December 10, 2007
Volume XX, Issue 3
P2P MEDIA SUMMIT LV Beckons
The P2P MEDIA SUMMIT LV this week added new speakers and sponsors, and now offers attendees insights into the very latest from the cutting edge of the peer-to-peer (P2P) and social networking industry.
With an early look at breakthrough products and services, now literally from AHT to Zattoo, the P2P MEDIA SUMMIT LV has become the first must-attend event of 2008. Attendees will also get a pre-launch peak at QTRAX, the widely anticipated P2P music service from Brilliant Technologies Corporation.
This first-ever day-long DCIA Conference within CES, where attendance is expected to top 140,000 this year, takes place on January 6th leading up to Bill Gates' evening keynote address.
This seminal industry conference features keynotes from top P2P companies; tracks on policy, technology and marketing; panel discussions covering content distribution and solutions development; and more.
There will be a continental breakfast, luncheon, and networking cocktail reception with live entertainment.
Please click here for more information and click here to register. Advance registration rates, which save attendees up to $200 are now in effect.
Drums Beat for QTRAX Launch
The long-awaited launch of the world's first fully-licensed advertising-supported P2P music service is now imminent. QTRAX, chaired by Allan Klepfisz, backed with licenses from major and leading independent labels and publishers, and boasting one of the best business models to emerge since the advent of digital music distribution, is poised for its commercial launch at MIDEM during the last week of January.
This historic launch truly heralds a new era for the P2P distribution channel - and industry participants, observers, and pundits should make their pilgrimage to Cannes, France to support this watershed event.
As the NY Post reported, "With a full complement of songs from the major labels as well as the esoteric live recordings and personal tracks stemming from users' own collections, QTRAX will have access to between 20 million and 30 million copyrighted songs at launch."
According to Jupiter Research, "Young consumers are increasingly shunning music buying in favor of file-sharing, which is four times more popular than digital-music buying among ages 15-to-24."
And as Allan Klepfisz notes, "While consumers aren't willing to pay for music, advertisers still will - and Internet advertising is growing at a 30 percent clip per year!"
QTRAX's initial revenue projections range from twenty-to-one-hundred-seventy-five million dollars, depending on take rates. Rights holders directly share in the advertising revenue.
Examples of other MIDEM/MIDEMNET 2008 attractions include a keynote address by P2P industry luminary Janus Friis, visionary chair committee participation by Nettwerk Music Group CEO Terry McBride, exhibition by Javien Digital Payment Solutions, panel participation by MasurLaw's Steve Masur, and much more.
Obama Launches New Website
Excerpted from Digital Media Wire Report by Scott Goldberg
As the conclusion to the races for party nominations draws closer, Senator Barack Obama (D-IL), to date the leading candidate to articulate a Technology and Innovation position clearly favorable to the distributed computing industry, has boosted his online presence by creating a website called Hillary Attacks. The new site serves the purpose of acknowledging, and then dismantling, incoming barbs from Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY).
Specialized websites are not new to the 2008 race. Senator Clinton launched a site dedicated to responding to false rumors called "The Fact Hub," and Senator Obama's new site leads to a similar spot called Fact Check.
But Obama's "Hillary Attacks" has a more satirical feel than we're accustomed to seeing from a presidential candidate. And in the political arena where the jabs occasionally verge on the absurd, how could a site serving the sole purpose of acknowledging a single opponent not take on a humorous slant? It's a clever, if not risky move on Obama's part.
On the more substantive issue, in his own words, "Barack Obama supports the basic principle that network providers should not be allowed to charge fees to privilege the content or applications of some websites and Internet applications over others. This principle will ensure that new competitors have the same opportunity as incumbents to innovate on the Internet and to reach large audiences."
Please click here for an interesting sidebar from the NY Times Magazine about our industry's effect on the presidential campaign.
Report from CEO Marty Lafferty
 We commend Stephen Condon, Vice President, Media and Entertainment, at VeriSign, and Douglas Leu, Chief Information Officer (CIO) of Dragonfly for their outstanding presentations and excellent discussion during this week's Streaming Media Webinar Peer-to-Peer: Sin or Savior expertly hosted by Streaming Media Magazine Editor-in-Chief Eric Schumacher-Rasmussen.
Steve Condon's background includes a twenty-year track record in banking, consumer packaged goods, and entertainment, as well as recognized leadership in the broadband video industry. His creativity and technology expertise now helps to drive the strategies and solutions of the Broadband Content Services Division at VeriSign.
As Steve outlined, the widespread adoption of broadband has brought with it the promise of delivering custom, interactive content to any networked device. More consumers can become engaged across multiple media experiences, and new sources of revenue can be developed - as well as existing revenues protected.
One year ago, in December 2006, In-Stat proclaimed that "P2P enables the lowest cost most scalable distribution imaginable."
Steve explained that in developing its commercial P2P solution to fulfill this potential, VeriSign emphasized critical aspects such as customization and integration, content and system security, auditing, efficient delivery process, and bandwidth usage management - as well as demonstrable scalability.
VeriSign's resultant Intelligent Content Delivery Network CDN (ICDN) now brings to the market commercial P2P in a hybrid CDN offering: a managed service providing a superior consumer experience: secure, highly scalable, and at a lower cost than alternatives.
One of the immediate advantages of VeriSign's approach is that flash crowds can easily be handled - in fact the more popular the content the greater the cost and efficiency advantage with VeriSign's commercial P2P ICDN.
