May 26, 2008
Volume XXII, Issue 3
Comcast Invests in P2P Video Delivery Start-Up
Excerpted from Multichannel News Report by Todd Spangler
Comcast Interactive Capital, the cable operator's technology investment arm, has invested in GridNetworks, a Seattle, WA start-up that has developed software to distribute high-quality video in a peer-to-peer (P2P) architecture over the Internet.
Comcast's investment is part of GridNetworks first-round financing of $9.5 million, which was led by Panorama Capital and included participation from Cisco Systems.
"We are interested in the application of P2P concepts in a manner that puts the quality of the consumer experience first, and enables lawful distribution of copyrighted content while also efficiently utilizing the network," Comcast Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Tony Werner said.
"GridNetworks has experience in this area and will have valuable contributions as we set out to solve these issues together with the Internet community."
With the Comcast funding, GridNetworks President & CEO Tony Naughtin said, "We're in discussions about potential collaboration to use our technology in their networks." He added that Comcast is talking to other P2P content distribution companies as well.
P2P architecture can potentially distribute high-demand content more quickly - and economically - than traditional server-based methods, because data is fetched from other users' computers that are connected to the same P2P network.
Other companies pitching software and services for P2P-based video delivery include BitTorrent and Pando Networks. In fact, Comcast is collaborating with BitTorrent and Pando as part of its move to a "protocol-agnostic" means of managing bandwidth.
GridNetworks says its software is uniquely designed from the ground up for video distribution. According to Naughtin, its technology could let cable operators and other broadband service providers offload high-volume video traffic from their backbone networks.
And GridNetworks believes it can deliver high-definition (HD) content to any number of devices in the home, including TV sets. "This is a set of technologies designed to provide real television - not just streaming video on your desktop - but a real 720p high-def experience," Naughtin said.
BitTorrent Teams up with Orb
Excerpted from NewTeeVee Report by Stacey Higginbotham
Popular P2P network BitTorrent is continuing to expand its reach by entering into a partnership with Orb Networks. The agreement bundles BitTorrent's P2P software with Orb's, which allows users to stream their music, movies, or other media to their PCs, phones, and other devices.
Users will have the option of downloading the bundled service. Orb users who choose this version will get access to BitTorrent content on their PCs and then be able to use Orb to stream that content to any of their devices - from PS3s to iPhones. Typically BitTorrent is used to download content - video or music - to a personal computer, which is difficult to share within the home.
BitTorrent is working to go mainstream and become a viable way to distribute large media files, including video; the company has been working with chip makers and network device makers to embed BitTorrent protocol into many different devices.
With the rise of high-definition (HD) video projected to cause network congestion, BitTorrent and other P2P technologies are viewed as saviors; one of the main reasons why the San Francisco, CA based company continues to get a lot of investment dollars.
BitTorrent says it has more than 160 million clients installed worldwide and has several existing partnership deals ranging from hardware companies such as Netgear to content providers such as MTV Networks.
"While the idea of the 'connected home' or 'connected consumer' is not a new one, Orb's innovative software has truly delivered on that promise and made it a reality," said Doug Walker, CEO of BitTorrent.
"By bundling BitTorrent's leading content delivery technology with Orb's software, we are arming consumers with the ability to access their entire library of digital entertainment for playback on devices in the home or on the go. That's powerful."
"People are tired and frustrated with constraints imposed on their ability to consume their own media," Joe Costello, CEO of Orb Networks, added. "It's your media, it's about time you were able to enjoy it where you wanted."
Report from CEO Marty Lafferty
 Congratulations to Dan Rayburn and the entire Streaming Media East (SME) team for their best NYC show yet. Sessions will be archived on the SME video site here by next week.
We are especially grateful to Pando Networks' CEO Robert Levitan; Wachovia's VP, Special Projects & Wachovia Video Network (WVN), Patty Perkins; Verizon's PMTS, Network & Technology Group, Doug Pasko; and Comcast's VP, Internet Services, Barry Tishgart for their participation in the panel entitled Will P2P Become a Legitimate Means of Delivering Video.
Robert described Pando's mission as one that addresses needs of content owners and ISPs, as well as consumers. Specifically, Pando is currently working with NBC Universal on its P2P-powered NBC Direct service, helping ISPs test new technologies that demonstrate how P2P can be beneficial to ISPs, and playing a role with consumers with its own Pando client offering.
In the past few months, the world has changed with respect to P2P, in part as a result of the work of the P4P Working Group, involving collaboration among ISPs and P2P companies.
Essentially with the P4P approach, participating ISPs share enough network topology information to help P2Ps direct traffic in more efficient ways than would be possible without the benefit of such guidance.
For example, in recent field tests, native P2P was found to route 98% of its traffic externally, whereas, with P4P, this dropped to 50%. At the same time, delivery speeds for video content increased by 2-to-6 times for P2P end-users. And the average number of hops decreased from 5.5 to less than 1 - representing an 80% reduction.
