users know the worth of their mind-share and are also eager to engage with advertisers who address their real needs. “They took to this more rapidly than we anticipated,” he said. “This is a much more media-savvy generation, and they are tech-savvy, and the timing is right. The audience is right and the value proposition is right.”
For the ad clients, this is not a reach play yet, so much as an engagement and research device. The platform allows advertisers to run surveys after an ad to gather data on effectiveness. There is also an SMS program that lets the brand start an ongoing conversation with users via text exchanges and ongoing offers.
Kelliher says the text messaging piece is doing especially well, because once a customer opts into a persistent relationship with a brand, there is an ongoing exchange of value between the advertiser and the consumer. “The key is an exchange of value and a mutual interest and a mutual respect,” he said.
Chicago Sun-Times Chooses Clickshare
The Chicago Sun-Times, one of the largest US daily newspapers, is launching a paid electronic edition that will allow print customers unrestricted access using the subscription-management platform of Clickshare Service Corporation. Clickshare will also handle the web-capture and processing of print subscriptions.
Clickshare is a leading provider of online subscription-management, card-processing, and web access-control, serving the newspaper industry and B2B publications for over 10 years.
“We chose Clickshare for our electronic edition because we wanted to give our print customers the added benefit of our e-edition while increasing our paid circulation,” said John Cary, Senior Director of Online Operations for the Sun-Times. “Clickshare provides the best content-control solution in terms of simplicity and stability as well as flexibility for the long term.”
“The Sun-Times Newspaper Group is pursuing a series of innovations in serving multi-platform users which will set an example for the newspaper industry,” said Richard Lerner, Clickshare’s President. “We’re committed to enabling that innovation at the Sun-Times and its sister newspapers.”
Clickshare’s customers include Crain Communications, Journal Register, and publishers of newspapers, newsletters, consumer information, and government records. Clickshare is also developing transaction systems with music-industry partners to provide revenue-generating, copyright-protected, file sharing.
Distributed Computing Project Launch
Intelligence Realm has launched a distributed computing project called Artificial Intelligence - Reverse Engineering the Brain.
This project is part of a larger project that is reverse engineering the brain in order to achieve artificial intelligence (AI). This project is similar to other distributed computing projects such as Seti@Home and Folding@Home.
“One of the critical issues blocking our advances in this field is computing power. The human brain has an estimated 100 billion neurons. Simulating biophysical neural networks of this magnitude requires computing resources that few organizations have. By employing a large network of computers, we can overcome this problem. We ask the public at large to volunteer for this task and donate computer time, which will allow us to build a large scale AI System.” said Ovidiu Anghelidi, Project Leader.
“Our research findings will allow us to move to the development phase and start building a system that will scale beyond the human brain capacity,” he continued.
“Our final goal is to have a system that integrates knowledge from many disciplines, like mathematics, physics, and chemistry. Building such a system will have exceptional benefits for our society, mainly because it will accelerate scientific discovery across all fields. The computer revolution brought about unprecedented changes in our society and AI should be no different in this regard.”
Intelligence Realm would also like to caution against expecting a quick time-frame for the system implementation. The conservative estimate is a time range of between 5 and 10 years. “Nevertheless it is important to start now so that we can reach this goal,” concluded Anghelidi.
LimeWire Completing Transition
Excerpted from Spacelab Research Report
Completing the transition from rogue P2P application to a full-on part of the establishment, LimeWire has announced plans to launch a digital music store.
LimeWire will start a separate website, with initial plans to have the P2P app link to the store. Eventually the P2P WILL BE the store. Already onboard are Nettwerk Productions and IRIS Distribution, so rumors abound that LimeWire could end up as a store serving the independent music community.
Songs can be bought via a la carte purchases or subscription plans. LimeWire will offer DRM-free tracks in MP3, so the music will have ultimate portabilty, no matter what kind of MP3 player a user might have. The sound quality will be in the newly de riguer 256kbps, which means listeners will get some fairly bassy low-ends and some almost-clean high-ends to the music.
LimeWire came to fame as another one of those P2P file-sharing programs based on the Gnutella network. Later it also joined up with BitTorrent. LimeWire was sued late last year by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA); a month later, LimeWire countersued, citing anti-trust violations.
