September 10, 2007
Volume 19, Issue 2
Pace Picks Up on Peer-to-Peer
Excerpted from Rapid TV News by Rose Major
Pace Micro Technology is demonstrating a prototype technology that shows “how Pace broadband-enabled set-top boxes can form a peer-to-peer (P2P) infrastructure via the Internet to store, distribute, and access content both securely and quickly. Assisted by CacheLogic servers, this P2P infrastructure will enable operators to provide a wider range of on-demand content and services to their subscribers,” the company said.
The technology exploits storage available on PVR users’ networked equipment. That, says the company, makes it possible “to make a huge number of titles available to end-users without the expense of maintaining a large central server base.”
David Gillies, Director of Technology at Pace, said, “Our technology demonstration will enable operators to understand future opportunities for using P2P as a content distribution mechanism.”
Pace’s partner for the technology, CacheLogic, said that it had the potential to “lighten the load” for operators, with servers placed in the network making “better use of the current infrastructure.”
Content from the PVR is sent digitally to a dedicated server which transcodes high bit-rate MPEG-2 content into H.264 signals. The H.264 video is packaged as an IP stream and transmitted via the internet to a portable unit, for example a WiFi-enabled mobile-phone or laptop.
The technology can keep conditional access and digital rights management (DRM) from the device intact.
CacheLogic Introduces Velocix 2.0 & Partners
CacheLogic, provider of the world’s leading digital asset delivery network, this week launched Velocix 2.0 featuring a new suite of video delivery services. Velocix Video offers a full complement of download, progressive download (watch while you download), live, and on-demand streaming asset delivery services for all video forms, including high definition (HD).
CacheLogic also announced new strategic partnerships with Adobe and Microsoft for the delivery of these new Velocix Video streaming solutions.
“In today’s post-Web 2.0 world, it’s vital that consumers get rock solid broadcast quality experience and that unlike traditional on-line video experiences they are ‘Streaming not Screaming,’” said Phill Robinson, CEO of CacheLogic. “The launch of Velocix 2.0 addresses the performance, economic, and control challenges associated with distributing video over the Internet, paving the way for the creation of a whole new generation of reliable, high-quality online-video enabled services.”
The new Velocix Video family of services includes: Velocix Video - Flash Streaming for Adobe Flash content, Velocix Video - Windows Media Streaming for Microsoft Windows Media content, as well as CacheLogic’s own Velocix Media Player for organizations that wish to achieve a streaming-like experience while taking advantage of a series of new advanced network services available with Velocix 2.0.
The Velocix Media Player is a new browser plug-in that supports both multi-source HTTP and P2P progressive download to create the ultimate broadcast quality experience to the consumer.
Security and authentication are also key concerns for content owners and Velocix Video provides a complete set of technologies to ensure that assets are viewed only by authorized consumers. Streams can be controlled through support for geo-blocking and token-based authentication - which ensures only true subscribers view content.
Oversi & NDS Deliver Premium Content via P2P
Oversi, an expert in P2P caching and content delivery solutions, and NDS, the leading provider of technology solutions for digital pay-TV, are presenting their integrated, end-to-end solution for delivering secured, DRM-protected content over P2P networks direct to PCs and other portable media devices at IBC 2007.
The joint Oversi and NDS solution uses the power and economics of P2P distribution to extend the delivery of broadcast content to new users and new media devices with assured quality of service.
The solution combines NDS VideoGuard PC, a complete DRM and service platform for PCs, with Oversi’s powerful P2P caching and content delivery platform, OverCache. Based on distributed grid computing technology and massive throughput, OverCache enhances P2P content distribution by delivering more bandwidth to users over existing infrastructures, guaranteeing superior quality of service.
With the P2P technology embedded in its client/server software, NDS’ VideoGuard PC retrieves files from the P2P network, powered by OverCache, enabling accelerated peer-assisted content distribution.
Integrating P2P technology with VideoGuard DRM content protection, the joint NDS/Oversi solution enables content providers to meet the demand for live TV programs and video-on-demand (VOD) services with complete, built-in, security safeguards, while allowing flexible business models.
Leveraging the P2P network’s inherent resources, service providers and content providers also benefit from delivery that is more cost-efficient. With this joint solution, incremental costs decrease with the addition of more users. Highly scalable, the solution enables service providers and broadcasters to cope with the growing demand for bandwidth without overloading the network.
Eitan Efron, Vice President Marketing & Business Development of Oversi, said, “Taking advantage of P2P networks, this joint solution from Oversi and NDS provides an excellent distribution channel for premium content while ensuring minimum operating costs for service providers and broadcasters. Our solution also delivers long-tail content with good quality of service, opening the door for new P2P-driven monetization opportunities.”
Report from CEO Marty Lafferty
 Peer-to-Peer (P2P) is now at the vanguard of Internet-based innovation with dramatic progress on many fronts. Our industry needs to excel in adapting technological advancements and business practices to ensure that the greatest value and safety accrue to consumers.
The Distributed Computing Industry Association (DCIA) commends the US Secret Service, US Postal Inspection Service and Seattle, WA Police Department for their investigatory vigilance in a very difficult P2P abuse case that has been ongoing since March 2005.
Their hard work paid off this week with the four-count indictment of an alleged abuser of P2P software for mail fraud, accessing a protected computer without permission, and two counts of aggravated identity theft.
