October 22, 2007
Volume 19, Issue 8
P2P UPFRONT Coming October 29th
Don't miss the P2P ADVERTISING UPFRONT LA Marketing Conference coming next Monday, October 29th. Peer-to-Peer (P2P) now accounts for fifty-to-ninety percent (50-90%) of all Internet traffic and, along with social-networking services, delivers over a billion content files daily. And we have not yet felt the impact of the new peer-to-peer television (P2PTV) services that are set to exponentially increase the number of viewer impressions created using P2P.
This first-ever market event will be held in conjunction with Digital Hollywood Fall. Your registration for our combined offering of both events represents a $239 savings over rates for these events individually. Please click here to register now.
P2P now represents the largest unexploited revenue generation opportunity in the world. And advertising is the best way to monetize P2P.
The P2P ADVERTISING UPFRONT LA is a must-attend event for advertising agencies, online ad networks, sponsor companies, content providers, P2P application distributors, solutions providers, and service-and-support companies – and all other parties interested in profiting from the realization of the file-sharing marketplace to its fullest potential.
Plan now to attend this Marketing Conference focused totally on developing advertising revenue in the emerging P2P distribution channel and social-networking environment. The entertainment and telecommunications sectors are increasingly turning to P2P for its enormous cost savings, greatly increased efficiencies, and potentially higher security than competing online distribution technologies.
The 10/29 P2P ADVERTISING UPFRONT LA – at the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel – presents leaders of this rapidly emerging high-growth industry from around the world. Please click here for the full agenda and click here to register. Don't miss the first-ever P2P ADVERTISING UPFRONT LA.
BitTorrent Bets on New CEO
Excerpted from Wired News Report by Julie Sloane
Here's a business conundrum Henry Ford never had to face: How do you convert a popular service built largely on the appeal of illicit file sharing into a legitimate business?
The challenge has caused headaches and grief for executives at Napster, Kazaa, and YouTube, to name a few. Now BitTorrent will make an attempt at the same perilous transition.
The San Francisco-based peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing firm debuted Doug Walker as its new CEO Wednesday. He replaces the technology's inventor, Bram Cohen, who becomes chief scientist.
The news comes hot on the heels of last week's unveiling of the company's enterprise platform, BitTorrent DNA, as well as the firm's announcement that Internet video-service provider Brightcove will be the product's first major customer.
In a meeting with Wired News, BitTorrent's new CEO and the privately held firm's Co-Founders, Cohen and Ashwin Navin, laid out an ambitious strategy: They want to own the world of streaming content.
"YouTube makes low-quality videos available, not because people wouldn't watch high-quality ones," says Cohen. "That's all it can afford."
With BitTorrent DNA, the company now offers a protocol for streaming high-definition video, including 780p and 1080i. Until now, the BitTorrent protocol only worked for downloading files, not for streaming media files – playing them as they download.
Cohen's goals as chief scientist include improving the streaming and making the protocol more "polite" to the end user. Because BitTorrent's P2P protocol both uploads to and downloads from a user's computer, it has in the past interfered with web browsers and other applications. The new release is more polite in that respect, though Cohen will continue to work on the issue, he says.
BitTorrent has more than YouTube in its sights. In February, the company launched an iTunes competitor, the BitTorrent Entertainment Network, selling downloadable movies, TV, games, music and software. The majority of its commercial files are protected by digital rights management (DRM) technology and only play on Windows PCs. The company claims much of that content will be free to the customer by the end of the year, with revenue coming from ads.
BitTorrent is now applying the same P2P distribution model it uses in its store to a distribution service for companies that want to sell video, games and commercial software. The larger goal is to allow content creators to save on the infrastructure costs associated with online downloads, while also enabling higher-quality images and faster download times.
The few gray hairs on Walker's head should go a long way towards soothing entertainment execs, whose panic over letting go of old business models is rivaled only by their panic over losing market share to Internet upstarts. While Cohen, 32, and Navin, 30, inspire confidence respectively as tech genius and sharp dealmaker, they admit that a seasoned CEO helps their cause.
Walker, 48, was previously an executive with IBM, Sun Microsystems and Silicon Graphics. He most recently served as CEO of Alias Systems, creator of the leading 3-D animation software, Maya. About half of Alias Systems' customers were in the entertainment sector that BitTorrent is targeting.
"High-level diplomacy within the entertainment sector is the area where the P2P industry needs the most work," says Marty Lafferty, CEO of the Distributed Computing Industry Association (DCIA). Lafferty's reaction to BitTorrent's announcement: "Finally!"
BitTorrent DNA's first major customer, Brightcove, delivers the streaming content for major content sites including CBS, MTV, and Warner Music.
The outcome of the partnership will serve as a bellwether for BitTorrent DNA. If cost savings prove real and image quality is improved, additional big-name customers will likely follow.