Content owners, on the other hand, are still nervous to have their TV programs and films sitting on multiple desk-tops in a P2P distribution network rather than on a server that seems more directly under their control; and this needs to be addressed. At the same time, the P2P industry, for its part, needs to make it easier to install P2P clients so that there can be more universal acceptance.
P2P needs to be deployed in ways that make the online video experience as seamless as possible.
Right now, the online video business model doesn't work as a result of distribution costs. P2P can help content owners cut delivery expenses generally, and help with bursting costs in particular, because a unique attribute of P2P is that the more popular the content being distributed, the lower the cost.
P2P is advancing to support live delivery and involve Flash. Security is improving to support video-on-demand (VOD), and broadcast scalability is an absolute with P2P. As the Internet continues to become the dominant platform for media distribution, the role of P2P will continue to expand.
Patty noted that P2P has been a highly successful technology for delivering video content at Wachovia Bank for two years. Quality was a key driver in Wachovia's decision to use P2P. WVN currently distributes a five-minute daily show and other content to many thousands of employees at its branch offices using Kontiki's P2P content delivery solution.
Wachovia's implementation is on a closed P2P network, which provides the company with a unique perspective as both network operator and client application distributor. The choice to utilize P2P was made by the IT group based on quality and cost. Wachovia has not implemented a digital rights management (DRM) solution for its corporate video communications network. Instead, it selects material being distributed so that if it is more broadly disseminated, that would be acceptable.
Wachovia's selection of P2P for its important intra-company messaging was based on having safe, secure, and fast delivery. Scalability is achievable with P2P, but for enterprise implementations, if a company lacks expertise in managing servers for seeding content, this should be outsourced to a reliable hosting firm. The bottom line from the WVN experience is that P2P is the choice delivery platform for video in the enterprise space.
Doug indicated that Verizon has been watching P2P for a long time. He said one of the ISP's interests is how to take what's there, in terms of P2P implementations, and make them better. There are some clear advantages to P2P, and the user community has adopted P2P in a tremendous way.
P2P will certainly play a role in online video distribution, although it may not be the be-all-and-end-all for every instance of such activity. P2P needs to change the way it has been using network infrastructure in order to continue to grow.
The P4P breakthrough is very new, with the tests having just taken place in the last few months, and industry participants need time to catch up with what this offers now.
DRM represents an issue that still needs to be solved. And clearly, the negative image of P2P as a vehicle for copyright infringement has to change. Quality-of-service (QoS) guarantees are critical for carrier-grade P2P. And as paradigms shift, ISPs will continue to invest in improving their infrastructures to offer better quality.
Live content delivery with P2P is expanding and Flash-based P2P should be readily doable. Specific requirements for VOD security need to be solved with the involvement of major players. P2P has a unique advantage in that the larger the audience the better it performs.
Barry said that Comcast believes that P2P offers certain consumer benefits in the delivery of video content on the Internet. Depending on the type of content and services offered, P2P provides advantages.
Broadband carriers clearly will not block P2P. Nor will ISPs stand in the way of technological innovation that will continue evolving and improving P2P.
Network congestion presents challenges, however, and the ISP and P2P communities need to work together to meet them. Comcast is actively participating in a number of industry efforts focused on this, including the P4PWG, and is stepping up its activity in this area.
With respect to content providers and P2P, it is important to look at the situation in a multi-dimensional way: what needs are being addressed, what needs still must be addressed, and what are the alternative methods and costs to address them.
There are a variety of ways to serve end-customers, and ISPs themselves are now taking an interest in internal P2P usage.
There is an enormous amount of investment activity in this space. In addition, a new multi-industry effort that Comcast has helped to spearhead is called P2P Best Practices. That initiative is now underway.
This is a large market with a great deal of competition. Over the next couple of years, online video distribution will be driving traffic growth, and P2P will also be driving traffic growth. Share wisely, and take care.
AT&T Courts Streaming Customers
Excerpted from Streaming Media Report by Tim Siglin
AT&T is courting businesses of all sizes for its recent expansion into the streaming content delivery network (CDN) area, in part by highlighting satisfied customers such as Forbes.
"We are satisfied with our services from AT&T, including AT&T's Intelligent Content Delivery Service (ICDS)," said Michael Smith, VP & General Manager of Operations for Forbes.com.
"We have video studios in New York, San Francisco, and Hong Kong, where we create content, and we serve up over 2,500 stories per day. For us, improved speed equals improved response time for site users, which then correlates to an increase in visitors, but also means page view stickiness due to ease-of-use."
"Forbes is famous for ranking people," Smith said. "When we release our lists, we get more traffic than the SuperBowl site does on SuperBowl Sunday. For example, we include billionaires on our wealthiest 100 people list from all around the world, and therefore draw traffic globally." Besides the wealth list, launched in March and is hosted on AT&T's ICDS, Forbes will launch its Celebrity 100 List in June.
"AT&T's ICDS handles our traffic surges," said Smith, "which is important for formal launches such as the lists, but it's also becoming more important in general for the video side."