The accused perpetrator allegedly misused P2P software programs such as LimeWire, Soulseek, and others to download copies of tax returns, student financial-aid forms, and other sensitive personal data from at least 83 individuals – and then used that information to create bogus credit-card accounts and purchase merchandise valued at $73,000. Responsible citizens everywhere condemn these unlawful acts.
And while LimeWire has consistently worked to make its software safe, for example by means of default settings, it is also preparing a new more intuitive version especially tailored to neophyte users. The program already incorporates a number of warnings intended to stave off inadvertent file sharing, but the P2P software company also recognizes that more needs to be done.
Pop-up messages appear when users attempt to share folders, such as “My Documents” and the root directory, which are considered likely to contain sensitive information. As LimeWire Chairman Mark Gorton testified at a recent Congressional Hearing, however, “Those warnings are not enough, at least in a handful of cases.”
LimeWire has reaffirmed its obligation to help users secure data and to protect them from inadvertently sharing directories and folders of sensitive or classified information. It believes that industry self-regulation and coordination with government agencies should be able to take the necessary steps to address this problem.
Tiversa, a P2P monitoring company that helped authorities in this case, noted that of nearly a billion P2P searches performed globally each day more than 50,000 involve suspicious terms such as credit cards, financial reports, tax returns, bank accounts, medical insurance, and passwords. Tiversa’s view is that the best solution will be to address data “at rest” – effectively preventing files from entering into redistribution without explicit authorization.
The firm stated that as many as 450 million people – roughly half of all Internet users – have file-sharing programs installed on their computers, and up to 12 million people are connected to P2P networks at any given time.
The DCIA has taken several steps to address data security since our inception in 2003 and continues to seek further advances in conjunction with government agencies.
Beginning in 2005, DCIA Member companies and other participants in the DCIA-sponsored Consumer Disclosures Working Group (CDWG) voluntarily implemented P2P user safety measures. It is fitting and appropriate to periodically review the status and efficacy of these efforts, and to develop and deploy enhancements as may be warranted.
Specifically, CDWG participants have implemented consumer disclosures from prominent links on the home-pages of their open P2P websites, featuring headlines about using their respective P2P software programs safely. Text beneath these headlines includes hyperlinks to more information on this important subject such as:
“The following information is provided as a public service by this participating P2P application provider (by name). Please also read the important Consumer Alert concerning P2P software from the US Federal Trade Commission.”
Below is a typical current open P2P Software User Advisory related to data security:
“Data Security - P2P software programs let users share information with other users around the globe. They allow users to view the contents of each others’ ‘shared folders.’ If you have personal information in your shared folder, anyone else using the same P2P software has access to it. Another user could use that information to commit identity theft, or to embarrass you. Please pay attention to the files that you place in, or download to, your shared folder. Don’t put information in your shared folder that you aren’t comfortable sharing with strangers.
In particular, do not put tax, medical, banking, correspondence, or any other sensitive personal files in the same folder as files that are shared via your P2P software program.
Click here for information about how to use this P2P software program to minimize or avoid these data security problems. To report identity theft, or for more information about identity theft, please consult the US Federal Trade Commission’s Identity Theft Clearinghouse.
The preceding information has been provided as a public service by (this P2P software program developer and distributor by name).”
Since that time, the innovative companies developing and distributing publicly accessible file-sharing software have further responded to this issue through ongoing self-regulatory processes, including the implementation of default settings and procedures to prevent inadvertent sharing of private or confidential data.
With respect to safeguarding private information, current leading P2P software requires users to take multiple affirmative steps in order to share files that may include personal data. P2P software suppliers have also affirmed their commitment to further reduce risks and competitively enhance both the safety and value of the user experience on behalf of their consumers and the public at large.
In our view, because of both the technical complexity and relatively fast-moving innovation in this area, a federally monitored private sector initiative will produce the most beneficial effect to the public and to organizations whose sensitive and confidential information must be protected as a matter of institutional security.
We currently conduct several working groups tackling a number of issues, including consumer security concerns. These working groups extend beyond our Membership as needed to ensure that the output of their work is widely adopted on a voluntary basis across the distributed computing industry.
We look forward to working with authorities in a productive manner on these issues in a way that will significantly benefit all constituencies, and we will keep DCINFO readers posted on our progress. Share wisely, and take care.
Feds Pinch Alleged P2P Identity Thief
Excerpted from TechNewsWorld Report by Katherine Noyes
A federal grand jury on Thursday indicted a man who allegedly used P2P file-sharing networks to obtain individuals’ tax returns, credit reports, and bank statements in order to commit identity theft and fraud.
Gregory Kopiloff, 35, of Seattle allegedly used file-sharing software including LimeWire to steal a variety of sensitive information, and then used that data to create bogus credit card and bank accounts and illegally purchase thousands of dollars’ worth of products. He allegedly even filed for a victim’s 2007 tax refund, which he used to fund online credit accounts.
Kopiloff was indicted by a federal grand jury in the Western District of Washington for mail fraud, two counts of aggravated identity theft, and accessing a protected computer without authorization to further fraud. Law enforcement has so far linked Kopiloff’s efforts to about 80 victims and more than $70,000 in fraud.
“Law enforcement has known for some time that criminals are exploiting P2P file sharing to secretly gain remote access to victims’ computers to search for personal information,” said Jeffrey C. Sullivan, US attorney for the Western District of Washington. “This case highlights the diligent work of our Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property (CHIP) unit to identify and prosecute those who use technology against innocent consumers.”
Mail fraud is punishable by up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Accessing a protected computer without authorization to further fraud is punishable by up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. A conviction for aggravated identity theft mandates a two-year prison sentence to run consecutive to the prison time imposed on the underlying conviction.