Entertainment Biz Now Uses P2P for Branding
Excerpted from GigaOM Report by Om Malik
The entertainment industry has been hiring companies to pollute P2P networks with phony files for years, and now some of these very same companies are going into marketing. Instead of sabotaging file transfers, they offer their own media for download, and instead of corrupted files, suddenly it’s all about branding.
Santa Monica, CA-based MediaDefender has been at the center of this shift. The subsidiary of ARTISTdirect is known in the file-sharing world for its anti-piracy work, but has recently gotten a lot of press for an upcoming campaign involving ad-supported MP3 downloads.
MediaDefender has been experimenting with P2P marketing for a number of years now, and they’ve learned a few lessons along the way. VP Jonathan Lee agreed to share some of them.
MediaDefender has thousands servers in co-location facilities around the globe; the decision to put them to use for marketing has been brewing for some time, Lee said. With such an abundance of resources, he pondered, “What else can you do with them?”
Distributing actual content was an obvious idea, but for the longest time the entertainment industry wasn’t ready to utilize P2P. Companies felt they would undermine their position in legal conflicts if they distributed their own files through these networks. But all of this changed when the Supreme Court ruled against Grokster in the summer of 2005. “After the ruling those gloves came off,” said Lee.
And with that, the learning curve began. “We’re throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks,” he explained. Early attempts to do advertising on P2P networks involved what Lee described as a “bait-and-switch”. Files were mislabeled in order to get people to watch ads or load web pages.
“Obviously there are tremendous problems with that,” he acknowledged. Most brands just don’t like to frustrate their customers – except, of course, porn companies, which still use this technique heavily to spam P2P networks.
Another strategy involved sending people to iTunes and similar download stores to make them buy legitimate copies of the content they were looking for with LimeWire and other clients. “That really hasn’t worked so well,” admitted Lee. Same goes for the idea of mixing ads with search results in order to get people to buy concert tickets and ring-tones. He believes that people are just too suspicious to click on anything that remotely looks like an ad in a P2P network, which is why they tend to ignore them.
So what does work? “Things you can’t buy online,” said Lee. It turns out that P2P is actually really good for branding.
MediaDefender had a lot of success with a campaign for a soft-drink maker that offered people videos they actually wanted to watch. Music works well, and so does goofy stuff. Funny commercials – the stuff that people re-post on YouTube and then forward to their friends – are a big hit on P2P networks as well.
Does this mean people should just abandon their annoying anti-piracy tactics and instead post some goofy clips on P2P networks? “You are already dealing with your anti-piracy issues if you are doing promotion,” noted Lee. He doesn’t think that the anti-piracy part of his work will go away anytime soon, though.
In fact, MediaDefender is still making most of its money by polluting P2P networks with spoof files. Jonathan Lee doesn’t think this impacts its marketing business at all. Successful P2P marketing campaigns always look very viral, he said, and the focus really isn’t on his company. “If it is good content, then it’s gonna carry itself.”
Security is About Letting Good Things in
Excerpted from Economic Times Report
Bob Gleichauf, VP & CTO, Security Technology Group at global networking giant Cisco Systems talked to ET about how Cisco’s size and scope give it the opportunity to make networks more proactive with a self-defending network strategy. The Security Technology Group is slated to reach a turnover of $2 billion by the end of 2008.
ET: What are the latest trends in the security technology domain?
Gleichauf: Security threats from a technology perspective have grown as the business has grown over the years. The trend that I see today is not just in securing a retail outlet or a branch of a financial institution, but a move towards security features that cover the entire corporate network.
Much of this is because the entire world is getting more and more connected and the need is to keep the bad things out while letting the good things in. And remember, networks are getting more porous these days.
It also implies that you need integrated security solutions, not just virtual private networks (VPN), encryption, or fire-walling. For example, Cisco’s desktop and server security solutions products are an extension of the corporate security network.
ET: From that end, could you explain the self-defending network strategy?
Gleichauf: A security system must be fully integrated into the network from end-to-end, so it can facilitate a coordinated response to attacks, regardless of location. It must be intelligent, so that it can differentiate potential threats from normal traffic and events. And it must be able to adapt to changing network security conditions.