BitTorrent also opened a two-person satellite office last week in Japan, a country whose broadband infrastructure is a generation ahead of the US market. BitTorrent hopes that Japan will serve as a model for where the American market might take legal P2P technology.
Is Cohen pleased to be giving up the CEO job?
"Yes I am," he says with a grin.
DCINFO Editor's Note: BitTorrent VP & GM of Consumer Services Eric Patterson will participate in "P2P & SOCIAL NETWORK OPERATORS: Consumer Centricity – Defining a New Channel" at the P2P ADVERTISING UPFRONT LA.
Report from CEO Marty Lafferty
 The revenue streams from ad-supported P2P distribution of multiple genres of content are potentially tsunami sized. A new gold rush is being fueled by fresh funding from venture capital firms; and major as well as leading independent media companies are at last finding their way into proof-of-concept tests, market trials, and bona fide business relationships with P2P technology firms and other online distribution partners.
Viacom's decision this week to distribute 13,000 ad-supported video clips of Comedy Central's The Daily Show online – representing every minute of the show since its inception in 1999 – heralds a new era in repurposing television content for the Internet.
Suddenly, content providers are adopting ad-supported online distribution at a ferocious pace. And at the same time, the closely related phenomena of user-generated content (UGC) and social networking are gaining momentum as never before.
Of course, this level of activity emanating from the least familiar territory at the very cutting edge of new media innovation is making those who have historically controlled advertising nervous, and it's also driving marketers to distraction in their attempts to keep up with the panoply of new players, business models, and rules of engagement.
Industry naysayers are asking if the billions and billions of new audience impressions being unleashed by unprecedented levels of media consumption in the P2P and social networking marketplace will dilute online ad rates to the point that the entire advertising-supported media system will collapse. Will the operating margins of participants erode to the point of failure as a function of an overabundance and ever-increasing supply of advertising inventory?
Or will the cost-savings afforded by the efficiency of P2P and related distributed computing technologies support what now seems like impossibly voluminous distribution with a corresponding set of innovative monetization solutions that will work for all participants in the distribution chain?
It's clear that the number of new online content distribution players, led by the particularly exciting new wave of P2PTV entrants, is on the upswing and that there are already more digital content aggregators and originators in this space than in the traditional media world. While the idea that relatively small-scale ad-supported P2P and social networks can flourish confounds most large media companies, it doesn't confound the hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs engaged in establishing this new market.
Advertisers care about new audiences, not old business models. As Nike's Trevor Edwards exclaimed this week in The New Advertising: Your Life, "We're not in the business of keeping the media companies alive. We're in the business of connecting with consumers." Distribution-driven media giants need to step-up their pace of embracing the new distribution channels.
With offline media, distribution was expensive – CDs and DVDs, trucks, and shelf-stocking costs – plus local cable system head-ends, miles of analog coaxial cable, and set-top boxes. Per unit pricing and subscription charges were necessary to bolster sponsorship revenues to make these business models viable.
Internet – and especially P2P distribution – drastically cuts distribution costs with exponentialy greater efficiency, allowing ad-supported media to deliver a much greater diversity of content to many more people – and best-of-all free to the end-user.
Investors realize that traditional media franchises are leaking their audiences and advertisers to new media. They will continue their aggressiveness, and audiences, advertisers, and entrepreneurs will be the beneficiaries.
As consumer acceptance figures testify, ad-supported P2P is an idea whose time has come, and we hope you will join us at the P2P ADVERTISING UPFRONT LA next week to learn more about how to exploit the largest unexploited revenue generation opportunity in the world. Share wisely, and take care.
YuMe Networks Raises $9 Million
Excerpted from MediaPost Report
YuMe Networks, a dedicated advertising network created and optimized for broadband video, has raised another $9 million in funding. The investors include Khosla Ventures, Accel Partners, BV Capital, and now DAG Ventures Funding.
YuMe is a privately held company headquartered in Redwood City, CA. Its network offers advertisers the ability to target messaging to online video content the way they do with keyword placements.
YuMe uses a proprietary contextual mapping technology to scan online video content and then categorize it into such channels as Auto, Finance, Entertainment and Family Friendly.
YuMe Networks CEO Jayant Kadambi will be a Conference Luncheon Speaker at the P2P ADVERTISING UPFRONT LA.
Berman Joins QTRAX Board
Excerpted from Billboard Buzz Report by Antony Bruno
Ad-supported P2P service QTRAX added Jason "Jay" Berman as the Co-Chair of its Advisory Board. Berman is the former chairman of the RIAA and IFPI.
In his new role, he will provide strategic counsel to the company regarding intellectual property protection in advance of the QTRAX launch, expected before the end of the year.
Jay Berman will participate in "PRESENTING QTRAX: The World's First Ad-Supported P2P Music Service" at the P2P ADVERTISING UPFRONT LA.