The case was investigated by the Electronic Crimes Task Forces of the US Secret Service, the US Postal Inspection Service, the Seattle Police Department and the Poulsbo, WA Police Department. It is being prosecuted by Assistant US Attorney Kathryn Warma of the CHIP unit.
The use of file-sharing networks for identity theft and fraud is an emerging class of crime that has only recently been recognized.
“This arrest is just the tip of the iceberg,” said Robert Boback, CEO of security firm Tiversa. “Millions of consumers expose their sensitive information when they use P2P file-sharing networks and thousands of potential criminals a day search and find this information to commit ID theft and fraud.”
Indeed, in its monitoring of global file-sharing networks over a two-week period, Tiversa found almost 56,000 requests for files involving “credit card;” over 75,000 requests for specific credit card statements by brand; 50,000 requests for “tax returns;” and over 317,000 requests for files involving “pin” and “user id.”
Makers of file-sharing software recognize the serious nature of the problem and plan to step up their efforts to make file sharing safer, Marty Lafferty, CEO of the Distributed Computing Industry Association (DCIA), told TechNewsWorld.
“The industry has done quite a bit in terms of taking steps to help protect users from inadvertent sharing of personal data,” he noted, including providing consumers with disclosures and recommendations for using P2P technology safely.
“It’s time to make it even easier for P2P users to keep their data safe,” he added. “We take this very seriously; it’s important to provide the greatest value and safety to consumers. We’ll be working with the appropriate government agencies to follow up on this.”
One of the simplest solutions concerned users can employ is to keep sensitive data on a separate computer from the one the file-sharing software is used on, Lafferty noted.
To reduce the problem of identity theft in general, the most necessary step should be for businesses and other groups to stop relying solely on Social Security Numbers for identification, Jim Stickley, CTO with TraceSecurity, told TechNewsWorld. Stickley is a paid bank “robber” who has been hired to break into more than a thousand financial institutions to identify security vulnerabilities.
Even a password-protected Social Security number system would go a long way toward protecting consumers better, he explained. Short of that, if consumers contact consumer credit agencies such as TransUnion and tell them they are concerned about identity theft, the companies will generally provide a password for their credit records, Stickley added.
Zoogmo Launches P2P Backup Solution
Excerpted from PowerHomeBiz Report
Zoogmo, the self-proclaimed new kid on the backup block, this week launched its P2P solution. With Zoogmo, consumers finally have a totally free and unlimited automatic offsite backup solution.
Many items such as home movies, photograph albums, music and film collections, tax returns, and personal letters, which were formerly saved in various places around the house, are today stored in one centralized location on the family PC. As PC users are generating and storing ever-increasing amounts of irreplaceable and highly-valued personal digital content, backup of home PCs and personal laptops is becoming more essential.
A majority of consumers acknowledge that they have content that they really care about and are concerned about losing, but relatively few regularly backup. Reported barriers include cost of backup solutions and difficulty in using them.
Zoogmo addresses these concerns and even brings an element of fun to the topic of backup. The software allows users to conveniently and securely backup important content over the Internet to computers of friends and family members or their own computers. Users can easily invite friends to join their backup network and make arrangements to share space on each other’s computers.
The software encrypts, compresses, and backs up digital content on one or more remote PCs, and restores backed up data on request. Like anti-virus software, Zoogmo runs in the background on PCs, automatically copying files and sending them over the Internet to remote computers.
Backed up files can then be sent back in case of a disaster, accidental deletion, or a computer crash. After the initial backup, all subsequent backups are incremental in that only changed files are updated and backed up. Users simply select their backup configuration upon installation, build their backup network of peers or their own computers and are up and running.
Indian Firm Touts Alternative Internet
Excerpted from VNUNet.com Report by Robert Jaques
An Indian technology firm has unveiled details of what it claims is a virus and spam-free Internet alternative.
NetAlter Software said that it has patented a “true P2P” system that offers a domain-less alternative to the web and the Internet.
The company said that the NetAlter system will “offer a secure, trusted, spam-free and virus-free software and network for end-users and businesses.”
The NetAlter Service Browser will be made available free to end-users worldwide, enabling them to connect, communicate, and share with other users from their PCs via a P2P network.
“Users will no longer have to worry about their personal and financial information being hacked or misused as the NetAlter browser will not allow unauthorized programs to run and will protect the intellectual property (IP) of creators of content and applications,” NetAlter claimed.
The network will also provide features such as e-mail, file sharing, information sharing, and messaging, as well as allowing the creation of personal and business networks.
“Wherever you are, by simply installing the NetAlter browser on your PC, you can publish content across the network without registering a domain name or hosting a web server,” NetAlter added.
The system will also provide a collaborative platform for developers and service providers to share code or content and do business in the network.
Cisco Consumer Move Afoot
Excerpted from PC World Report by Stephen Lawson
Cisco Systems executives hinted at major changes in the company’s consumer strategy this week even as they voiced optimism about networking and the world economy.
The vendor bought Linksys to enter the home networking market in 2003 and recently has gone deeper into the consumer market by acquiring video infrastructure and set-top box maker Scientific-Atlanta. It’s one of several new directions for Cisco, a large, 23-year-old company looking for continuing revenue growth.