Another extremely important benefit emphasized by Steve is VeriSign's secure content publishing: only authorized users publish to the system.
There is end-to-end security with content available for delivery 24X7. VeriSign's commercial P2P ICDN also brings intelligent peering, as opposed to random peering, to ensure high performance. ISP costs are minimized and delivery speeds maximized.
Activity is measured and optimized in real-time for progressive streaming or file downloads.
Steve also described how a superior consumer experience is ensured on multiple levels, including pause/resume for successful content delivery along with protection of device performance for other simultaneous activities.
In sum, VeriSign's commercial P2P ICDN is secure, cost effective, ISP-friendly, fast, consumer-friendly, and scalable - at the pinnacle of P2P industry activity as measured along multiple criteria.
Doug Leu is responsible for the functional design and implementation of Dragonfly's product offerings. His prior experience includes designing and implementing mission critical wireline and wireless applications for companies like Lockheed Martin, Kraft Foods, P.C. Richard & Sons, Ferry Morse Seed Company, and Tozour Energy Systems.
Doug outlined Dragonfly's "High Definition (HD) Challenge" as wanting to deliver HD quality video to its customers, including episodes of "Star Trek New Voyages."
Limitations with server-based and conventional file-sharing networks kept it from moving forward. Delivery costs from traditional CDN offerings of $3/GB would have tapped the distribution budget in just nine days, and the increased video bit-rates needed for full-screen HD would have caused excessive buffering delays.
VeriSign's commercial P2P ICDN solved these problems and enabled a compelling consumer experience with faster download times, large-file download management, content availability notification, and subscription-based content distribution.
With this highly secure system, Dragonfly was able to track viewer activity and provide detailed analyses of viewer engagement, enabling content owners to modify and maximized the potential of their content.
In short, with VeriSign's commercial P2P ICDN, Dragonfly was able to substantially lower its delivery costs and significantly raise the efficiency of HD video delivery.
To view this informative and valuable webinar, including its fascinating polling results and Q&A, please click here. Share wisely, and take care.
Digital Media Ad Spending Shows Gains
Excerpted from Adweek Report by Andrew McMains
The nation's top 10 advertisers spent $180 million more on digital media during the first three quarters than last year. The digital uptick represents a 24% increase over last year - the fourth highest percentage increase among media categories, after freestanding insert coupons (37%), Sunday supplements (33%), and Spanish cable TV (31%), the Nielsen data showed.
Although total digital spending of $742 million for the first nine months is a drop in the bucket compared to the $9.06 billion that TV took in, many believe that the shifts in spending will continue unabated. Digital is the "new normal for marketers because it's the normal behavior for consumers," said Greg Andersen, Director of Engagement Planning at Bartle Bogle Hegarty.
Seven of the top spenders increased their online investment. "The importance of online will continue to grow," said a Ford rep. Some 70% of consumers who shop for a new car or truck do web research, a GM rep added.
For P&G, whose total online spend grew 44% to nearly $20 million in the first three quarters, according to Nielsen Online, the boost in digital spending makes sense because consumers are devoting more time to the web and the digital platform lends itself to building relationships.
More Europeans Go Online
Excerpted from the Associated Press Report
More than half of European homes went online this year as the number using a high-speed broadband connection to connect to the Internet rose sharply, the EU statistical agency Eurostat said Monday.
One-in-two people use an Internet search engine, while 15% of individuals use the net to make phone calls, and 13% use P2P file-sharing software to swap movies and music, according to the survey based on national figures for the first three months of 2007.
Some 54% of households in the EU's 27 nations had access to the Internet, compared to 49 percent in the first quarter of 2006.
Broadband use rose more sharply, up to 42% from 30% for the same quarter a year ago.
The Eurostat survey gave no margin of error.
The most online EU nation is the Netherlands, where more than four-out-of-five homes have Internet access, and it also leads the way with the highest rate of broadband connections.
Lagging far behind is new EU member Bulgaria where only one-in-five households has Internet access. Greece, however, has the lowest broadband rate, at just 7%, squeaking past Romania at 8%.
Some countries are far more Internet savvy than others. The French lead the way in making voice-over-Internet (VoIP) phone calls, followed by Estonians - no surprise as the tiny Baltic nation spawned online call company Skype.
Nearly a quarter of Dutch and Luxembourgers use the net to download music and movies but only 6% of Czechs and Irish do so.
Internet use - and both the price and technology available to customers - varies widely across Europe. The European Commission blames governments for not doing enough to open up the market, by forcing former state telecom monopolies to face competition that would lower prices and get more people online.
UGC and P2P to Dominate Digital Media
Excerpted from America's Network Report
User generated content (UGC) and P2P are poised to dominate digital media. A quarter of all entertainment consumed by people in five years time will be created and shared within consumers' peer groups rather than from big media, a study has found.
The Future Laboratory, which carried out the survey, backed by Nokia, says it identified the trend to "circular entertainment" after interviewing 9,000 people from 17 countries about their digital behaviors.
Nokia says it has constructed a global picture of what it believes entertainment will look like over the next five years.
Future Laboratory said increasingly the boundaries between on and offline worlds would blur, as would the line between commercial and creative cultures.
Of the 9,000 consumers surveyed, 46% regularly use IM, 37% on a mobile device, 35% buy music on MP3 files, 23% watch TV on mobile devices, and 29% regularly blog, Nokia said.