"We have customers that range from small customers to very large ones," said Michael Weinstein, AT&T's ICDS Product Director. "Just because you're small, doesn't mean you won't expect the same quality. Every customer gets the same level of quality and the advantage of the tools that were created for large companies."
Verizon and Comcast Won't Throttle P2P
Excerpted from Contentinople Report by Steve Donohue
Following tests showing that P2P delivery can be optimized within their networks, Comcast and Verizon say they won't block or throttle Internet traffic delivered via P2P networks.
Verizon and file-sharing firm Pando Networks shared the results of a trial that Verizon ran with Pando and other firms in February in which they tested how P2P files are delivered if an ISP teams up with a P2P company.
Pando CEO Robert Levitan said before February's test, 98% of the data delivered to users in the P2P test came from outside Verizon's network. During the P2P test, the amount of P2P content delivered to Verizon subscribers from inside its network grew from 2% to 50%.
The data appears to indicate that network providers can "manage" or optimize the P2P traffic without hurting user consumption. Executives from the major high-speed Internet providers said it shows that ISPs need to work with P2P companies to improve content delivery and manage network traffic.
"Network congestion does present a series of unique challenges. It's critical for the industry to recognize those challenges and have collaboration across all of the interest groups," Comcast Vice President of Internet Services Barry Tishgart told SME attendees Tuesday afternoon.
Tishgart acknowledged that P2P networks could help Comcast and other broadband ISPs improve the delivery of video to subscribers. "Video on the Internet has the potential to provide tremendous customer benefits. Obviously P2P plays a very large role in that, and in the future growth of video on the Internet," he added.
In the Pando test, the hop count - or the distance data had to travel on Verizon's network - was reduced by 80%, from 5.5 hops to 0.89 hops, Levitan said.
Comcast plans to run a similar P2P trial next month, Levitan said. The fact that Comcast and Verizon are partnering with P2P firms - a sector once denigrated by major ISPs - is significant, Levitan stressed.
"If you told anybody a year ago that the largest ISPs in the world would be sitting down with P2P companies and talking about how to improve P2P delivery - nobody would believe you," Levitan added.
But while ISPs are beginning to collaborate more with P2P companies, convincing major content providers to use P2P technology to deliver programming to consumers remains a challenge, Comcast's Tishgart and Verizon Senior Technologist Doug Pasko said.
"A lot of issues are still out there in digital rights management (DRM)," Pasko said, when asked why major content providers aren't relying more on P2P networks.
"There's certainly been some reputation damage that's gone on as a result of copyright infringement. Enterprises and certain content companies might retain some bias towards P2P," Tishgart said.
Pasko said Verizon is investigating how to use P2P technology to deploy new features on its FiOS TV set-top boxes.
Pando's Levitan maintained that delivering video through P2P technology is much more efficient than streaming video from a server. "The online video business model does not work. For most people, if you want to deliver high quality video, the more video you deliver, the more money you lose. In order to make money on video delivery, that's where P2P comes in."
Wachovia Video Network (WVN) Vice President Patty Perkins said the bank relies on P2P technology to deliver five-minute videos to 70,000 employees each day.
P2P technology can also be used by content providers for the live delivery of programming, Levitan said.
Network Management Key to Net Neutrality Debate
The Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) released a briefing this week, which states that network management has a legitimate place, but should be guided by some key principles in order to avoid risks. At the same time, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) should not attempt to regulate network management through formal rules.
In its comments to the FCC, CDT suggested several principles that should guide network operators and policymakers as they consider questions relating to network management.
First, network management practices should be transparent. Transparency can provide an important safeguard, enabling consumers and consumer advocates to push back against practices that could negatively affect competition or impair the usability of particular applications.
Second, network management practices should be evenly applied. Techniques that put a network operator in the position to pick and choose among applications, services, or protocols - deciding which ones will be subject to bandwidth limits or greater risk of packet loss, for example - carry serious risks.
Third, network management practices should comply with core internetworking standards. The Internet has been described as a "network of networks," and common protocols with generally accepted technical standards (such as the TCP/IP suite of protocols) are what enable communications and applications to traverse its constituent networks on a seamless basis.
Importantly, at the same time as it suggested these principles, CDT also told the FCC to refrain from adopting formal rules to regulate network management.
The FCC is not the only place where network management and Internet neutrality issues are on the agenda. The Internet Engineering TaskForce (IETF) is hosting a workshop at the end of May on network congestion stemming from heavy P2P use and the possible ways that network operators could respond to it.
Meanwhile, there are efforts by ISPs and P2P applications providers to share technical information that may enable P2P systems to boost their efficiency and reduce their impact on overall network congestion. A group of major ISPs and P2P providers are participating in the P4P Working Group (P4PWG). Comcast likewise has publicly announced agreements to collaborate with P2P providers BitTorrent and Pando Networks.
Finally, the FCC proceeding and the related discussion of network management has prompted renewed attention in Congress as well. There have been recent committee hearings in both the House and Senate, and new Internet neutrality bills have been introduced in both the House Energy and Commerce and Judiciary Committees. Legislation on this subject faces strong opposition, however, and is unlikely to make significant progress during this election year.