Cisco’s consumer business brings in about $3.5 billion per year and is growing between 10 percent and 20 percent per year. That’s compared with nearly $35 billion in total revenue for the company’s last fiscal year. But Chairman & CEO John Chambers believes consumer-oriented technologies such as social networking have a big future in enterprises and wants to bring new capabilities to homes, such as a less expensive version of Cisco’s TelePresence conferencing system. Meanwhile, Microsoft and other IT vendors have designs on networked home entertainment, too.
The company will never be a majority player in consumer electronics by following its current path, Chambers said during a roundtable discussion with reporters. Cisco is used to being the dominant player in an industry, as its switching and routing businesses are juggernauts.
“One of the major decisions we face in the next twelve months is, are we going to continue along the current path and is there a path that gives up sustainable differentiation, especially given where the markets are going?” Chambers said. Collaboration, TelePresence and unified voice, text, and video communications are among the technologies he expects to see in that arena.
The San Jose, CA company has much to gain from better home broadband, and Cisco believes local government is a major hurdle in the US. “I think the developing countries are out-executing the US broadband build-out,” including slashing their prices faster, Chambers said.
Before they can improve the key “last mile” of networks to homes and businesses in the US, service providers have to negotiate with local governments and work through complex regulations, said Charles Giancarlo, Senior Vice President and Chief Development Officer. Clearing the path requires municipalities recognizing broadband as a priority similar to water and electricity, he said.
As it wrapped up a daylong conference with financial analysts at its headquarters, Chambers said the future for Cisco looks bright. Most of Cisco’s customers believe the world economy is in good shape and central banks will be able to handle possible credit problems caused by home foreclosures in the US, he said. Cisco expects service providers to keep up big spending on infrastructure, though the enterprise networking industry may be bumpy, he added.
Adobe Goes Deeper with Flash
Excerpted from NewTeeVee Report by Liz Gannes
Flash is growing up, moving from chintzy videos on the web to an infrastructure play. Adobe is making a number of announcements at IBC, including a partnership with Cisco Systems to embed Flash Media Server 3 in the Cisco content delivery system (CDS), as well as support for the upcoming Adobe Media Player from everyone from Maven Networks to YuMe to VeriSign to Akamai.
There are a number of subplots here. First of all, Adobe is squaring up against Microsoft (which also released supposed Flash killer Silverlight at IBC). Second, Cisco is using Adobe to maneuver its own face-off against Microsoft. And don’t forget anything that encourages more video (especially high-quality video) is good for Cisco, because it needs a huge amount of bandwidth, and that needs Cisco gear.
“They share our vision of any stream to any screen,” Jim Guerard, Adobe’s Vice President of Dynamic Media, said of Cisco. “Create this content once for the 10-foot experience, the 3-foot experience, and the 1-foot experience.” Starting in the fourth quarter of this year, customers of the Cisco CDS will be able to use it to bring Flash video to the PCs, TVs, and other digital devices they sell to consumers.
Adobe is also making a major push for its upcoming (first quarter next year) Adobe Media Player, signing everyone from video hosting to distribution to advertising as partners.
That includes deals with VeriSign/Kontiki and CacheLogic, key P2P alternatives to traditional content delivery networks (CDNs), which should help bring P2P distribution mainstream. It’s not P2P being baked into Flash, but it’s close.
The full list of Adobe Media Player partners also includes Blip.tv, Brightcove, Maven Networks, MotionBox, Reality Digital, PointRoll, EyeWonder, Podbridge, YuMe, and Akamai.
Get Your Grooveshark On
Excerpted from Ars Technica Report by Eric Bangeman
A new P2P music service developed by a team of enterprising college students has a novel twist on the music sales business: give users a cut of the sales. Grooveshark is currently in beta and has signed a number of independent labels for its service. All the sales traffic will go over a P2P network, and users will be rewarded for sharing their music.
P2P-based music stores are nothing new. The most recent example is LimeWire, which recently announced plans to begin selling MP3s encoded at 256Kbps. LimeWire has signed on a couple of notable distributors, including Nettwerk Productions, home to Avril Lavigne, Sara McLachlan, and the Barenaked Ladies, among other acts.
There are a couple of significant differences between LimeWire and Grooveshark’s business models, however. First, LimeWire will start out as a direct-download site, with the P2P component coming later. Also, Grooveshark’s virtual tip-jar feature appears to be unique among the P2P music stores.
Grooveshark is banking on users being attracted to the idea of getting a cut of the action when someone downloads a track from their PC. At 99¢ per non-DRM’d MP3, the user’s cut isn’t going to be much more than a few cents after the artist, label, and Grooveshark take their share, but it may be enough to convince some music fans to sign up for the service and share some of their bandwidth.
It’s a novel concept. The loosening of DRM restrictions from the likes of EMI and Universal gives consumers who are looking for music that will play on the devices of their choosing without restrictions new alternatives.
Babelgum’s Approach to P2PTV
Excerpted from Business Week Report by Jennifer Schenker
The Internet TV market is developing and you can bet that Babelgum, a free, global peer-to-peer television (P2PTV) and video-on-demand service, will be taking a contrary approach. While competitors such as Joost concentrate on US and European markets, Babelgum is looking east, with plans to add Chinese-language original content in the first quarter of next year.
Targeting Asia – along with Europe and later the US – isn’t the only thing that distinguishes Babelgum. While competitors like Joost, started by European entrepreneurs Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, or BitTorrent, created by US P2P pioneer Bram Cohen, have snagged high-profile deals with some of the biggest names in entertainment to redistribute TV and films over the Internet, Babelgum, which is headquartered in Ireland and has offices in Italy, France, and Britain, has no deals with the majors and says it doesn’t care.