Cisco's Compelling Broadband Play
Excerpted from Cert Cities Report by Stephen Swoyer
Everybody knows that Cisco Systems is tops in the enterprise networking segment, but what you might not know is that Cisco has also cobbled together formidable extra-enterprise product lineups.
Cisco grew its optical networking portfolio by leaps and bounds over the last half-decade, for example, and - more recently - has also expanded the depth, breadth, and impact of its broadband product lineup.
In the broadband space, in fact, Cisco is competitive from the end-user television top (thanks to its $7 billion acquisition of the former Scientific-Atlanta last year) all the way to the service-provider back-end.
As a result, analysts say, Cisco now competes in a bevy of broadband market segments from infrastructure areas (such as cable operator network infrastructure solutions and carrier routing/aggregation) to consumer set-tops to small office/home office (SOHO) networking and digital service line (DSL) consumer premise equipment (CPE).
It was just a year ago, actually, that Cisco expanded the broadband video and IPTV delivery capabilities of its IP NGN architecture by introducing its Cisco Content Delivery System (CDS) and Video 2.0 feature set. CDS and Video 2.0 were significant deliverables for Cisco because they helped enable the mass scalability of video applications required to handle the storage, personalization, and streaming requirements of subscribers' rising expectations, according to Ron Westfall, a research director with market watcher Current Analysis.
Elsewhere, Westfall pointed out, Cisco continues to lead the worldwide DOCSIS CMTS market, largely because of its "ability to continually enhance its cable solution set to meet strategic and evolving MSO needs" - such as, for example, the delivery of its uBR 7225VXR CMTS platform in September, which enabled MSOs to address green-field and low-density service opportunities more rapidly.
"Cisco continues to maintain market share leadership in the CMTS segment with a 59.7 percent share during the first half of 2007 based on worldwide equipment revenues," Westfall pointed out.
Then there was Cisco's Scientific Atlanta coup, which, Westfall said, "bolsters its IP NGN proposition via the addition of STB, video distribution and video system integration portfolio assets, expanded channel influence in the overall video networking space, and better positions Cisco to fulfill operator efforts to evolve towards full-service models for consumers and enterprises."
Nor can you discount Cisco's leadership on the network edge, where it controls 54.2 percent of overall share, according to market watcher Synergy Research Group.
All of this helps make Cisco's position formidable, to be sure. But the networking giant isn't impregnable, Westfall noted. "Cisco is under attack from large and small rivals in all of the broadband access market segments the company targets," he pointed out.
For one thing, Cisco must compete against "mega-merger" foes - companies such as Alcatel-Lucent, Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN), and Ericsson/Redback - "all of which are poised to compete more frequently and directly with Cisco for strategic carrier business in the area of operator equipment solution sets."
There's also pressure from established rivals, including Juniper, ARRIS, UTStarcom, Motorola, Huawei. and ZTE in both international and domestic broadband infrastructure accounts.
Westfall anticipates other challenges, too. "Cisco continues to lead and compete effectively within the Ethernet FTTH segment, although the ongoing emergence of GPON could compel Cisco to diversify its FTTH portfolio options into the GPON realm as well," he said. "Currently, Cisco's approach to the DSLAM market segment consists of supporting existing customers and pursuing only profitable opportunities (primarily with partner-supplied solutions at this point), which has eliminated Cisco's market share position."
It might behoove Cisco to augment its telco assets, too. "Cisco lacks telco assets in areas such as the BLC/MSAP segment, which limits evolving carrier multimedia/packet voice integration efforts, as BLC/MSAP platforms play a vital role in how telcos implement multi-play service offerings," Westfall said.
Cisco Systems Senior Director Mark Carroll will deliver a keynote address at the P2P MEDIA SUMMIT LV, the DCIA's upcoming Conference within CES on January 6th. Please click here to register.
Premier P2P Provider Picks Zenoss
World's Largest P2P Media Distribution Provider Selects Zenoss
Zenoss, a leading commercial open source IT management company, this week announced that Pando Networks, a top provider of managed P2P media distribution services, has deployed Zenoss Enterprise to manage the configuration, health, and performance of its rapidly growing IT infrastructure. Pando chose Zenoss over proprietary and open source alternatives to gain access to a powerful yet affordable network, server, and application management solution.
Today, Pando boasts an online user base of over 15 million. "We are growing at a rate of almost 1.5 million users per month, and deliver over 130 Terabytes of data per day," says Laird Popkin, CTO of Pando Networks. To handle such scale, Pando needed an IT management solution that would keep pace and provide visibility into its vast infrastructure, while remaining affordable to a growing company. "We had outgrown the standard open source solutions that really don't scale to large, geographically distributed farms with hundreds of servers."
Popkin's objective was to help the company grow to 25 million users by the end of 2007 and he needed to deploy a proactive IT management solution that was complete, scalable, and affordable. "With Zenoss we can track rates of document delivery, completions, cancellations, and installs to ensure that, at every level of our infrastructure, things are working properly - all this through a single monitoring and alerting system," says Popkin. "Zenoss provided us an affordable option without compromising."
Pando ultimately chose Zenoss because it offered the most complete, scalable, and affordable option. With much-needed flexibility and no lengthy professional services engagement required for deployment and maintenance, Zenoss offered Pando the perfect solution. "We received initial help from Zenoss professional services and they were great," adds Popkin. "It has been very easy for us to maintain and customize Zenoss to fit our IT needs."