Wizzard Media Partners with Veoh
Wizzard Media, the world's largest podcasting network has launched a Featured Channel on Veoh, one of the first P2PTV services to distribute high-definition (HD) streaming video content.
Found on Veoh's Featured Channel pages, the Wizzard Media Channel will include programming from a select group of high-quality, popular video podcasts, such as The Quincy Jones Show, Tiki Bar TV, RipCurl, Lynchland, The Movie Review and many more.
Launched in 2004, Veoh has been recognized as one of the top-10 streaming video sites on the Internet by Nielsen/NetRatings. With over 85,000 content publishers, such as Lionsgate, NCAA Football, PBS, National Lampoon and Us Weekly, and thousands of independent filmmakers and content producers, Veoh draws more than 18 million unique users per month.
To view Wizzard's Channel, please visit www.veoh.com/channels/wizzardmedia.
Veoh is part of Veoh Networks, a privately held company that has garnered the support of the world's foremost technology and media investors, including Michael Eisner's Tornante Co., AOL/Time Warner, Goldman Sachs, Shelter Capital Partners, and Spark Capital. The company's main offices are in Los Angeles and San Diego, CA.
A comScore Video Metrix report released in July revealed that nearly three out of four US Internet users streamed video online during the month of May 2007. Further, the report stated that the average online video viewer consumed 63 video streams, or more than two per day.
Veoh Networks SVP of Marketing Jennifer Betka will deliver a keynote address at the P2P ADVERTISING UPFRONT LA.
A Little Advice from Cory
Excerpted from Online Spin Report by Cory Treffiletti
Have you ever sat through a long-winded, totally irrelevant, and completely un-engaging, boring presentation?
Our industry is notorious for talking about ourselves endlessly. We make broad, sweeping statements about how our idea or our technology is the best thing since sliced bread and how our platform will "totally change the way consumers interact with media," but that's all pretty bogus. Our ideas and our companies may do a great job of providing new solutions, but not enough people truly sit and think about the challenges facing the audience they are speaking to first!
The best presentations are simple; they are the ones where you talk little, listen a lot and provide solutions aimed at meeting the challenges of the person you are talking to.
The only way to do that is to first find out what those challenges are and truly listen. I once sat in a presentation with someone who was pitching me about all the services he could provide me for media planning and buying which would help my clients achieve their needs online. I asked him if he knew what my team and I did and he said, "No. Why don't you give me some background on your business?" I told him we were a media planning and buying shop and I asked him if he could find his way out by himself.
To be successful, you need to know your audience. Salespeople in our industry are usually so stressed for time and so busy trying to make new contacts that they forget the simple things about selling. The best salespeople are the ones who begin by asking, or have already done their research, about what challenges their potential clients will face and understanding the needs of that specific group.
If you are speaking to a venture capitalist, you need to know he is going to want to hear about how your idea will make him money. If you are speaking to a brand manager, you need to convey how your product or service will help her to achieve specific brand goals, such as increasing awareness or getting their brand further down the consideration cycle to purchase intent. If you are speaking to an ad agency, understand who their clients are and what they are trying to achieve. This research may not be easy, but it will close the sales cycle dramatically and help you sign more business at a quicker pace.
It really is this simple; to sell a presentation, speak to me about what I need, not what you do! Understand what my top ten challenges are. Hypothesize what the primary issues facing my business might be – and see if your guess was correct! Don't provide me with a solution for a challenge that is #16 on a list of the top 20 challenges on my plate right now. If you can speak to me about what is top-of-mind and provide solutions that will work, you'll get my business. If you don't do your homework first, you risk the annoyance of your audience and the missed opportunity to build a lasting, strong and effective relationship!
Our interactive industry is growing, in spite of the missteps we've made over the years. But for us to compete with TV and other formats, and for us to continue to evolve to be the central discussion in media and campaign planning, we need to grow up. Salespeople need to be trained just as much as media people do. They need to be trained not just on the technology behind their products and services, but on sales and client management. They need to know to listen first and speak second (and this goes for media people pitching a new piece of business, too).
These people represent the front line of exposure for our business, so make us proud and step up to the plate to build our business the right way. And as for media people on the other end, be courteous, return calls and respond when salespeople ask questions. Reward the salespeople who do their jobs well, because these people will be your best friends for many years to come in your career.
Cory Treffiletti is President & Managing partner of Catalyst and will be a Conference Luncheon Speaker at the P2P ADVERTISING UPFRONT LA.
BBC Widens Access to iPlayer
Excerpted from C21 Media Report by Jonathan Webdale
The BBC is increasing the availability of its iPlayer broadband console, powered by VeriSign's P2P technology Kontiki, so that it is compatible with Apple Macs and accessible for free via Wi-Fi hotspots in public places across the UK.
The Corporation has partnered with software firm Adobe, enabling it to offer the iPlayer as a streamed catch-up programming platform for Apple computers as well as for PCs using the Linux and Microsoft Windows operating systems.