TVU Networks and Vobile Deploy Secure P2PTV
TVU Networks, a live peer-to-peer television (P2PTV) service with a user base of over 18 million viewers, and Vobile, a leading provider of video content identification and management products and services, jointly announced this week the availability of a groundbreaking end-to-end content delivery platform with enhanced security for live P2PTV broadcasting.
TVU, developer of the TVUBroadcast software and the TVU BD1000 Broadcast Appliance, today offers some 300 live channels through its downloadable TVUPlayer and through its syndication partners. TVU's solution is turn-key, offering effective monetization capabilities for content owners, including geo-filtering, subscription services, and personalized in-stream ad insertion tools.
Vobile's latest product offering VideoDNA Live is a solution specifically designed for live broadcast events such as the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. The VideoDNA Live service offers broadcasters and rights holders real-time digital fingerprinting, fully automated identification, and tracking and monetization of live media content on the web. It allows content owners, broadcasters, and content distributors to identify and track unauthorized uploads of broadcast content within minutes of the event taking place.
The integration of VideoDNA Live into TVU's BD1000 Broadcast Appliance takes rights management of live content to the next level. Together, TVU and Vobile will offer unprecedented ease-of-use and strong content protection for broadcasters and content rights holders.
TVU CEO Paul Shen said, "The strategic alliance and technology integration between TVU and Vobile marks a significant milestone. With a single TVU BD1000 Broadcast Appliance, broadcasters can now not only deliver their content with zero traffic costs and effectively monetize with in-stream ads, they are now ensured of full copyright protection."
"Our VideoDNA Live technology is a perfect match for TVU's live Internet video service," said Yangbin Wang, Founder & CEO of Vobile.
"Together we are changing the landscape of Internet content rights management by fingerprinting broadcast TV content in real-time, enabling media and Internet companies to collaborate in protecting valuable video and audio assets while delivering better consumer experience by assuring that the video they view is the authentic content with highest quality."
Velocix Offers HD with Adobe Flash Technology
Excerpted from TMCnet Report
Velocix has decided to support Adobe Flash Media Server 3 with its Flash video streaming service program. Velocix, formally known as CacheLogic, is a digital asset and content delivery network designed to meet the rich media needs of the 21st century Internet.
Velocix can now provide H.264 and VP6-S high-definition (HD) live and on-demand streaming to audiences around the globe by installing the Adobe Flash Media Server 3 throughout the network. Velocix will support real-time encryption protocol RTMPe, and SWF Verification, which helps protect high-value media assets, including movie titles, television programs, video games, and software applications.
"We strive to provide content owners and broadcasters with the most comprehensive set of delivery services for large digital assets, such as video. The new advanced capabilities of Adobe Flash Media Server 3 are a natural complement to our leading edge Digital Asset Delivery Network," said Phill Robinson, Chief Executive Officer at Velocix.
"We continue to see increasing demand from our customers for high-quality live and on-demand streaming with Flash. As a result, we are excited to extend our partnership with Adobe at this time to offer our customers HD video streaming services and the next generation experience they crave."
It was necessary for Velocix to incorporate technologies like this into its system to prove to new and existing customers it has the necessary commitment and expertise to effectively deliver video, software, and games. The Internet now is not just for the transportation of mere data, and rather than just basic web pages, consumers are increasingly expecting to receive multimedia digital products to be delivered directly over their home broadband connection.
"The Velocix Digital Asset Delivery Network provides a reliable and highly scalable solution for delivering live and on-demand Adobe Flash streaming solutions to worldwide audiences," said Bill Rusitzky, Director of Strategic Alliances at Adobe. "We are pleased that Velocix will be offering video streaming from Flash Media Server 3 so quickly and we look forward to working with them to extend the new features and benefits."
The Velocix Network is designed to enable content owners, studios, and broadcasters to deliver video and other large digital assets, such as software, games, video, and audio over the web, with unprecedented performance, breakthrough economics, and an asset delivery lifecycle management system that provides content owners the control, analytics and reporting they need to manage their asset libraries through the digital distribution chain.
Flash Gets Flashier with P2P
Excerpted from Public Knowledge Tech News Report by Jef Pearlman
A beta of Adobe's Flash Player Version 10 is now available for download. It offers a host of new features, but one has implications that blow the others out of the water: built-in P2P.
That's right, all the tools necessary to build a P2P client will be built into the Flash plug-in.
Everyone who installs Flash 10 (and before long, that will be practically everyone) will soon have P2P clients running in their web browser of choice. What does this do?
First, it strengthens the case for P2P by putting existing technology in the hands of, well, everyone. We know that these tools are being used more and more for non-infringing, copyright-owner-endorsed purposes. But when everyone and their brother is viewing legally distributed videos through P2P, it's going to be a lot harder to make the argument that the technology is the bad guy.