"As the leading P2P media distribution provider, Pando offers another great example of how Zenoss addresses the needs of the next generation of IT-based businesses," said Bill Karpovich, CEO & Co-Founder of Zenoss
To read more about Pando's deployment of Zenoss Enterprise and view Laird Popkin's video testimonial, please click here.
Pando Networks CEO Robert Levitan will deliver a keynote address and CTO Laird Popkin will be a conference luncheon speaker at the P2P MEDIA SUMMIT LV, the DCIA's upcoming Conference within CES on January 6th. Please click here to register.
Victoria's Secret Fashion Show on Veoh
Excerpted from My Fashion Life Report by Michele Obi
Missed the Victoria's Secret's fashion show last night? Worry not. You can watch it over at Veoh. In the meantime, check out the much anticipated performance from The Spice Girls. Ah the memories!
Veoh Networks SVP of Marketing & Programming Jennifer Betka will deliver a keynote address at the P2P MEDIA SUMMIT LV, the DCIA's upcoming Conference within CES on January 6th. Please click here to register.
Internap Enhances CDN Services with BuyDRM
Internap Network Services Corporation, a global provider of end-to-end Internet business solutions, this week announced the integration of BuyDRM's KeyOS Pay Media Platform into Internap's content delivery network (CDN) services. Enhancing the robust features of Internap's rich media delivery solutions,
BuyDRM's technology will provide customers of Microsoft Windows Media with greater web content marketing and monetization tools while powering live and on-demand rich media streaming and downloads. Internap's CDN features MediaConsole, a workflow management toolset that supports streaming formats such as Flash and Windows Media and includes a media manager, pre-built video skins and a real-time reporting dashboard.
Through the BuyDRM integration, MediaConsole will feature support for pay-per-view, subscription-based, token, ad-supported, marketing, and silent monitoring business models - and will be compatible with most payment gateways and shopping carts.
In addition, the MediaConsole will boast a simple, push-button user-interface for content management and transactional analysis and includes sophisticated data encryption applications.
"The alliance between Internap's world-class rich-media delivery services and BuyDRM's KeyOS Pay Media Platform brings unparalleled media delivery and business solutions to the market," said Christopher Levy, CEO of BuyDRM. "These solutions are focused squarely on the exploding new media market, offering customers a seamless digital media experience."
"Internap's integration with BuyDRM KeyOS platform proves its dedication to Silverlight and providing superior digital media solutions," said Tom Honeybone, Senior Director, Silverlight Business Development at Microsoft. "Together we can ensure our customers have the most advanced technology to deliver rich interactive solutions on the Web."
Through Internap and BuyDRM's support of Silverlight, the MediaConsole features compatibility with the Silverlight PlayReady DRM component and the player's cross-platform functionality. As a result, Internap customers are empowered with a suite of the most advanced technology solutions that will continue to be on the forefront of the market for online streaming media.
"Content owners and applications managers need comprehensive workflow management tools and business intelligence systems to maximize the value of their content and the performance of their applications," said Philip N. Kaplan, Chief Strategy Officer for Internap. "The integration of our suite of IP and rich media networking services with BuyDRM's software platform enables Internap to meet this demand and provide our customers with a competitive edge."
BuyDRM CEO Christopher Levy will be a featured speaker at the P2P MEDIA SUMMIT LV, the DCIA's upcoming Conference within CES on January 6th. Please click here to register.
Downloading Videos Up Among Internet Users
Excerpted from Online Media Report by Tanya Irwin
The downloading and viewing of broadband video among adult high-speed Internet users continues to rise, according to a new report from Horowitz Associates.
About 61% of high-speed Internet users download online video content at least once a week and 86% do so on a monthly basis, compared to 45% and 71%, respectively, in the 2006 study. News and user-generated, non-professional content are the most often viewed genres, followed by movie previews/trailers, music videos, and previews/segments of TV shows.
Reported weekly viewing of full episodes of television shows doubled from last year, with 16% of Internet users watching TV online on a weekly basis, according to the Larchmont, New York-based Horowitz in the just-released report: Broadband Content and Services 2007.
NBC and ABC are the networks that Internet users mention the most frequently for online TV content (unaided), with "Grey's Anatomy" being the most often mentioned TV program viewed online (unaided).
While consumption of broadband video has grown, the study shows that television is still the preferred platform for traditional TV content. About 70% of Internet users who watch TV online say they do so because they missed the episode on TV. About 18% of these respondents say they watch TV shows online to watch them a second time (after having watched them on TV), or that they watch TV shows online just when they happen to find them or when someone else tells them about them (20%). Conversely, 13% of Internet users who watch TV shows online say they watch them directly online, and not on regular TV.
The viewing of video content on video-enabled handheld devices is on the rise. About 27% of Internet users have a cell, iPod/MP3 player, or PDA with video capability, and an additional 23% do not have this capability but are interested in getting it.
Among those with video-enabled handheld devices, about 35% watch video on their devices at least weekly and 62% do so at least monthly, translating to 18% of Internet users overall who watch video content on a handheld device at least monthly. This figure is up from 8% just one year ago.
"More and better broadband content, particularly entertainment content in video form, is bringing more consumers to the platform, either on their computers or on their handheld devices," said Howard Horowitz, President of Horowitz Associates, Inc. "This, in turn, creates an even greater demand for broadband video." The data suggests that broadband video is not cannibalistic to linear video, but rather, an enhancement to the consumers' "traditional" TV experience, he said.