The deal with Adobe sees the BBC using the firm's Flash Player to offer the iPlayer as a P2P streaming service, rather than using the original P2P download model with which it debuted.
A separate deal with Wi-Fi hotspot operator The Cloud means the BBC becomes the first UK broadcaster to make all its online content available for free via the technology.
The arrangement makes all bbc.co.uk material accessible for free at 7,500 hotspots spanning locations including branches of McDonald's and Coffee Republic, and Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted airports.
The iPlayer is in soft-launch phase at the moment but will get a major marketing push during the holiday season. It currently enables viewers to download and view around 400 hours of programs from the past seven days and store them for up to 30 days.
"It is important to ensure that BBC iPlayer is available on as many platforms as possible," said Erik Huggers, Controller of the BBC Future Media and Technology group, adding that the Adobe deal would "revolutionize" how the pubcaster created and delivered content to audiences in the digital age.
The BBC's director of Future Media and Technology Ashley Highfield said he hoped the deal with The Cloud would be the first of many such partnerships and would allow UK citizens to "catch up on Strictly Come Dancing while having a café latte in Coffee Republic."
VeriSign's VP of Broadband Content Services, Jeff Richards, will deliver a keynote address at the P2P ADVERTISING UPFRONT LA.
Javien Powers Games for K2 Network
Javien Digital Payment Solutions announced this week that K2 Network has deployed its technology to enhance the online experience for the company's gaming community by offering new and alternative payment options for its Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs).
"At K2 Network we believe that inherent to our identity is ensuring that anyone can join our enormous global community," said Joshua Hong, Founder & CEO of K2 Network. "The flexibility in Javien's technology will allow us to offer alternative payments as well as a variety of payment models."
Javien's technology supports innovative advertising-supported as well as subscription-based models, which are highly relevant to the success of online games. Additionally, Javien's adaptive micro-payment aggregation technology, recently awarded a patent, offers a solution that can reduce the costs of processing fees for small-ticket transactions.
"Our total commerce solution provides the ideal platform for the online gaming community," said Leslie Poole, Javien CEO. "Its strength lies in its flexibility so companies can offer a host of choices for digital content and physical goods sales."
The core, transactional engine drives the Javien platform while its add-on components – micro-payment aggregation, alternative payments, and expandable digital/physical merchandising tools – empowering customers to adapt the technology without sacrificing critical business rules.
K2 Network currently has over 10 million registered users playing its games "War Rock," "Knight Online," "Global MU Online," "Red Stone," and "Sword of the New World: Granado Espada."
The company puts gamers first by giving them free access to compelling titles, supporting their amazing communities, offering creative pricing models, and updating games based on player feedback.
Javien VP of Sales Bill Sheehan will participate in "NETWORK OPERATIONS & SUPPORT SERVICES: User Traffic – File Sharing, Downloading, Streaming, and Communicating" at the P2P ADVERTISING UPFRONT LA.
Joost Touts User Growth
Excerpted from Yahoo News Report by Audrey Stuart
The world's first TV-quality P2PTV network went on display at this week's MIPCOM audiovisual trade show offering licensed free entertainment and raising questions about what this will mean for the massive TV business.
The network, Joost, launched this month just ahead of a clutch of P2PTV competitors that include Italy's Babelgum.
"The Internet will start off showing traditional entertainment but eventually users and content creators will use the capabilities of the Internet to create some amazing entertainment," said Mike Volpi, who heads up Joost.
Many mighty Internet operators, such as AOL, MSN, and Yahoo are investing heavily in making their own TV shows.
Media giant News Corp. has spent a fortune buying into massively popular Internet social networking site MySpace, and has launched MySpace TV, which will be available in over 12 countries.
And telecommunications companies around the world are investing in IPTV television packages packed with satellite TV shows, as well as video-on-demand that customers can watch on their sitting room TV sets, and pay for in their telephone bill.
The TV and digital media industries are right to be concerned, experts said at MIPCOM this week, as no one really knows how the current explosion of new ways to watch and interact with television will evolve.
But everyone remembers how the Internet quickly changed everyone's lives.
Volpi said over two million users had already downloaded the Joost application needed to use the fledgling TV service, which has been recording more than 100,000 downloads a day since it started on October 1st.
But "this is still an early stage," Volpi cautioned, adding that the length of time users were staying on the channel varied enormously from region to region – though it was upwards of 20 minutes.
In the US, TV fans were opting for comedy and sci-fi, while in Latin America, and Brazil in particular, music videos were tops. Europeans were going for full-length feature films.
Volpi said Joost aimed to remain a free service funded by advertisements and hoped to attract more creative, interactive ads.
As to content, he said users could look forward in the future to big-branded TV series as well as a vast library of older TV shows along with the mass of user-generated content on services like YouTube.