When it comes to films, the start-up aims instead to showcase material that people haven’t seen anywhere else. To that end, on September 1st, Babelgum announced an online film festival that seeks to give a platform to budding filmmakers around the world. US film director Spike Lee will head the jury.
Babelgum is already allowing professional independent producers to upload videos to its site. Producers are being promised that they will be paid $5 per 1,000 views and receive a share of advertising revenues once Babelgum starts attracting ads. Babelgum is also offering independent and short films such as Lee’s “Jesus Children of America,” which has never been shown on broadcast TV. A main focus of Babelgum, though, will be to create TV channels built around hobbies such as golf, tennis, and cooking. Users will be able to set up their own personal channels, establish social links, and trade opinions on what they watch.
“The fundamental point is that we want to personalize the platform and the way of enjoying the content, not just deliver big-name hits around the world” says Valerio Zingarelli, who took over as Babelgum’s chief executive in July. “Babelgum wants to be a new TV to watch and not just a new way to watch TV.” Zingarelli replaces one of the company’s Co-Founders, Erick Lumer, who is now focusing on product development.
The new CEO spent the past 10 years at global mobile operator Vodafone, most recently serving as Global Director of Networks and Service Platforms, and has close links with Babelgum Co-Founder, billionaire Silvio Scaglia. The two met when Zingarelli was Chief Technology Officer at Italian mobile operator Omnitel (later bought by Vodafone), where Scaglia served as Chief Executive Officer.
Scaglia left Omnitel in 1999 and bet all of his own finances, and his future, on an ambitious project to wire Italy. He founded FastWeb, Italy’s second-largest fixed-line phone operator and one of the first companies in the world to build a large-scale integrated IP network to carry voice, data, and TV. Zingarelli was an independent member of the board of FastWeb, which was sold to Swisscom, Switzerland’s state-controlled telecom operator, for $4.88 billion earlier this year.
Scaglia has already poured $13.2 million of his own money into Babel Networks, Babelgum’s parent company, and plans to spend another $130 million or so of his personal fortune to get the company up and running over the next few years. The Babelgum service, which is still in beta testing, has plans for commercial launch in March of next year.
The number of Babelgum viewers testing the service doubled from 50,000 in July to 100,000 by the end of August and – thanks in part to publicity around the new online film festival being judged by Lee – Babelgum says it expects to have at least a half a million by March. Babelgum’s business model is that everything is free of charge for consumers, with no contract and no monthly fee. All revenues are expected to come from advertising.
“We don’t want people to migrate from traditional TV to watching TV on PCs. That is mission impossible today,” says Zingarelli. “We want to talk to people who are already using PCs and the Internet, tell them they can also click on Babelgum and step in and out like they do with a Google portal.” Even if viewers merely sample the offerings, the idea is that building communities around the channels of like-minded viewers such as those who like scuba diving or home repairs will create return users and attract advertising dollars.
Industry observers say it is too soon to know which P2PTV model will work. So far Joost is the one attracting most of the media ink and far more viewers – it claims already to have a million, even though the current service is an invitation-only beta testing. But don’t count out Scaglia and his quirky alternative approach.
Notes from the Selfcast Team
Right guys, summer is officially over and if you had the same weather as we had in the UK you may be thinking, “Who stole our summer?” But don’t dismay, during the cold days of June, July, and August we hid our board games, switched off Countdown and left our crosswords on the tube and set about creating some great new features for you, and by Jove I think we’ve done it: We’re going widget-crazy!
After weeks of tears, tantrums, and many cups of black coffee, we have created a code which allows you to embed any broadcast to your MySpace profile, blog, or website as a media player widget! Definitely an opportunity to broadcast to an even bigger audience and spread the word virally.
How do you widgetize a broadcast? Under every broadcast there’s is now a big button which says “Embed This Broadcast.” All you have to do is copy n’ paste the code into your website. What does it look like? Here’s an example: www.myspace.com/selfcast.
PS – Feel free to add us as your MySpace friend if you have a MySpace account.
What else is new?
We have improved the way we count how many views your broadcast has had, giving you a better idea of your audience size. We have also added a “live for” timer so that people can see how long you have been live. Cool, eh? Wonder who will get to the top of the list - well, you better start switching on that webcam... A final tweak of the live chat has been made and hopefully you will find it’s quicker and smoother than ever.
That’s all for now but stay tuned for more cool bits and bops to come... Selfcast at RawFlow.
Abacast Partners with TargetSpot
Abacast has partnered with TargetSpot to provide an ideal solution for radio broadcasters who are looking for help selling their online inventory with no additional effort. Radio broadcasters that want to add revenue to their streaming endeavors can now quickly and easily sell some or all of their online inventory through TargetSpot using the Abacast Injection System (AIS).
TargetSpot enables third-party businesses to create, buy, and place streaming media ads. AIS allows the broadcaster to easily manage and send requests to TargetSpot when they want to make inventory available for the geographic and demographically targeted ads from TargetSpot.
“We are very excited about this partnership,” said Mike King, President of Abacast. “We have a great tool that allows radio stations to manage, insert, and report on ad spots they replace, and now we can offer to help them sell those replacement spots as well.”
AIS is a great tool for replacing ads in radio stations simulcast stream online and TargetSpot is a great technology for selling more online ads. The combination makes for a very compelling solution for radio stations to increase their online revenues.
NEXT.TV Brings P2PTV to PCs
Excerpted from MediaPost Report by Gavin O’Malley
Hewlett-Packard (HP) has struck a deal to ship new notebook computers with a P2P Internet protocol system called NEXT.TV and powered by DAVE Networks.