A New Face in Data Caching
Excerpted from GRIDtoday Report
In this Q&A, ScaleOut Software Founder & CEO William Bain discusses his company's distributed data caching solutions, including how they are being adopted by e-commerce and financial services customers, as well as how ScaleOut's products differentiate themselves from the competition.
GRIDtoday: First, can you give an explanation of ScaleOut Software's distributed caching technology? How does it work and what are the important distinctions between distributed caching and traditional database-driven architectures?
WILLIAM BAIN: ScaleOut StateServer (SOSS) creates a distributed, in-memory object cache that spans the servers in a grid or server farm. Stored objects are globally accessible across the grid using intuitive application programming interfaces (APIs). SOSS employs a highly integrated architecture that combines automatic data partitioning and dynamic load balancing for scalability, transparent local caching for fast access, and intelligent data replication for high availability. For fast deployment and simplified management, caching servers automatically discover and join the distributed cache, which self-heals after server or network outages.
SOSS automatically partitions all of the distributed cache's stored objects across the grid and simultaneously processes access requests on all servers. This reduces access times and scales the overall throughput of the distributed cache. It also avoids "hot spots" that can arise if objects are stored on the servers where they are created.
As servers are added to the grid, SOSS automatically repartitions and rebalances the storage workload to scale throughput. Likewise, if servers are removed, SOSS coalesces stored objects on the surviving servers and rebalances the storage workload as necessary.
SOSS ensures that cached data is never lost - even if a server in the grid fails - by replicating all cached objects on up to two additional servers. If a server goes offline or loses network connectivity, SOSS retrieves its objects from replicas stored on other servers in the grid, and it creates new replicas to maintain redundant storage as part of its "self-healing" process. SOSS uses a patent-pending, scalable, point-to-point heartbeat architecture that efficiently detects failures without flooding the server grid's network with multicast heartbeat packets. Heartbeat failures automatically trigger SOSS's self-healing technology, which quickly restores access to cache partitions and dynamically rebalances the storage load across the grid.
Gt: What business problems are driving the need for distributed caching solutions? In what markets are these needs most pressing?
BAIN: There are two general types of business problems that are driving the adoption of distributed caching. One is the need of e-commerce sites running on server farms to simultaneously scale and be highly available as their traffic increases. Without distributed caching, developers have to choose between high availability using a DBMS for scalability using in-process storage. Distributed caching simultaneously solves both these issues.
The second driver is the grid computing market, especially the financial services vertical, where there are extreme pressures to wring out every microsecond of latency and to maximize application throughput. Over the past few years, the decline in exponential growth of CPU speed has stimulated a resurgence in the use of grid-based computing, which has provided important performance gains. However, data access technology continues to lag far behind. Most data used in grid computing today is either maintained in a database until needed by the grid or delivered sequentially to the grid by a master control node, and even interim results are frequently stored in a database. These techniques drastically and unnecessarily lengthen the overall compute time. Distributed caching avoids these limitations by reliably hosting application data in memory within the compute grid's servers, making it simultaneously available to all compute nodes.
Gt: Is there anything else you'd like to add about ScaleOut Software's technology or products, or about the distributed data market in general?
BAIN: ScaleOut Software is focused on playing a leadership role in this exciting market. Our architectural approach is based on almost 30 years of experience developing parallel computing solutions for scientific and commercial applications. This experience shows us that distributed caching is the foundation of a distributed computing platform that can dramatically reduce development time and boost application performance. At the core, distributed computing platforms need to be easy to target by application developers, and they need to be easy to deploy and manage. You can expect ScaleOut Software to roll out new technologies over time that further advance our technology leadership in distributed computing.
Babelgum's Zingarelli
Excerpted from World Screen News Report by Mansha Daswani
The P2P global broadband platform Babelgum created quite a bit of buzz when it launched earlier this year, announcing a deal with the acclaimed director Spike Lee, who used the service to broadcast his previously unseen Unicef-commissioned documentary "Jesus Children of America."
Devised by the Italian telecommunications mogul Silvio Scaglia, Babelgum is positioning itself as a destination for niche content, offering up programming from independent producers and international film festivals and allowing users to create customized "channels" based on their interests. Currently in a beta trial, Babelgum recently tapped former Vodafone executive Valerio Zingarelli as its new CEO in the run-up to its full-scale commercial launch next year.
WS: What is the next stage in Babelgum's development?
ZINGARELLI: The real commercial launch for us is March 2008, when we will start having revenues from advertising. The final version of the platform will be much more advanced and sophisticated and very easy to use.
WS: How much content do you want to have on the service by then?
ZINGARELLI: At least 50,000 hours. What is very important is the type of content that we will present. The strategy for Babelgum is not to duplicate traditional TV platforms. What we want to introduce is something different and innovative.
We will offer four ways of accessing content. They are, number one, the nine branded channels by Babelgum: Babel Sports, Babel Music and Babel Documentaries, among others. The second area is from events, for example, the Giffoni Film Festival and the Rushes Soho Shorts Festival - niche cinema. The third area will be My Babelgum, which is the personalization of the customer's channel. For example, if a customer is passionate about scuba diving, he can search for content related to scuba diving. The platform will frequently refresh this content, searching through the hours in the library. The fourth area is community. We want to facilitate the creation of communities of people around certain topics. When you are watching something, you can send an e-mail or a message to a friend or a member of the same community commenting on the video content.