Second, increased P2P usage is going to further increase demand for upload capacity in home broadband. This will put more strain on networks with limited upstream bandwidth, pushing more network upgrades, and potentially increasing the demand for network management tools by ISPs.
At the same time, it will demonstrate why picking and choosing individual protocols is not a legitimate way to manage an ISP's network - both because of implications with respect to competition and also because of the way in which this would slow innovation and hurt users.
There are a lot of uses of ubiquitous P2P besides video distribution of course; and Hank Williams mentions a couple in his blog: things like friend-to-friend file transfers and rapid prototyping of new and perhaps innovative applications.
I think Adobe would be crazy not to make its Flash P2P as powerful and flexible as possible, especially in the video distribution world. Adobe owns embedded web video. And if Adobe can offer companies like YouTube the capability to reduce their bandwidth costs by sharing that burden with users and improve user experience, why wouldn't Adobe do so?
In the end, Flash P2P won't be the only P2P out there. Opera has a BitTorrent client built-in, and Vuze offers a media player with BitTorrent under the hood. Both of these applications will continue to have their place, and innovation will continue elsewhere. Client-server flash video won't be disappearing either.
But the sheer number of people who install Flash makes this a wake-up call for those who think P2P should or will go away any time soon.
Abacast Hybrid P2P Goes to China with FutureStream
Abacast, the world leader in hybrid P2P technologies and services, is expanding its relationship with FutureStream Networks to deliver online video and audio within China.
FutureStream Networks successfully deployed Abacast's technology for the third largest South Korean broadcast company with impressive results. Abacast's technology realized over a 95% reduction in bandwidth requirements for delivery of a 500 kbps live video stream while supporting over 35,000 concurrent users.
Sun Jin Lee, CEO of FutureStream Networks, said, "The Abacast hybrid P2P solution enables FutureStream Networks to meet our growing audience demands, while achieving much greater cost efficiencies over traditional unicast streaming."
The Abacast hybrid P2P streaming technology reduces bandwidth required to carry simulcast channels by over 5Gbps and also significantly reduces the number of servers, networking components, and soft costs associated with carrying broadcasts online, while maintaining a high quality streaming experience for every user.
"Abacast streams demonstrated outstanding quality and network efficiency," added Lee.
"We are very, very excited to be advancing Abacast into China, one of the fastest growing and most dynamic media markets in the world today," said Michael King, President of Abacast.
"Our relationship with FutureStream and the great success we were able to achieve both in efficiency and increased quality enabled both Abacast and FutureStream to expand into China. We are very excited about our prospects in this rapidly growing economy. Webcasters recognize how urgently they need hybrid technology to deliver a high quality audience experience while minimizing the demand for bandwidth and server infrastructure required by China's very large-scale audiences."
PeerApp Named 2008 Red Herring 100 Winner
PeerApp, the leader in intelligent media caching and content acceleration, today announced its selection as a Red Herring 100 Award winner, which honors the 100 most innovative private technology companies in North America.
PeerApp joins an impressive community of previous winners, such as Google and eBay, which were spotted in their early days by Red Herring editors, and heralded as leaders that would change the way we live and work.
The Red Herring editorial staff selected PeerApp as one of 100 winners after rigorously evaluating more than 800 private companies. Nominees were closely evaluated on both quantitative and qualitative criteria such as financial performance, technology innovation, quality of management, execution of strategy, and integration into their ecosystems.
"Having received more than 800 submissions, it is clear that we are witnessing a new outburst of creativity," said Joel Dreyfuss, Editor-in-Chief of Red Herring.
"With venture capital flowing again, it's exciting to see technology innovators and business investors collaborate to create disruptive technologies. The Red Herring 100 North America companies are impressive up-and-comers, and definitely the ones to watch."
"It's an honor to be named a Red Herring 100 winner, as it recognizes our success at helping evolve the Internet into a robust platform for delivering multimedia content," said Robert Mayer, PeerApp's Chairman & CEO.
"Our technology enables Internet service providers (ISPs) to deliver video and other multimedia to consumers with a great customer experience - without investing in expensive network upgrades. This benefits everyone in the emerging online video value chain: ISPs, content providers, and consumers."
QTRAX Completes Publishing Big Four
Excerpted from Music Week Report by Ben Cardew
QTRAX has signed a deal with Warner/Chappell, meaning that the company now has agreements in place with the "big four" music publishers: EMI Publishing, Universal Publishing, Sony/ATV, and Warner/Chappell.
It also has deals with label groups Universal, Beggars Group, and US indie TVT.
In addition, the legal P2P file-sharing service this week launched QTRAX Version 0.3, promising enhancements to its user system, including improvements to its interface and interactivity.
The Warner/Chappell deal represents a significant development for QTRAX, which launched in January.
Juiced on Joost to Create P2PTV Convergence
Excerpted from BlogCritics Report by Ray Ellis
The Internet, being the refuge of renegades and chancers of every stripe, continues to reinvent itself, and the promise of TV-on-demand is a battlefield rife with entrepreneurs intent on reshaping cyberspace in their own vision.