Joost would get a huge boost if Volpi succeeds in persuading major TV channels to put "fat belly" crowd-pulling shows such as "CSI" and "Survivor" on the service joining major sports events like major league baseball, which Joost signed in recent weeks.
BBC Worldwide digital media head Simon Danker said its popular motoring show "Top Gear" made a big hit on Yahoo Japan after it failed to get a spot for the show on Japanese television.
And US broadcasting giant CBS CEO Leslie Moonves said his company is starting to create original programming for the web as well as exploring other opportunities.
P4P Working Group Helps P2P CDNs
Excerpted from Silicon Alley Insider Report by Dan Frommer
The AP reports what many Comcast cable-modem subscribers concluded months ago: the Internet service provider (ISP) is messing with its customers' BitTorrent P2P connections. Nationwide tests performed by the AP indicate that the cable company's subscribers can download files using BitTorrent with no problems – but that uploads of completed files are being blocked or delayed by Comcast.
Why does that matter? With P2P file transfers, a person can only download what another person is uploading. So by interfering with its customers' uploads, Comcast would also interfere with downloads – and ultimately make it difficult to use BitTorrent or other P2P file transfers.
Streaming media analyst Dan Rayburn counts at least ten companies in the content delivery network (CDN) industry offering P2P transfers to deliver files on behalf of their clients. If Comcast is deliberately interfering with P2P transfers, the cable giant could significantly handicap P2P CDNs, among others.
Comcast rep Charlie Douglas "would not specifically address the practice," the AP says, but he "confirmed that the ISP uses sophisticated methods to keep net connections running smoothly." Douglas has denied Comcast's supposed BitTorrent throttling in the past, but the AP's story contradicts his claims.
Meanwhile, two of Comcast's biggest rivals are making more constructive progress. Telecom giants AT&T and Verizon are part of a working group called P4P, which includes P2P companies like New York's Pando and LimeWire, BitTorrent, VeriSign, and gearmaker Cisco. Their goal: figure out a way to make P2P transfers more efficient for both the CDNs managing them and the ISPs who own the pipes they ride on.
China Takes P2P to the Next Level
Excerpted from ZeroPaid.com Report
With a relaxed regulatory environment unlike the US, Chinese developers have created file-sharing protocols that offer downloads 50 times faster than BitTorrent and real-time streaming of DVD quality video.
It's no secret that China is emerging as an economic powerhouse in its own right, developing a burgeoning manufacturing industry that produces everything from cars to iPods, but it's also rapidly developing a P2P and file-sharing services industry that people of other countries – including the US – could only dream of.
In a recent interview with Kaiser Kuo, Ogilvy China's digital guru and web 2.0 expert discussed the rapid growth of P2P and file-sharing services in China in contrast to the United States where its growth has long been hampered by copyright concerns and the lack of effective DRM restrictions.
China's relaxed regulatory environment in regards to copyright infringement and enforcement has made it possible for P2P services to be where Kuo says some of the "finest minds have gone" and developed "incredibly fast protocols on their own."
An example is Blin.cn that has created a client that is reportedly an unbelievably 50 times faster than BitTorrent. The amazing download speeds lie in the fact that it is "really, really aggressive in being able to grab bandwidth from available resources."
As an example of the speeds made possible by Blin, Kuo describes how he and his wife set out to watch the TV show "24" season 6 in DVD quality from start to the moment of actual viewing. From the moment she entered the keyword "Blin" in a search engine, visited the site, downloaded and installed the client, and was actually able to watch it with 2.2% downloaded, a measly 3 minutes had passed.
That's right, it took a whole 3 minutes to begin watching DVD quality video content. Now to be fair, what Kuo's Internet connection speeds are isn't stated in the video, but it nonetheless is an interesting feat by any P2P or file-sharing standards.
The most interesting thing to note from his interview is the fact that P2P and file-sharing services enjoy so much free reign in China, and that developers have the ability to innovate and create new clients and protocols without too much fear of government or corporate interference.
Here in the US and pretty much anywhere else the MPAA and RIAA are allowed to have their way, content seems to take precedence over its distribution, thus hindering the development of new P2P and file-sharing services for consumers. The effect is that digital distribution is stifled to a snails' pace, and that we have one of those rare cases where laws impede technological advancement and progress.
Without the approval of copyright holders groups like the RIAA and MPAA and effective content filtering mechanism in place, new P2P and file-sharing upstarts have no chance to succeed. As a result, "the finest minds," whom Kuo says describes many of those who have entered China's P2P services market, don't want to get involved in their development here in the US and elsewhere. They don't want to get embroiled in nightmarish talks with copyright holders demanding a still elusive 100% DRM protection scheme for their content, or even worse, be potentially held label for any instances of copyright infringement that the P2P service may allow to occur.