About 80 percent of the 50,000 hours will be niche content, delivered to Babelgum by independent producers. The other 10,000 hours will come from the Hollywood majors, and from film festivals.
We want to differentiate ourselves from the traditional TV platforms, but on the other side we don't want to duplicate YouTube or any other social networking, user-generated content platform. All of our content will be professional content.
WS: Are your deals with content providers based on a share of the advertising revenues, or are you doing straight licensing deals?
ZINGARELLI: We are proposing revenue sharing from advertising, and the percentage is flexible. It depends on the type of content and on the type of provider. Some situations could be fifty-fifty, in others it could be thirty-seventy. For certain situations, especially for the small producers, we can give them a minimum guarantee of $5 per 1,000 views.
WS: What kind of environment are you creating for your advertisers?
ZINGARELLI: We have to be innovative. Most of our viewers will be Internet surfers and they don't dedicate too much time to a single thing. They like jumping in and jumping out from different sites, so the time dedicated to a single piece of content is typically short. The length of the advertising clip must be correspondingly short. It also has to relate to the type of viewer and not just to the content the viewer is watching. For example, if you are a scuba diver and you are watching a video about scuba diving, the platform will present to you an advertising clip that is related to scuba-diving equipment or scuba-diving trips.
WS: How has the response been from viewers so far?
ZINGARELLI: We have 50,000 beta testers. We are receiving from them confirmation of our strategy. They are web surfers, they don't really want to see traditional TV. They want to get from Babelgum something which isn't available on other platforms and which supports their passions. And then they want to communicate with each other.
WS: How has the transition been for you from the telecommunications business?
ZINGARELLI: During my professional life I have always been in the telecommunications business. I was the founder of OmniTel in Italy with Silvio Scaglia in 1994. I became the global chief technical officer for Vodafone when it was acquired by OmniTel. We were fighting to extend the business beyond voice and SMS. At Babelgum we want to extend the types of terminals you can enjoy web TV on. We have started with the PC, but as soon as possible we will expand to widescreen TVs, using the PC as a bridge to connect the web to the TV set. The third step will be the extension to, for example, the PlayStation Portable (PSP). The fourth step in three or four years will be to extend to mobile handsets.
North One TV Expands Relationship with Joost
Excerpted from Joost Team Report
All3Media-owned UK indie North One Television is expanding its relationship with P2PTV service Joost after receiving "surprising" returns from the start-up's first ad revenue pay-outs to its content partners.
North One has created channels on Joost based around motoring magazine program Fifth Gear and The Gadget Show, both of which it produces.
The firm was one of the first to be involved in Joost beta-testing and is now exploring further opportunities after receiving promising initial payments from the platform following the introduction of advertising and its public launch in the autumn.
Speaking ahead of his appearance at C21's FutureMedia Conference 2007 at BAFTA in London this week, North One head of commercial programming John Nolan said the amount of revenue to come back was "surprising."
"I can't tell you the figures but I can say we're very pleased with them, and as a result we're reviewing and expanding our relationship with Joost across a number of areas of programming in multiple territories," Nolan told C21.
Joost CEO Mike Volpi will also be among the speakers at FM2007 on December 13th, where he is due to provide an update on the company's latest developments.
For more on the FM2007 agenda and to register your attendance, please click here.
Virtual Television Network Launches ZingCast
Virtual Television Network today announced the launch of its new peer-to-peer television (P2PTV) application ZingCast, making high-quality video delivery simple and affordable for professionals and consumers alike.
ZingCast is the premier version of today's video sharing websites. Now content producers can share their videos in full-screen DVD quality streaming.
Using the latest P2P streaming technology and transcoding processes allows content producers to show their video in full screen. No more expensive hosting and streaming fees. Users of ZingCast can view their videos that are uploaded in a personal administration area that only they can login to. This is where they can manage finished encoded videos to send to clients and friends or post it to a website.
All that is needed are a few simple tools: a computer, a video file, and a broadband Internet connection. Now organizations are able to encode their video assets so that people can watch their videos with the experience of television on the PC.
Streaming very high quality video (up to 2,000 Kbps) always has been too expensive, too slow, and too complex to develop, until now. ZingCast is a technologically advanced and comprehensive service providing Internet video user's full-screen DVD quality streaming video on their PCs.
ZingCast uses an "orchestrated, managed" hybrid P2P CDN service to stream Internet video at up to 1080i with high-fidelity audio and requiring throughput of only 768Kbps down and 128Kbps up. ZingCast has combined the best of traditional, hosted networking and content technologies, with a unique, sophisticated type of P2P client software. The result: ZingCast can stream full screen, HD-quality videos to millions of computers without buffering or interruptions.
ZingCast is based on a hybrid set of technologies that include the ZingCast Connector, a unique P2P client, and Grid Network Control - a network-hosted system that orchestrates real-time service management and network-friendly video streams. Grid Network Control and ZingCast Connectors work in tandem to ensure that millions of viewers can simultaneously watch video content from Internet broadband connections without re-buffering or interruptions.
SopCast Offers Video-On-Demand (VoD) over P2P
Excerpted from Word Press Report
SopCast is a new P2PTV application enabling users to watch TV, movies, live sports, music, exclusive channels, and much more. It has rapidly become popular for football (soccer) matches. Other channels include music, movies, news, and fashion. SopCast includes 3 components: the SopPlayer, SopServer and WebPlay.