The Cisco Self-Defending Network is our strategy for network security. By identifying, preventing, and then adapting to both internal and external threats, the Cisco Self-Defending Network allows businesses to maximize their network resources and to protect not just their networks, but also their network investments. The results are improved business processes and substantial savings.
The Self-Defending Network contains characteristics that together provide continuous, intelligent, future-proofed security – from the network to the application layer.
ET: Do you see managed security service as a next-gen offering?
Gleichauf: Managed security service is essentially professional deployment and upkeep of security solutions and technology. It is an up-and-down business in the United States that has not really taken off much elsewhere.
It is not a typically high-margin business and, from Cisco’s perspective, the entire Security Technology Group is just evolving as a business.
ET: How do you rate India as a market for IT security products?
Gleichauf: The Indian market has several small companies, which are moving from manual processes to automated repeatable processes. Then there are the bigger companies like Reliance and Tatas, which are already strong Cisco customers. Among all types, there is a high level of understanding about security needs and security solutions deployment.
SafeNet Protects America’s Travelers
SafeNet has been chosen by Security Biometric Clearing Network (SBCN) to secure and support the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) Registered Traveler program.
In order to best protect the information on America’s transportation system and the identities of travelers participating in the Registered Traveler program, SBCN requires the highest level of hardware security available. SBCN selected SafeNet to provide a key management and cryptographic acceleration solution that features government certifications, scalable performance, role-based access control, and role separation to protect the chain of custody and provide non-repudiation of sensitive transactions.
“SafeNet stepped up when we needed a partner. They provided a quality product, real world experience, and excellent customer service to SBCN. They listened to us to get an understanding of what we wanted to accomplish and then worked with us to achieve our goals. The level of service continued after deployment. They are a true partner,” said Patrick Osborne, CIO, SBCN.
SafeNet Luna Hardware Security Modules (HSMs) are being used for the most secure root key protection, XML encryption, SSL acceleration and encryption, and other application-specific purposes. SafeNet network-attached Luna SA HSMs were chosen to provide high-availability to meet defined service level agreements and performance requirements. This architecture provides scalability for future performance needs as the system grows.
SafeNet’s Security Consulting Services helped to reduce future maintenance and administrative costs by documenting precise procedures for ongoing system maintenance and disaster recovery. The scalable design of the solution will allow SBCN to easily upgrade capacity as demand increases without interrupting service.
SafeNet HSMs and Security Consulting Services helped SBCN deploy a multi-tiered Certification Authority (CA) in less time than it would have taken to outsource it, and at a lower cost, all while meeting the strict security requirements imposed by the TSA.
How to Brew $30 Million
Excerpted from Red Herring Report by Alexandra Berzon
In a busy summer of online video investment, some start-ups are beginning to break away from the pack of YouTube wannabes.
The latest to emerge in high spirits is Metacafe, which leads all independent online video services in viewership and on Tuesday announced that it had snagged $30 million in a third round of funding, for a total of $50 million raised.
That news follows P2PTV services Joost’s $44 million funding round last May and Veoh’s recent $25 million funding announcement.
Not to say that any of those services are set to dethrone YouTube anytime soon as the world’s most popular online video destination. But investors appear confident that even with a fraction of the audience, they can offer attractive alternatives to advertisers that might be too weary to get involved in YouTube’s more chaotic scene.
Metacafe trailed biggies YouTube, MySpace, Google Video, AOL Video, Yahoo Video, and MSN Video with 4.6 million unique US visitors in July, according to Nielsen/NetRatings. Start-ups Break.com, Veoh, and Will Ferrell’s “Funny or Die” rounded out the Top 10.
“I think what you’re starting to see happen is that four-to-five independent services are breaking out, while the 100 or so video sites funded in the last year are not making the audience threshold, and that means increasing returns for the winners,” said Richard de Silva, a partner at Highland Capital Partners. His firm joined DAG Ventures and existing funders Accel Partners and Benchmark Capital in the round. “That’s why we went for the No. 1 independent site. That’s a strong position to start from.”