Of the current combatants, Joost (created by Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, founders of Skype and Kazaa) holds the most promise in terms of shaking up the rules of television.
What Joost brings to the table is a refreshing irreverence towards the entire concept of television as culture. That's not to say Joost dismisses TV as we know it - it is, after all, a commercial venture - but it offers a dizzying array of viewing options, from international news to classic cartoons to scantily clad supermodels to cult TV classics; and its channels grow almost daily.
Joost now has over 400 channels. Viewers can watch the original "Star Trek," a beautiful presentation of the "2008 Geneva Auto Show," sporting events, nonsensical video clips, cooking shows, lifestyle programs - the list goes on.
For instance, the site has recently added the complete run of "Jericho" and the first three seasons of "Beverly Hills 90210" to its roster. Clearly, there's nothing elitist about Joost.
Joost relies on P2P technology, and the video quality is at least equal to a conventional cable telecasting.
Television as we know it isn't going away anytime soon (unless you count the federally mandated all-digital transmission conversion in early 2009), and the Internet isn't going to be the preferred method of viewing TV within months, or even the next few years.
What is foreseeable, though, is a gradual convergence of the two platforms. That's not news - Steve Jobs and Bill Gates envisioned the computer as a ubiquitous appliance years ago. What we have now is a realization of those prophecies. However you slice it, Joost is a pioneering step in that convergence.
Besides a remarkable library that's constantly expanding, it's taking steps towards that convergence, with forums, tech support, and even user-based chat. In short, Joost has the potential to make TV fun again.
MediaPass Network Acquires Gigantic
Excerpted from Variety Report by Diane Garrett
Netco MediaPass Network has acquired Gigantic, a shingle founded by musicvid and blurb helmer Kevin Kerslake, and the merged entity has created a series of skeins for broadband and mobile distribution.
Headed by Daniel P. Harris, an early broadcaster of live events online, Santa Monica, CA based MediaPass Gigantic is the outgrowth of a 10-year friendship between the men. Kerslake, who recently landed his first feature directing gig on Samuel L. Jackson starrer "Running Wild," will direct and exec produce the Netco's live music perfs and shepherd original content. Company has a video distribution deal with Spaceland Recordings.
Among the shows in the pipeline: "The Shop," an action sport reality skein shot in the Rockies; "Get Over It," a funkier version of "Laguna Beach;" and a music docu series revolving around concerts across the country. Another urban drama is intended as a broadband version of "The Wire," while "Disorient Express" follows five college-age femmes as they travel across Europe.
Netco also intends to acquire direct-to-vid fare for distribution online.
The goal, Harris said, is to create quality low-cost content for as close to break-even as possible, then make the money after it has proven itself online.
"Second-run distribution is where the cash cow is," Harris said.
Kerslake said he welcomed the chance to create cutting-edge content with a company that has a "solid handle on the new economics of video."
Gigantic previously produced branded entertainment for clients such as Quiksilver, DC Shoes, and RealNetworks.
Harris has produced live-event webcasts for events including the American Dance Music Awards, UK's Mobo Awards, Ultra Music Festival, and Voodoo Festival.
ROK's Fun Little Movies wins MEFFY Award
ROK Entertainment Group, the global mobile entertainment group, announced that its subsidiary, Fun Little Movies (FLM), has won the Content Award at the prestigious 2008 Mobile Entertainment Forum (MEF) in Cannes.
FLM, based in California, specializes in the development, production, and distribution of original video content for global distribution to mobile network operators. It has distribution deals with Sprint, Verizon, and AT&T as well as several handset makers and overseas partners, from China and Japan to Europe, Africa, and South America.
The Meffy awards, which received applications from 21 countries across four continents, are judged by an independent panel of national media and leading trade journalists and analysts. The Content Award shortlist, which received the third highest number of entries, included FLM, MTV Networks International, and Orange.
Commenting on FLM's success, Rimma Perelmuter, MEF Executive Director, said, "With distribution from Brunei to Bethlehem to Burbank, Fun Little Movies' collection of funny, short, made-for-mobile comedy films has proven the universal appeal of laughter and snackable content."
Our gratitude goes first to ROK Entertainment Group," said FLM's President & Chief Creative Officer Frank Chindamo, "who, since acquiring FLM in 2007, have supported and helped enhance our product offering, such as in partnership with ROK Motion. We would also like to thank the MEF, our own creative staff, and all the filmmakers with whom we have partnered or whose work we have licensed."
"We're delighted to have won this award and congratulate the FLM team," added Laurence Alexander, Group CEO of ROK. "This award demonstrates the success of ROK's growth strategy as well as recognition that the creation and delivery of relevant, funny, and fast-paced content is great for mobile consumption. FLM faced tough competition and this award is proof of their position in the market for the production and delivery of mobile content."