As part of its launch, the NEXT.TV service will initially be available via a web update on HP consumer notebooks shipping with Microsoft Windows Vista since January 2007. By the end of the month, HP’s Presario and Pavilion models should come equipped with NEXT.TV and feature content from CBS, Fremantle, and Endemol.
Sneak previews should also include MGM, Eye.TV, Lazy.TV, and Reality.TV, while other content partnerships are expected to be announced over the next month. HP consumer notebooks are expected to come pre-installed with updated QuickPlay, including NEXT.TV, in early 2008.
“HP consumer notebook PC users will be able to experience Internet television from anywhere they have an Internet connection, such as their office, the park, corner coffee shop or living room,” said DAVE Networks CEO Rex Wong.
NEXT.TV faces stiff competition from a slew of competitors – including Joost, Veoh, and British Telecom (BT) – all of which are fighting to reach long-term deals with various content providers.
In another boost for the start-up, in May, DAVE Networks was added to the CBS Audience Network, previously known as the CBS Interactive Audience Network.
DAVE Networks, which had already established its video-sharing site DaveTV, launched its white-label service for businesses to create custom video sites. The business-to-business platform is for organizations interesting in setting up community sites with social features such as profile pages, blogs, and user-generated video tailored to particular brands or affinity groups.
DNAStream.TV - The Web-Based Joost
Excerpted from Mashable Report by Sean Aune
If you want a Joost-like experience without the download, try DNAStream.TV.
It’s about as smooth and beautiful as a site can get with a full browser-window video, simple navigation, and excellent video quality. The majority of the content, for the time being, is in Spanish as that is where the site originates from, but there is quite a bit of English content to be found as well.
The site will also appear in English depending on the location you log in from.
For the time being, users in the United States and other English dominant countries will probably want to stick with Joost for their content but, if for no other reason, you should also check out DNAStream.TV to see how simple it is to use.
FilesAnywhere P2P on Facebook
FilesAnywhere, a leading online file storage service, announced today a new Facebook Platform application that enables free P2P file sharing, available for all users of Facebook. In support of this new application, FilesAnywhere is providing free 1GB file storage accounts for all Facebook users that add the app.
Users of Facebook are able to embed FilesAnywhere’s unique file-sharing features directly on their Facebook profile pages. This makes it easy to store and share music, photos, documents, and all other kinds of files directly on Facebook. Users can upload files into either a public or private folder structure and also create web links (direct URLs) in Facebook for any file storage folder to instantly set up shared folders. User files and file-sharing features also can be easily accessed from all web-enabled mobile phones, including the new iPhone.
Facebook users can add the free application from this web page: http://apps.facebook.com/filesanywhere.
Facebook is a social utility that offers an efficient way for people to stay connected with their friends and the people around them. With more than 37 million active users, Facebook is the sixth-most trafficked website in the United States.
P2P: The Way to Deliver TV Across Europe
Excerpted from Think Broadband Report by Andrew Ferguson
The European broadcasting body is looking into a file-sharing system called Tribler for distributing HDTV content. Tribler is different from other systems such as those used by BBC iPlayer and 4oD in that it runs on a credit system. Credits are earned by sharing material with others, thus encouraging more people to leave devices on to share material. More on this story may be found at BBC News Online.
Interestingly the PlayStation 3 has been made to run Tribler, turning the gaming console into a video-sharing device. Enabling TV downloads on a wide range of devices is key to ensuring widespread adoption of the services.
While P2P techniques make the service delivery cheap for the content provider, the cost is moved to either the broadband provider, if it runs an unlimited service, or the consumer.
DoJ Warns Against Net Neutrality
Excerpted from MediaPost Report
The US Department of Justice (DoJ) this week backed the big telecommunications companies in the United States, warning the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) not to impose so-called “net neutrality” rules on Internet service providers (ISPs). Should the FCC decide not to, ISPs would be allowed to prioritize how they distribute network bandwidth.
The DoJ said that preventing broadband companies from charging content providers for using more bandwidth “could shift the entire burden of implementing costly network expansions and improvements on to consumers.”
These comments do not represent a ruling; they are just a suggestion to the FCC. Nevertheless, the comments are a significant blow to content companies like Google, Amazon, and eBay – which fervently backed network neutrality standards, pouring hundreds of thousands of lobbying dollars into a united campaign.
Since becoming one of the most popular social issues of 2006, net neutrality has fizzled. A one-time concern for the likes of MoveOn.org, barely anything has been mentioned about the debate since the Democrats took Congress at the beginning of the year.
Many thought that net neutrality laws would be a sure thing, although the Dems have been after bigger fish since they took control – namely, the practices of the Bush administration. Meanwhile, the big telecoms have been lobbying, too – to a mostly Republican base. Please click here for Financial Times coverage.
Future of the Recorded Music Industry
Based on a survey of four hundred 15-to-25 year-old online users in the US, the Future of the Recorded Music Industry, Part 1 finds that the music industry’s core value proposition has been inadvertently hijacked by companies who are using technological innovations to improve the quality of the music consumption experience.
The traditional music industry is contributing less-and-less of the total value while companies that use technological innovations to improve the quality of the music consumption experience are adding more-and-more value.
The results of this survey and the implications are eye-opening and reveal more clearly the true extent of the music industry’s woes.
The report begins by looking at the importance of a personal music collection by looking at five different types of musical entertainment, including a personal music collection, concerts, and music services. The five options are compared based on the importance of each option to the survey group and their willingness to pay for it.