The risk is great for it means that China will inevitably be the leader in products and services that deliver content to consumers quickly and efficiently. Web 2.0 is supposed to herald a social network revolution, but so long as the creation of faster and more effective P2P solutions is hampered it may mean that Web 2.0 may become a reality for some and languish as just a dream for others.
Moreover, P2P and file-sharing services are just the latest examples of China's roaring economic development and innovation – and they will only get better as time goes on. China truly seems to be taking P2P to the next level.
BitTorrent Sites Enjoy Booming Web Traffic
Excerpted from Tech Report by James Rivington
Torrent sites that host ripped audio and video files are enjoying a big boom in traffic. With home broadband connections handling increased amounts of web traffic, BitTorrent is becoming an ever-more popular method of downloading entertainment content.
A quick study conducted on Peer-to-Press uses Alexa traffic statistics to show that traffic to the biggest torrent sites (including Mininova, IsoHunt, and Demonoid) is increasing all the time.
Alexa isn't the most accurate way to study traffic numbers. But it is useful for showing overall web trends and potential page-view volume. The figures show that these torrent sites are doubling their traffic year-on-year. Some, like IsoHunt, have quadrupled their numbers.
A Tech.co.uk Study revealed last month that people in the UK using BitTorrent to download autumn-season television shows from the United States are likely to add an extra 4.2 petabytes of data to the world's weekly bandwidth usage.
Put in simple terms, BitTorrent users downloading only TV shows from America are draining the web at a rate of 6.9GB per second.
Swarmcast Accelerator Supports Veoh
Autobahn Accelerator, the free tool that boosts download speeds for online videos, is now available for Veoh. Autobahn Accelerator enhances the user experience for Veoh subscribers by providing faster video loading and more reliable streaming of bonus content, television shows, and movie previews, including NBC's "Heroes," Showtime's "Weeds" and Lionsgate's "Good Luck Chuck."
Autobahn Accelerator for Veoh has been developed by Swarmcast, the provider of multi-source streaming technology for high-quality online video delivery. The accelerator application can be downloaded at www.getautobahn.com. It is the third in a series of accelerators from Swarmcast and follows the launch of Autobahn Accelerator for iTunes and MySpaceTV earlier this year.
Users that download the latest version of Autobahn Accelerator will significantly reduce the download times of music, movies, TV episodes and other videos from the iTunes store, and improve streaming performance on MySpaceTV and Veoh. Autobahn ensures reliable streaming, minimizing both the frustration of waiting for videos to start and re-buffering, even over a wireless network. By installing the Autobahn Accelerator for Veoh once, users can increase the streaming rate of videos hosted on Veoh as well as videos hosted by Veoh and embedded on sites throughout the Internet by up to 15 times faster than before.
"Veoh has a fast growing community of subscribers and offers a wide range of content to choose from. As users look for the best experience possible and Veoh continues to offer fresh content, including the recently launched NCAA Football Channel, Swarmcast's Autobahn Accelerator is an ideal tool to maximize the enjoyment of high-action online video," said Justin Chapweske, Founder & CEO of Swarmcast. "The Autobahn Accelerator is simple to download and designed to dramatically improve the user experience, ultimately exceeding subscriber expectations of how great Internet video can look."
Autobahn Accelerator applications can be installed easily in seconds. Autobahn Accelerator runs in the background, automatically accelerating downloads of music or videos from supported sites. The tool is completely free of adware and spyware. Autobahn Accelerator is currently available for users with Windows 2000, Windows XP, and 32-bit Vista, running Internet Explorer 6 and 7, as well as Firefox. It will soon be OS X compatible.
P2P Growth Creates Battle for Bandwidth
Excerpted from New Scientist Report by Anil Ananthaswamy
When Microsoft released the eagerly awaited Xbox 360 game Halo 3 last month, fans waited through the night outside stores to get their hands on the first copies.
How much more convenient it would have been if the game had simply arrived on their computers as soon as it was released. "If we had a delivery service, we could deliver the content electronically and maybe offer a discount," says Jin Li of Microsoft Research in Redmond, WA.
Unfortunately that wasn't possible. Microsoft's connections to the Internet would have been overwhelmed had they needed to send out more than a million copies of the game. That could soon change if the company decides to deliver games using a peer-to-peer (P2P) delivery system, which alleviates such bandwidth burdens.
Please click here for the complete report.
Clickshare Wins Key E-Commerce Patent
Clickshare Service Corp. has been notified by the US Patent & Trademark Office (PTO) that it will receive a patent relating to its technology for creating a federated network of Internet websites.
Clickshare has developed a unique system that networks websites, allowing consumers to use existing accounts with trusted providers, to make secure, privacy-protected, purchases from any website within the network. Consumers can make purchases from hundreds of vending websites without providing credit card information to each site. The consumer's financial information resides with their trusted provider and the Clickshare Network settles payments among providers and vendors.