With SopCast's on-demand P2P, users can view programs from the beginning, pause, and fast forward or back.
SopCast is a simple, free way to broadcast video and audio or watch video and listen to radio on the Internet. Adopting P2P technology, it is very efficient and easy to use.
SopCast lets anyone become a broadcaster without the costs of a powerful server and vast bandwidth. Consumers can build their own TV stations comparable with large commercial sites with minimal resources. Using SopCast, an individual can serve 10,000 online users with a personal computer and a home broadband connection.
SoP is the abbreviation for streaming over P2P. SopCast is a streaming direct broadcasting system based on P2P. The core is the communication protocol produced by the SopCast team, which is named sop://, or SoP technology.
Video-Sharing Service Motionbox Lands $7 Million
Excerpted from Digital Media Wire Report by Mark Hefflinger
Motionbox, which bills itself as a family-oriented video-sharing site, announced on Tuesday that it has raised $7 million in its second round of funding, led by new investor Constellation Ventures.
Previous investors Canaan Partners and SAS Investors also participated.
New York-based Motionbox offers both free and premium, subscription-based versions of its service, which includes both basic online editing software and hosting of videos.
Consumers can pay an annual fee of $29.99 for unlimited video storage; the company also offers to create customized photo "flipbooks" of users' videos for $7.99 each.
The company will use the funds for marketing and product development.
Supreme Cout Upholds Ruling for Web Companies
Excerpted from Online Media Report by Wendy Davis
In a case with far-reaching implications, the US Supreme Court Monday turned down adult publisher Perfect 10's appeal of a decision holding that credit card companies were immune from liability for users' violations of state intellectual property laws.
The Court let stand a ruling by the 9th Circuit which held that the federal Communications Decency Act (CDA) shielded web companies for users' violations of laws in California and other states. If that expansive opinion is followed by other federal courts, web companies will be shielded from liability in a wide array of lawsuits stemming from state intellectual property laws, says Eric Goldman, an Assistant Professor at Santa Clara University School of Law and Director of the High Tech Law Institute.
"This leaves on the books a very important 9th circuit ruling," Goldman says. "It wipes out a bunch of claims."
Perfect 10, which sells images of models to paid subscribers, sued credit card company CC Bill and web hosting company CWIE for enabling infringement by doing business with sites that sold unlicensed images. Perfect 10's theory was that CC Bill and CWIE violated trademark law in California and other states by providing services to the infringing companies.
CC Bill and CWIE claimed immunity under the CDA, which gives web companies immunity from liability for information published by other content providers. That statute contains an exception for intellectual property claims, but the 9th Circuit held that the exception applies only to federal claims and not those brought under state law.
If other courts follow the 9th Circuit ruling, many state intellectual property laws could effectively be gutted, including Utah's recent Trademark Protection Act (TPA).
Enacted earlier this year, that law attempts to ban marketers from bidding to appear as sponsored links when people conduct searches for the names of rival companies. Although that law was quietly passed in March, it hasn't yet gone into effect.
Perfect 10 also sued Amazon and Google for copyright infringement because their search engines allegedly displayed unauthorized Perfect 10 images and/or links to infringing sites when users searched for Perfect 10 photos. That case is still pending in federal court in California.
Songwriters Propose Monetizing P2P
Excerpted from Art Technica Report by David Chartier
While retailers are making slow and steady progress into the realm of DRM-free music sales and the MPAA has its sights set on filtering the web, the Songwriters Association of Canada (SAC) has proposed an entirely different plan for settling the war between consumers and big media studios.
Based on the observation that the thriving P2P market demonstrates consumers' preference for sharing music instead of paying per-track or per-album, SAC proposes that each Internet-using Canadian citizen be charged a minimal $5 monthly fee directly by their ISPs. This collective monthly license fee would then be split among artists and content owners, generating new revenues and allowing former infringers to sleep better at night now that they can trade music for a nominal fee.
At the core of SAC's proposal is an amendment to Canada's Copyright Act that introduces a new right: The Right to Equitable Remuneration for Music File Sharing.
Since the proposal defines file sharing as "the sharing of a copy of a copyrighted musical work without motive of financial gain," this new right would exclude those entities that benefit from copyright infringement, such as website owners which show advertising in exchange for P2P links and torrent tracking.
The proposal also hopes to encompass all forms of not-for-profit sharing under the same legal umbrella, whether sharing is done via P2P, wireless networks, e-mail, CD trading, or exchanging hard drives. The proposal excludes tracks obtained from music services like the iTunes Store and PureTracks, since these tracks are governed by their own licensing and value-added incentives.
This is by no means a new idea, in fact Canadian-based Barenaked Ladies has proposed a similar idea for some time. This is perhaps the first time an organization as large as the SAC has gotten this serious about it, though.
In the US, the Register of Copyrights, Marybeth Peters, says industry executives aren't fond of the idea, claiming that a system like this would stifle innovation, but it might stand a chance in Canada.
The unveiling of Nokia's Comes With Music plan casts doubt on Peters' claims however, as it provides a one-year subscription to download unlimited music - albeit with DRM - from Universal Music Group (UMG) and, if Nokia has its way, other labels, for the estimated price of $5 per month.
For a marginally higher cost, this kind of subscription-like system applied at the ISP level for users who opt-in could motivate the other labels to hop on board, generating new revenues while simultaneously allowing consumers to obtain music via their preferred method.