Next, the question of copyright infringement is addressed for both the CD and digital music. This is analyzed using the size of each respondent’s personal music collection and the proportion that has been acquired on a paid-for basis. Infringement levels are analyzed using an absolute and actual approach.
The report then looks at current and anticipated levels of expenditure on CDs and digital music. Throughout the report, the difference between music enthusiasts and non-enthusiasts is highlighted.
The report then provides an in-depth analysis of the results and what they mean for the music industry.
In the Future of the Recorded Music Industry, Part 2, the report continues by asserting that the recorded music industry is entering a virtual world where the focus is on the consumption of music, not the acquisition of it.
This shift is so profound that it has blind-sided many executives in the music industry. Perhaps surprisingly, it has also blind-sided many people in the technology industry. The result has been a communication breakdown between the two industries, with each side seemingly incapable of understanding the other’s position.
The music industry will continue to be the big loser for as long as it insists on applying a 100 year-old commercial model that is incompatible with a virtual world. This report explains in detail why this is the case.
Relying on music copyright law won’t help either: the irony here is that music copyright laws are being applied to protect virtual copies of music files, which are themselves intrinsically worthless.
If that wasn’t bad enough, the principles of copyright law do not even apply to the music consumption experience, which is what is becoming increasingly valuable.
The convincing arguments developed in this report will challenge your own understanding of how the music and technology industries relate to each other.
This report takes a fresh approach to explain what the arrival of virtual music means and how it presents an opportunity to bring the music and the technology industries back into alignment.
Sam Yagan, Digital Man
Excerpted from Boston Globe Report by Dan Aucoin
Success came early to Sam Yagan. So did failure.
By the time he was 22, the son of Syrian immigrants was living the American dream, Internet version. Early in 1999, in the spring of his senior year at Harvard, he and two classmates launched an online study guide called SparkNotes.
Hello, dot-com boom. Less than a year later, they sold SparkNotes in a multimillion dollar deal negotiated by Yagan. So at an age when many graduates sweat and struggle to pay back their college loans, Yagan was already a wealthy Internet entrepreneur, free to gamble on his next move.
By age 25, he was garnering national coverage as the President of eDonkey, a P2P file-sharing network with more than 2 million users. But record labels had another name for what eDonkey did: music piracy.
With his knack for sound bites, Yagan became a go-to source for journalists in search of a trenchant quote on the intensifying battles between the recording industry and such sites as Grokster and Kazaa. He made Billboard magazine’s list of 30 top young entertainment executives. He testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, arguing for a balance between innovation and intellectual property.
But that high profile came with a price: namely, the dead-serious threat of lawsuits, aimed at both eDonkey and at him personally, from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Confronting the prospect of legal fees that might run into the millions of dollars, Yagan reluctantly agreed to a settlement and shut the company down. “These people didn’t want to talk. They wanted to sue,” he says now. “They made us write them a big check. It was frustrating. I felt that I couldn’t have my day in court because it would cost too much.”
Older (but not much; he’s 30) and presumably wiser, Yagan is once again placing all his chips online. Once again, he is taking on large, entrenched forces. And once again, he has teamed up with Chris Coyne and Max Krohn, the two classmates with whom he created SparkNotes.
This time, they are making a foray into the world of online dating, with a site called OkCupid. To compete against such established players as eHarmony and Match.com, which charge fees to customers, OkCupid’s gimmick is simple: it’s free. (The firm makes money by selling advertising on the site).
The site is designed to be a social environment that allows users to create their own quizzes with individualized, pinpoint questions like “How much of a Red Sox fan are you?” or “If you were a ‘Lost’ character, which one would you be?” This approach may be a case of making a virtue of necessity. Yagan, Coyne, and Krohn are all married (Yagan married his high school sweetheart). “We’re a bunch of math guys,” Yagan jokes. “We don’t know anything about dating.”
OkCupid boasts more than 420,000 “active users,” defined as users who have logged on in the past eight weeks. There are 40,000 active users in the Boston area, according to Yagan. “Boston is probably our biggest city, per capita,” he says. “There are a lot of young, single people, and it’s a very web-savvy town.”
It’s fitting that Yagan is living out his career in cyberspace, because he has always liked to operate at high speed. In fourth grade, over the objection of his teacher, Yagan insisted on tackling the fifth-grade math assignments. “I was definitely very nerdy,” he admits. In sixth grade, he leapt at the chance to take the SAT. By 15, he was living and studying at a residential magnet school outside Chicago.
His mother, a pediatrician, and his father, a computer scientist, had moved to the United States from Syria. “When I’ve wondered where my entrepreneurship comes from, I look to them,” Yagan says, noting, “Immigration is the ultimate entrepreneurship.” As the only Syrian family in Bourbonnais, IL, his parents struggled, Yagan says, to find that “tough balance between assimilating to American culture while maintaining roots back to the old culture. They erred on the side of Americanizing.”
In keeping with that goal, one university in particular loomed large in the family’s imagination: Harvard. “It was my mom’s dream,” says Yagan. “I remember her saying ‘Harvard’ before she said the word ‘college.’”
So it was a big day in the Yagan household when their first-born gained admission to the university on the Charles (his younger brother would later attend as well). But it took Yagan a while to adjust to the new sensation of competing with many students who were as smart or smarter than he was. One of them was Krohn, his roommate; another was Coyne, who lived across the hall. The three of them, all math majors, became fast friends. Over the next few years, they would have the usual undergraduate conversations about their future, with this difference: they envisioned a future in business together.