"Our technology gives consumers control over who sees personal information while simplifying the process of purchasing music, video, games and text across social and business networks," said Rick Lerner, CEO.
The Clickshare System supports many models including traditional purchasing, B-to-B applications such as tracking and payment for advertising click-throughs, reliable exchange of consumer information, federated authentication and management of loyalty programs.
Clickshare has been providing services such as subscription management, "per-click" purchasing, event ticket sales and online print subscription capture for the newspaper and media industries for over ten years. Its clients include Crain Communications, Sun Times Newspaper Group, The McClatchy Co., Journal Register, Inside Washington Publishers, as well as government agencies.
Ooma Offers Lifetime P2P VoIP Service for $399
Excerpted from Daily Tech Report by Jason Mick
Ooma is launching a new service which promises its customers an unprecedented offer of service for life.
Every month, pay the mortgage, pay the car payment, pay the utilities, and pay the phone bill – right? Not if you are an Ooma customer.
Ooma is gaining ground by taking a unique approach in bringing P2P voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) service to the masses. Users better start eating right and exercising daily, as Ooma is offering a hub for $399 dollars, which allows the user to make a lifetime worth of phone calls.
This setup supplants typically high service prices with a high hardware price, a reflection on the drastically dropping costs of data transfer.
According to reviews, the service comes with nice perks including a second line built in (which allows for two simultaneous calls) and advanced voice-mail features.
One downside is that you need to purchase separate scout units to connect extra phones in your house. The $399 package comes with a single scout unit, which connects to the hub and can be connected to two phones. Each additional scout can connect to two phones.
The hub can accept broadband cable or LAN connections and requires a power plug connection. Phones can directly plug into the hub. The phones can also be plugged into the scout, which the home telephone line plugs into. The scout requires its own power connection as well.
A household might enjoy the two line capabilities of the Ooma hub. While one resident was on the phone on a work call, the other resident could be checking movie times or calling relatives, freeing the household from single line woes.
The voice-mail includes call screening features and allows you to listen to your messages remotely from your Ooma account.
One feature that users may want to reconfigure is the default caller id. It is set to anonymous by default. While some users may enjoy this cloak of secrecy, many will find that their calls are rejected by people with caller ID who do not answer anonymous calls for fear of solicitation. The caller ID is easily configurable, though, both on the phone and online.
One more possible downside of the service is that international calls are not free. You have to add money to your Ooma account to make international calls.
Ooma devices connect to each other on a P2P network, much like popular file-sharing programs. Each phone connected strengthens the network and expands its potential.
Overall initial users and testers have been very pleased with Ooma's VoIP service. While it has some minor downsides, the picture is overwhelmingly positive with the setup's full features and easy use.
Abacast Appoints Rob Green to BOD
Abacast, the world leader in hybrid P2P technologies and services, has appointed veteran content delivery network (CDN) and software executive, Rob Green, to its Board of Directors.
"Rob brings strengthened leadership and valuable experience to the Abacast board. We are pleased to welcome his input and participation," said John Fluke Jr., Abacast Board Chairman.
Rob Green said, "I believe Abacast represents the future of CDN technology. I am very impressed with Abacast's technology suite. The blending of traditional CDN services and P2P offers clients a ‘best of both worlds' scenario: high performance and low distribution costs. I am looking forward to working with such a dynamic company."
Mr. Green brings 18 years of extensive industry experience and knowledge to Abacast. Previously, he served as Senior Vice President of Business Development and Strategy at Nine Systems, a CDN that was acquired by Akamai Technologies in December 2006. Prior to Nine Systems, he was the Group Manager of Business Development for Microsoft where he was responsible for the global advancement of Windows Media Technologies in the broadcast television and CDN markets.
Spanish Court Favors P2P File Sharing
Excerpted from Afterdawn Report
In Spain, a Madrid magistrate has declared the case against Sharemula, a website publishing download links through which users can acquire TV series, music, software, etc., dismissed.
In October 2006 fifteen individuals were arrested, among whom were people responsible for Sharemula. Now a year later, the court came to a decision that neither the site nor its administration have committed any violations against the copyright law by publishing links to P2P downloads.
The ruling was considered a success by the Sharemula attorneys, who based their defense on three existing court rulings on similar cases. By not directly profiting from the downloads or storing unauthorized content, Sharemula did not break the law and was released from the accusations.
It is likely that the prosecution, including multinational companies such as Disney, Paramount, Sony, and TimeWarner, will file an appeal shortly.
Internet Giants Duel in the Web's Wild West
Excerpted from Financial Post Report by David George-Cosh
Thursday's announcement by a consortium of nine major television networks and tech companies to set a series of principles for developing user-generated content (UGC) was, at the very least, peculiar.
For one, the principles are all voluntary. No one is forced to conform to them and they're not legally binding. But they're nice to have and it makes everyone look like they're doing something proactive — especially for copyright owners upset that certain websites can get away with posting their content without their consent.