Mr. de Silva was also attracted to Metacafe, he said, because its system is unique among video-sharing destinations in using a group of volunteers to vet every video before it appears on the site and to toss away the garbage. Metacafe also offers compensation to budding online video talent based on video popularity, an effort to attract low-cost work that might still be higher quality and more advertising-friendly than your typical video-sharing fare.
“The scale of YouTube is different, but Metacafe is a better media model,” said Mr. de Silva. “It’s a place where advertisers can safely buy their advertising, and where consumers can consume media in a more conventional way, by going to the home-page to discover what the community finds interesting. YouTube has a billion pages of people sharing clips with one another.”
Metacafe representative Michelle Cox said the company plans to spend the cash infusion on building out its sales team to increase advertising revenue, setting up more branded channels, and peppering the site with some established filmmaking talent. In March, Metacafe started showing the video series “Café Confidential” from well-known television producer Steven Bochco. Last month it launched a promotional deal with Universal Pictures that allowed its users to mash-up and re-edit content from the “Bourne Ultimatum” movie.
uPlayMe Raises Second Round
uPlayMe, the New York-based developer of a desktop application that automatically connects people through their shared tastes in music, movies, TV shows, and other digital content, on Wednesday announced today it has raised a multi-million dollar second round of funding from Warner Music Group, Village Ventures, and other investors.
In addition to its investment in uPlayMe, Warner Music will work with uPlayMe to include its applications on its artists’ and labels’ websites and in their work with social networks. uPlayMe’s application matches members in real-time based on their recently played songs and videos. Users can also sample and buy content.
Perfect Storm Caused Skype Outage
Excerpted from Daily Tech Report
VoIP is like a cell-phone, you never seem to realize how much you depend on the service until you no longer have it. There were probably lots of Skype users realizing just how much they missed Skype last week when the service was down.
Skype at first seemed to be blaming Microsoft for the outage, but came back later to clarify its position by stating that, “We don’t blame anyone but ourselves. The Microsoft Update patches were merely a catalyst – a trigger – for a series of events that led to the disruption of Skype, not the root cause of it. And Microsoft has been very helpful and supportive throughout.”
The high number of computer reboots from Skype users after Microsoft released security updates, which caused a flood of log-in requests that, when combined with a lack of P2P resources at the time, led to a failure of the service.
A Skype spokesperson went on to say that, “Unfortunately, this time, for the first time, Skype was unable to rise to the challenge and the reasons for this were exceptional. In this instance, the day’s Skype traffic patterns, combined with the large number of reboots, revealed a previously unseen fault in the P2P network resource allocation algorithm Skype used.”
“Consequently, the P2P network’s self-healing function didn’t work quickly enough. Skype’s P2P core was not properly tuned to cope with the load and core size changes that occurred on August 16th. The reboots resulting from software patching merely served as a catalyst. This combination of factors created a situation where the self-healing needed outside intervention and assistance by our engineers.”
Microsoft releases patches for Windows very frequently – and if you are wondering why this never happened before, Skype officials called this occurrence a “Perfect Storm.” Rebooting super-nodes within the Skype system combined with high-usage load during the reboots further combined with a previously unseen bug in the Skype software and ultimately led to a system-wide outage of service.
Skype Gives Paying Customers a Free Week
Skype is offering a week of free service to paying customers who may have been affected by the two-day outage of its Internet telephony service last week.
The company has sent an e-mail to customers who pay for its premium services informing them of the offer, Skype spokeswoman Imogen Bailey said Thursday.
“As a goodwill gesture to all you faithful Skype Pro, Skype Unlimited, SkypeIn, or Skype Voicemail customers, we’re adding an additional seven days to your current subscription free-of-charge,” the e-mail said. “And even if you didn’t miss out on using Skype last week, you can still have a week free of Skype on the house.”
The widespread collapse of the P2P VoIP service last week occurred when millions of Windows users tried to log-on to Skype at the same time, after downloading a software update from Microsoft and rebooting their machines. Many people had problems logging on early Thursday morning and were unable to connect until Saturday.
Joyce Brecknell, Program Director at Freeform Dynamics, is a paying Skype customer and a “big user of VoIP service, both professionally and privately.”