Yagan struggled academically at times, even getting some once-unthinkable C grades during his sophomore year. But he was more focused on bolstering his managerial skills, so he worked as a teaching assistant who helped supervise the education of other students. “Sam sees short-term decisions in terms of what their business implications will be down the road,” says Coyne. “He was absolutely like that at 18.”
The penalty Yagan paid for his less-than-stellar grades was that he got the cold shoulder when he applied to top-tier consulting firms after graduation in 1999. That ceased to matter much when SparkNotes took off, became a success, and was bought by an Internet company called iTurf. However, Yagan says, after the tech bubble burst in 2000, iTurf (which would soon go out of business) demanded that Yagan, now working for iTurf, and his partners renegotiate the deal. Eventually, SparkNotes was sold to Barnes & Noble (“I’m one of the few people who’s gotten to sell the same company twice,” Yagan says dryly). As part of the deal, he went to work for the book retailer, in charge of building up its study guide business and a line of test-preparation materials.
He learned a lot about retailing and publishing at Barnes & Noble, and how to operate in a more traditional business environment. “I remember sitting in on meetings where everyone in the room was twice as old as I was,” he says. But his innate restlessness asserted itself, and he left in early 2002. He became president of eDonkey, and - being an inveterate multitasker - he decided to pursue his MBA at Stanford at the same time. He took a course taught by Google CEO Eric Schmidt that one day featured as a guest speaker Meg Whitman, the CEO of eBay. He eventually graduated at the top of his class - a substantial improvement on his Harvard performance.
Now, Yagan is hoping that lightning will strike a second time. When they built SparkNotes as a free online site, he and his partners capitalized on what they saw as a weakness in a big rival, Cliffs- Notes. They concluded, Yagan says, “If you put free and better together, you can build something powerful.” He sees OkCupid as another test of that proposition.
All in all, it’s been a hectic eight years since he left Harvard and plunged into a career that has paralleled, and been defined by, the growth of the Internet. If the ride has been bumpy at times, it has also been exhilarating. And while Yagan envisions partnering with Coyne and Krohn for the rest of his life, he does not seem to view online dating as the last stop on that road.
“There’s still plenty of interesting stuff to do,” he says. “That’s what keeps me excited.”
Middle Easterners Use of P2P
Excerpted from Zeropaid Report by Soulxtc
There’s an interesting article expected to be published in a forthcoming issue of Windows Middle East magazine that argues that film licensing restrictions have made unauthorized file sharing in the Middle East the only real option with which to acquire movies online.
Apparently due to film licensing restrictions, which tend to cover distinct geographical regions - most often the US and Europe - Western films such as “Pulp Fiction” or “Shrek 3” cannot currently be licensed for online distribution to end-users in the Middle East, meaning Internet surfers here simply cannot download licensed mainstream video content online.
“Due to the paid-for movie download market still being in its infancy, and as such online distribution licenses only covering the so-called ‘developed’ markets, Net users here in this region don’t currently have a means of paying to download their favorite films,” commented Matt Wade, Editor of Windows Middle East.
The Windows Middle East team discovered therefore that the only option available to film buffs who are looking to download movie content there is to use P2P and file-sharing software to access unauthorized versions of motion pictures.
For all the reports about “calculated” losses due to copyright infringement, reports like this raise serious questions about their conclusions.
Some countries and regions lack true consumer choice and don’t yet have the viewing options afforded other countries like the US, and so to say that the blame falls entirely on them for not being able to see a movie on the rights holder’s terms is just silly.
If the MPAA is serious about fighting piracy then it has to learn what the RIAA still can’t figure out - give consumers what they want! Has capitalism become that difficult?
Keeping Piracy in Perspective
Excerpted from the NY Times Report by Dan Mitchell
The Motion Picture Association of America’s (MPAA) home-page this week showed a big picture of Batman swooping out of the sky, wings outstretched. “The Magic of the Movies,” the caption read.
But while the picture was the dominant element on the home-page, nearly every item was about movie piracy – how bad it is for the industry and how severe the penalties can be. There was even an item bragging about how many arrests had been made and how many pirated DVDs had been seized (81 million since last year). That Hollywood film studios just finished their best summer ever at the box office wasn’t mentioned.
Thus the headline on an Ars Technica article Movie Biz Obsesses About Pirates Even As It Plunders Box Office Booty. And at Techdirt.com, Mike Masnick wrote that though the industry group is “constantly screaming about how piracy is killing the movie industry, putting poor stagehands and grips out of work, you’d be hard pressed to see the problem when you hear that the box-office take this summer passed $4 billion for the first time ever.”
Both of the technology news sites, along with many bloggers, used the record numbers to call on Hollywood once again to change its anti-piracy strategy. Rather than treating their customers as criminals, they say, movie studios should work harder to make movie-going and DVD-viewing more enjoyable experiences.
Piracy is, of course, a huge problem, wrote Nate Anderson of Ars Technica. “It’s just that the level of concern is out of proportion to how well the industry is actually doing.” Studios, he added, should “make it easy for users to buy and use the legitimate product.”
“Think of how much more they could earn by adopting smarter business models to combat piracy in the marketplace, rather than the courts.”
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 at Harrahs, Las Vegas, NV. Now co-promoted by the DCIA. The latest research developments and technical solutions in the areas of home networking, consumer networking, enabling technologies (including middleware), and novel applications and services. See www.ieee-ccnc.org for details.
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