Content filtering plans like the one proposed by MPAA head Dan Glickman could police consumers who opt out of the subscription model, keeping the system balanced.
If the SAC's ISP subscription model gains any traction, though, the levies applied to blank media in Canada that pay Canadian artists might also need to be reexamined. Whether $5 per month from a significant base of Canadian Internet users would generate revenues to make all the labels happy and continue to fund creativity remains to be seen.
Oregon Challenges RIAA on Music Downloads
Excerpted from Computerworld Report by Jaikumar Vijayan
Oregon is fast becoming Ground Zero in the contentious battle between the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the tens of thousands of consumers it accuses of unauthorized music sharing.
The state Attorney General's office this week filed an appeal in US District Court in Oregon calling for an immediate investigation of the evidence presented by the RIAA when it subpoenaed the identities of 17 students at the University of Oregon, who allegedly infringed music copyrights.
It is the second time in a month that Oregon Attorney General Hardy Myers has resisted attempts by the RIAA to force the university to turn over the names of individuals it says shared music without authorization.
"It is a really huge step when the head law enforcement officer of a state wants to investigate the RIAA's evidence-gathering techniques," said Ray Beckerman, a New York-based lawyer who has been defending individuals in RIAA lawsuits.
Myers' move raises fundamental - and overdue - questions about the tactics used by the RIAA, Beckerman said. "The RIAA has been bringing fake copyright infringement lawsuits, the sole purpose of which is to get the names and addresses of John Does," he said. They then drop the case and try to pressure these individuals into settling based on dubious evidence at best, he said.
In a 15-page brief filed Wednesday, Oregon's assistant attorney general, Katherine Von Ter Stegge, said that while it is appropriate for victims of copyright infringement to pursue statutory remedies, pursuit had to be "tempered by basic notions of privacy and due process."
"The record in this case suggests that the larger issue may not be whether students are sharing copyrighted music," the state's brief noted. Rather it is about whether the litigation strategies adopted by the RIAA are appropriate or capable of supporting their claims.
For example, the individual in whose name the subpoena was issued had no first-hand information about the alleged misconduct of the students or the subsequent investigations by the RIAA, the appeal filed by Myers' office noted.
The data mining techniques that the RIAA used also only show that certain copyrighted music files existed along with software that could be used to share these files. But it does not show how the music files were originally obtained or whether the files were actually shared thereafter. As a result, all that was shown was a potential for misuse not actual misuse, the AG noted in court papers.
The brief also questioned whether the RIAA's investigators themselves might have illegally accessed and uploaded private confidential information not related to copyright infringement, that might have been stored on the computers of people being investigated. "Without reciprocal discovery, there is no process to assess precisely how invasive the plaintiffs' investigation was with regard to the John Does named in this suit," the brief said.
The state also questioned whether previous cases suggest that the RIAA may have abused the judicial process by obtaining the identities of suspected copyright infringers and then choosing not to purse litigation. Rather, it used collection firms to leverage payment of "arbitrary sums of money, based on threats and evidence from the data mining." There is no way for the university to find out whether this is true unless the RIAA can be asked about it specifically, the state argued.
Myers' latest salvo comes just a few weeks after an earlier motion was filed asking the court to quash the RIAA subpoena. In that motion, filed October 31st on behalf of the University of Oregon, Myers said that the university was unable to identify 16 of the 17 alleged music infringers based on IP address information provided by the RIAA.
The RIAA has subpoenaed universities and Internet service providers (ISPs) for the identities of individuals it suspects of unlicensed file sharing.
The modus operandi is to send the university - or service provider - a list of IP addresses on their networks that the RIAA is targeting. It then demands the identities of the individuals to whom the IP addresses were assigned.
In the Oregon university case, five of the seventeen John Does in the RIAA subpoena accessed the copyrighted content in question from double-occupancy dorms. That made it hard for the university to know who specifically might have accessed and shared copyrighted information, Myers claimed. The university also could not say whether the alleged copyright infringement had been done by the individuals that the IP addresses had been assigned to, or by others.
This week's brief was filed in response to an RIAA appeal opposing the state's earlier effort to quash the RIAA subpoena.
Coming Events of Interest
FutureMedia 2007 - December 13th at BAFTA in London, England. Joost CEO Mike Volpi has added his name to C21's FutureMedia 2007 keynote speaker line-up, joining the BBC, Bebo, and MySpace at what promises to be a definitive digital media event.
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.
IPv6 - Connectivity, Community & Consumer Electronics - Monday January 7th from 3-4 PM at The Venetian, Las Vegas, NV. This CES panel will discuss how the new IPv6 protocol will impact the consumer and enterprise experience of a connected world. Topics will include mobility, interoperability, media content distribution, and what IPv6 means for consumer electronics manufacturers.
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.
MIDEM/MIDEMNET - January 26th-31st at the Palais des Festivals in Cannes, France. Never has there been such demand for music. By putting you in direct contact with nearly 10,000 music and technology professionals from over 90 different countries, MIDEM connects you with the players matching this unprecedented demand. Delegates from the recording, publishing, live, digital, mobile, and branding sectors gather to do deals, network, learn, and check out new talent.
Digital Music Forum East - February 26th-27th in New York, NY. Major and indie music label executives, artists and their representatives, and technology and consumer electronics leaders come together for this "must attend" event. Now in its 8th year, Digital Music Forum East is the leading event focused on the intersection of technology and music. Don't miss the opportunity to be part of the industry's future.
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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