“I know where Skype works and where it still has some limitations,” she said. “My expectation of VoIP is that it’s still a backup service. I have multiple communication channels – like my mobile phone – just in case.”
Comcast Denies Traffic Shaping
Excerpted from CNet News Report by Marguerite Reardon
Comcast on Tuesday denied rumors that the company is filtering BitTorrent traffic running over its network. BitTorrent is a P2P file-sharing protocol used to distribute large data files such as video.
Certain sites that use the protocol have been targeted by the movie industry to stop the unauthorized distribution of copyrighted video. Broadband providers have also not been big fans of certain BitTorrent sites because some implementations can clog networks with huge files.
The blog TorrentFreak claimed that several ISPs have been “throttling” or limiting BitTorrent traffic on their networks for the past two years. And last week, the blog claimed that some Comcast users had noticed that their BitTorrent transfers were being cut off and that they experienced a significant decrease in download speeds.
Over the past few days, these claims have been widely circulated throughout the web. But Comcast spokesman Charlie Douglas today denied that the company was filtering or “shaping” any traffic on its network. He said the company doesn’t actively look at the applications or content that its customers download over the network. But Comcast does reserve the right to cut off service to customers who abuse the network by using too much bandwidth.
So what constitutes “too much” bandwidth? Douglas didn’t specify exact figures, but he gave a few examples that would likely get subscribers into trouble. For example, someone who sends more than 13 million e-mails a month, which breaks down to about 430,000 e-mails a day or 18,000 e-mails an hour, would likely get a letter or phone call from Comcast about excessive use. Sending roughly 250,000 photos or downloading more than 30,000 songs a month might also raise an eyebrow at Comcast, he said.
“More than 99.99 percent of our customers use the residential high-speed Internet service as intended, which includes downloading and sharing video, photos, and other rich media,” he said. “But Comcast has a responsibility to provide these customers with a superior experience, and to address any excessive or abusive activities usage issues that may adversely impact that experience.”
In the rare instances the company has to enforce its policy, Douglas said that Comcast contacts subscribers to work out the issue. But he firmly reiterated that the company doesn’t filter or throttle back traffic.
The issue of shaping traffic or blocking certain applications is a hot one and goes to the heart of the Net Neutrality debate, which has been raging for more than a year. Broadband providers claim that their networks have finite resources and they must be allowed to identify traffic in some manner to set quality of service (QoS) parameters to ensure users get certain levels of service. But consumer advocates say that the network ought to be neutral and traffic should flow freely to ensure that all applications are accessible.
Coming Events of Interest
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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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Broadcasting 2017 – September 27th in London, England. What do the leading players in television and new media across Europe predict for the future of broadcasting? Find out during “Broadcasting 2017” at BAFTA. Join industry giants such as Silvio Scaglia, Founder & Chairman of Babelgum for a day of stimulating sessions.
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Digital Music Forum West – October 3rd–4th in Los Angeles, CA. The seventh annual Digital Music Forum event now at the newly renovated Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. Several DCIA Member company executives will be featured speakers and the DCIA will present a special session on “The Evolution of P2P and Music” with BUYDRM's Christopher Levy, FTI Consulting's Roger Scadron, Javien's Leslie Poole, PeerApp's Mark Strangio, and VeriSign's Stuart Cleary.
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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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Streaming Media West – November 6th–8th in San Jose, CA. Streaming Media conferences have become the premier online video events in the world. Streaming Media West is totally focused on the business and technology of online video. The DCIA will participate featuring industry leading P2PTV providers and support services.
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P2P MEDIA SUMMIT LV – January 6th in Las Vegas, NV. This is the DCIA’s must-attend event for everyone interested in monetizing content using P2P and related technologies. Keynotes, panels, and workshops on the latest breakthroughs. The Conference will take place in N260 in the North Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center and the Conference Luncheon in N262-264. This DCIA flagship event is a Conference within CES – the Consumer Electronics Show.
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CCNC 2008 – The fifth annual IEEE Consumer Communications & Networking Conference, January 10th-12th in Las Vegas, NV. “Connecting Devices, Consumers, and Content.” Now co-sponsored by the DCIA. The latest developments and technical solutions in the areas of home networking, consumer networking, enabling technologies (such as middleware), and novel applications and services.
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