Octoshape Showcases High-Quality VOD with Eurovision
For several years, P2P company Octoshape has been the exclusive streaming provider for the Eurovision Song Contest events, reaching record-breaking online audience figures. The advanced quality-ensuring technology from Octoshape is a perfect match for the worldwide popularity of the Eurovision Song Contest that spawns massive interest from fans in all parts of the world.
Not only did Octoshape and Eurovision Song Contest break last year's audience records during the live webcast of the first semi-final, this year the system has been pushed even further, and eurovision.tv - official website for the Eurovision Song Contest - will now offer all events as on-demand streams as soon as the events finish. This is excellent news for fans that live in far away time zones, missed the event, or just want to catch a glimpse of the excitement one more time.
Immediately after the first semi-final finished on May 20th, the on-demand version was published on the eurovision.tv website. Within 12 hours more than 10,000 users had tuned in.
With yet another feature setting Octoshape apart from the competition, online audiences are getting accustomed to instant-on high-quality streaming solutions, be it for on-demand or live content. In other words; the next generation of streaming solutions has arrived, and the users are not looking back!
CloudTrade Offers Music Sharing on Your Smartphone
Excerpted from Wired News Report by Eliot Van Buskirk
CloudTrade has announced that music from its first two label deals is now available for trading on its mobile file-sharing network.
Users can trade about 250 songs from CloudTrade's label partners: ATO Records (Radiohead's US CD distributor) and the jam-band-friendly Sci Fidelity Records.
"Our market research taught us a valuable lesson in dealing with the next generation of music consumers," said CloudTrade CEO Raj Kanapur.
"Wherever possible, we must leverage the advertisers' desire to be in front of consumers on interactive mobile devices and offer a fully ad-supported free model of digital music downloading."
Kanapur's application works, and it could offer music fans - especially young ones with more time than money - a great new way to discover, share, and listen to music without messing around with a computer or a credit card.
CloudTrade is looking for up to 10,000 people to participate in the beta test of its smartphone app, which allows users to trade songs with each other through a mobile social network.
As with QTRAX, another free and legal P2P service, the major barrier (once the technology has been figured out) is sign-off from music copyright holders. CloudTrade has made strides in this area with two new label deals.
ATO Records has made music from its four top artists (Ben Kweller, Gomez, The Whigs, and Rodrigo y Gabriela) available on the service, while Sci Fidelity Records unleashed its entire catalog of jam-band music (from The Disco Biscuits, the Greyboy Allstars, Umphrey's McGee, and others). In total, CloudTrade now offers about 250 songs for users to trade on its mobile file-sharing social network.
Major-label music could be on the horizon for CloudTrade. Kanapur said Universal Music Group sent over a term sheet, but that negotiations with the label - the largest in the world - are ongoing. A spokesman for CloudTrade said other content partner agreements could be finalized shortly.
In order to use CloudTrade in a mobile capacity, you need a Windows Mobile-based smartphone, although the company says it will add support for BlackBerries and non-Windows smartphones.
Online Video Viewing Surges
According to data from the comScore Video Metrix service, US Internet users viewed 11.5 billion online videos during March 2008, representing a 13% gain versus February and a 64% gain versus March 2007.
In March, Google Sites ranked as the top US video property with more than 4.3 billion videos viewed (38% share of all videos), gaining 2.6 share points versus the previous month. YouTube accounted for 98% of all videos viewed at Google Sites. Fox Interactive Media ranked second with 477 million videos, followed by Yahoo Sites and Viacom Digital.
Nearly 139 million US Internet users watched an average of 83 videos per viewer in March. Google Sites also attracted the most viewers (85.7 million), where they watched an average of 51 videos per person. Fox Interactive attracted the second most viewers, followed by Yahoo Sites and Viacom Digital.
Other notable findings from the March survey include: 73.7% of the total US Internet audience viewed online video; 84.8 million viewers watched 4.3 billion videos on YouTube (50.4 videos per viewer); 47.7 million viewers watched 400 million videos on MySpace (8.4 videos per viewer); the average online video duration was 2.8 minutes; and the average online video viewer watched 235 minutes of video.
Please click here for more information about the survey and comScore Video Metrix.
Numbers are still Misleading
Excerpted from LA Times Report
We've known for a while that when it comes to counting video views, it's mostly voodoo. Everyone who writes about online video is guilty of quoting view numbers (e.g. wow, the latest sexual health video from illumistream has 110,000 views in 2 days!) without adding any kind of caveat about their statistical wobbliness.
This week, online video analytics company TubeMogul released its study of what counts as a view across a dozen video sites. The basic finding is that with only a few exceptions, all a view means is that a video begins to play. Notice how I didn't say it means "someone began watching" - watching has nothing to do with it.
On YouTube, AOL Video, MySpace Video, Yahoo Video, Veoh, and Revver, a view is counted as soon a video begins, meaning tick marks are handed out even if viewers didn't watch a single second. It doesn't matter if your video is two minutes or two hours - if it started playing, it was viewed.
YouTube just launched its Insight tool, which allows video makers to see certain geographic and demographic information about who's been watching their clips. But conspicuously absent is any information about how much of each video viewers are sitting through.