"Today's announcement marks a significant step in transforming the Internet from a Wild West to a popular medium that respects the rule of law," said NBC Universal President and chief executive Jeff Zucker.
Perhaps more interesting is the glaring omission of YouTube, owned by Google, among the nine partners who created the principles in question.
Google/YouTube announced on Monday that content identification tools for YouTube will be implemented on the site, or in layman's terms, the site will now have long-overdue filters that would know if a video is infringing on a copyright or if it's just a video some teenager made in his basement.
Announcing the principles can be looked at as a swipe at Google's YouTube brand, which has not played nicely with TV networks in the past.
"This is all going on in parallel with the lawsuit that Viacom has against Google, which is still in place," said David Zitzerman, an entertainment lawyer with Goodmans LLP. Mr. Zitzerman represents Viacom and CBS, who are partners in the UCG Principle initiative.
"The big step here is not that Disney, Fox, and CBS have agreed to these principles but that Microsoft and Veoh and some of these other services that are trying to one up Google and YouTube."
Added Mr. Zitzerman, "Microsoft is now in a position to say: ‘Unlike YouTube which is the ‘Wild West' and is being sued by Viacom, we voluntarily agree to these principles.'"
From a more general standpoint, Alan Sawyer, a media strategist with Two Solitudes Consulting, thinks the principles may wind up backfiring on the consortium partnership.
"There's a fundamental culture clash or generation gap at work here, where the older people and the corporate citizens understand the concept of copyright," said Mr. Sawyer. "But the emerging consumer fundamentally doesn't understand what copyright is about or has no respect for the concept and believes all content should be freely shared."
Mr. Sawyer also questions the legal quagmire that could result when an individual uploads unsolicited content to an online video website.
"Is the jurisdiction, if you will, the location where the service is located, where the user who uploaded the content is located, or where the business that runs the website is located," Mr. Sawyer said. "Whose definition of ‘fair use' would you apply?"
Court Demands Stronger Filters for Morpheus
Excerpted from The Register Report
A permanent injunction has been imposed on the distributor of the Morpheus file-sharing software. A US court ruled this week that StreamCast Networks must use "the most effective means available to reduce the infringing capabilities of the system."
The ruling comes less than a week after Google announced the launch of its own filter to block copyright-infringing material from its YouTube video-sharing site. Yesterday's 83-page judgment could prove influential in Viacom's $1 billion lawsuit against Google, which accuses YouTube and its parent company of inducing infringement by users.
StreamCast Networks and P2P rival Grokster were first sued by MGM Studios and others in a California district court in 2001. Their software allowed millions of users to share music, software, and movies over the Internet. In a landmark ruling in 2005, the US Supreme Court concluded that StreamCast and Grokster induced copyright infringement and could be held liable for infringement committed by the users of their software. The case was sent back to the district court to consider MGM's motion for summary judgment.
StreamCast is the only defendant remaining in the case. Yesterday, US District Judge Stephen Wilson rejected MGM's request for a permanent injunction that would ban the distribution of the Morpheus software.
Please click here for the complete report.
Oversight Committee Goes after P2P Again
Excerpted from Afterdawn Report
Members of the US House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform have sent a letter to Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regulators asking for a list of risks associated with the use of P2P software and networks.
The letter stems from hearings the committee conducted earlier this year, where it was suggested by Chairman Henry Waxman that P2P software poses a "national security threat" because of files containing sensitive government information which were shared inadvertently by government employees and discovered during an audit of P2P services.
The interesting aspect of this story is the apparent lack of interest in cracking down on user-installed software on government computers. Like almost all corporate IT operations, the government has strict regulations regarding the unauthorized installation of software by users. In fact, a Department of Transportation official testified at the hearing that before installing file-sharing software on a government computer, the user is required to get written permission first.
So if the point of this isn't to resolve national security issues uncovered during that investigation, what is it? According to the seven-page letter the committee submitted to the head of the FTC, they're worried that P2P software includes features that share files without the user realizing it.
If, in fact, this is a problem - and it's a legitimate question to pose - the next obvious question is what it has to do with government oversight.
Coming Events of Interest
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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 LA – Sponsored by the DCIA October 29th in Los Angeles, CA in conjunction with Digital Hollywood Fall. The industry's premiere 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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Digital Hollywood Fall – October 30th - November 1st in Los Angeles, CA. Now at a new Location in the Grand Ballroom at Hollywood & Highlands and the adjacent Hollywood Renaissance Hotel. Digital Hollywood is the premier entertainment and technology conference in the country. Many DCIA Member companies will be featured speakers and exhibitors at this major industry event.
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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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P2P ADVERTISING UPFRONT NY – Sponsored by the DCIA March 11th in New York, NY in conjunction with the Media Summit New York (MSNY). The industry's premiere 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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