If I were a YouTube regular, I'd want to know if people were watching all, half, or just a few seconds of my stuff, even though they all counted as an equal view. Remember, Nielsen television ratings are based on making people click a remote control button every few minutes to show that they haven't left the room. That way, advertisers know the viewership numbers aren't inflated.
With online videos, though, using the loosest possible definition of a view means viewership numbers are goosed by definition.
File Sharing for Students Who Ace Copyright Law Test
Excerpted from Zeropaid Report
Rather than ban the use of P2P and file-sharing programs outright and terminate the Internet accounts of students who violate the policy, as is the standard for most colleges and universities around the country, the Missouri University of Science and Technology, in Rolla, MO instead actually enables P2P access for students who can ace an online quiz on copyright infringement.
The way the system works is that if a student can get a perfect score on an online quiz on copyright infringement, then P2P access will be enabled on their registered on-campus PC for 6 hours. The quiz must be taken each time, for a maximum of 8 per month. Questions include asking students what kinds of works are protected by copyright and the difference between copying a CD and downloading music.
It uses traffic-shaping technology to tie P2P and file-sharing program access to the online quiz.
"The idea is that we had a policy where we permitted P2P protocols for educational and research use," said Karl Lutzen, a systems security analyst at the university, and as long as it was for legitimate reasons, "we didn't have a problem with people using it. This solution, more or less, through educational and technical controls, enforces that policy."
It seems to be working, for this year the school received only 8 DMCA notices from the RIAA, down an astonishing 96% from some 200 that it received last year.
"Based on the amount of grumbling, it's actually working pretty well," Lutzen said.
However, it may be that the university's strict punishment for copyright infringement violations has more to do with the downturn in DMCA notices. The first offense means 14 days of revoked Internet network access; and 28 days, plus community service, for the second; and so on. For a college student, Internet access is absolutely critical and so many are surely unwilling to risk crucial research capability for a download of the latest John Mayer album.
Either way it's a novel approach and it least it offers students some sort of P2P usage.
The Pirate Bay Enters List of 100 Most Popular Websites
Excerpted from TorrentFreak Report
The Pirate Bay is growing bigger and bigger, much to the displeasure of anti-piracy outfits. The BitTorrent tracker even managed to slip into the list of 100 most visited websites on the Internet, and it doesn't seem to stop there.
The Pirate Bay is the second BitTorrent site that has managed to get a spot among the 100 most visited domains on the Internet. The BitTorrent tracker has good company in this prestigious list, as it brushes shoulders with sites such as Google, Yahoo, YouTube, Facebook, and Wikipedia.
Of all BitTorrent sites, MiniNova is currently in the lead, ranked 52nd according to Alexa's new and improved statistics. The Pirate Bay comes in second, before isoHunt, Torrentz.com, and btjunkie.
It is estimated that The Pirate Bay has close to 25 million unique visitors per month. And the number of monthly torrents downloaded has grown to 1,200,000.
Hollywood is doing all it can to force The Pirate Bay offline, but it seems that the site only grows more and more, perhaps because of the extra publicity generated by anti-piracy activities.
A similar pattern emerged two years ago, when The Pirate Bay nearly doubled its traffic after a raid by Swedish police.
The expansion of The Pirate Bay and other BitTorrent sites shows that BitTorrent's popularity continues to grow.
Coming Events of Interest
P2P Infrastructure Workshop - May 28th at MIT in Cambridge, MA. The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is hosting this special session focusing on continued development and advancement of P2P techonologies. Submitted papers include several from Participants in the DCIA-sponsored P4P Working Group (P4PWG).
Advertising 2.0 New York - June 4th-5th in New York, NY. A new kind of event being developed as a partnership of Advertising Age and Digital Hollywood. The DCIA is fully supporting this important inaugural effort with a closing session, and encourages DCINFO readers to plan now to attend.
Voice Peering Forum - June 23rd-24th in San Francisco, CA. This conference brings together over one-hundred organizations from the information technology (IT) and telecommunications industry to network and discuss the latest in peering, routing, and interconnection of networks and the applications they support. The DCIA is participating with a special session.
P2P MEDIA SUMMIT SV - August 4th in San Jose, CA. The first-ever P2P MEDIA SUMMIT in Silicon Valley. Featuring keynotes from industry-leading P2P and social network operators; tracks on policy, technology and marketing; panel discussions covering content distribution and solutions development; valuable workshops; networking opportunities; and more.
Building Blocks 2008 - August 5th-7th in San Jose, CA. The premier event for transforming entertainment, consumer electronics, social media & web application technologies & the global communications network: TV, cable, telco, consumer electronics, mobile, broadband, search, games and the digital home.
International Broadcasting Convention - September 11th-16th in Amsterdam, Holland. IBC is committed to providing the world's best event for everyone involved in the creation, management, and delivery of content for the entertainment industry. Uniquely, the key executives and committees who control the convention are drawn from the industry, bringing with them experience and expertise in all aspects.
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