December 15, 2008
Volume XXIV, Issue 8
Don't Miss the Upcoming P2P MEDIA SUMMIT at CES
The 2009 International CES in Las Vegas, NV is the only trade show where you can get a year's worth of business done in just four days. And the second annual P2P MEDIA SUMMIT Conference within CES, on Wednesday January 7th, is the best place to learn what's new in the digital realm.
DCIA Members now offer a panoply of solutions to help content delivery networks (CDNs), network operators, client applications, content providers, consumer electronics manufacturers, and other participants in the rapidly emerging online marketplace deliver material at the lowest possible cost with very high quality of service (QoS) and security.
Conference luncheon speakers will be P4P Working Group (P4PWG) Co-Chairs Laird Popkin of Pando Networks and Doug Pasko of Verizon Communications; and Harris Interactive Vice Presidents Joseph Porus and Milt Ellis, who will present fresh research. There will also be a continental breakfast and VIP networking cocktail reception.
Keynotes include Joey Patuleia, Co-Founder, Brand Asset Digital; George Searle, CEO, LimeWire; Kumar Subramanian, CEO, MediaMelon; Eitan Efron, VP of Marketing, Oversi; and Mark Stuart, Technical Director, P2P Next; Robert Levitan, CEO, Pando Networks; Travis Kalanick, Founder, RedSwoosh; Memo Rhein, CEO, Unlimited Media; and David Ferguson, Chief Architect, Velocix.
Policy Track panelists include Mark McKinnon, Co-Chair, Arts+Labs; Jim Burger, Partner, Dow Lohnes; Louis Lehrman, Vice President, Dutko Worldwide; Lawrence Hadley, Partner, Hennigan Bennett & Dorman; Steven Masur, Managing Partner, MasurLaw; and NS Nappinai, Principal, NSN Associates.
Technology Track panelists include Ron Van Herk, CEO, AHT International; Morgan Reed, Executive Director, Association for Competitive Technology (ACT); Aaron Markham, VP of Research & Development, BayTSP; Matt Drown, Director of Applications, CloudShield; Jeffrey Payne, CTO, GridNetworks; and Nathan Good, Research Scientist, PARC.
Marketing Track panelists include Thomas Reemer, CEO, CUGate; Alex Mashinsky, CEO, DigiMeld; Chris Gillis, Director of Sales, MediaDefender; Paul Wright, SVP, Strategic Alliances & Marketing, MediaGuide; Simon Applebaum, Producer/Host, Tomorrow Will Be Televised; and Dana Jones, CEO, Ultramercial.
Content Distribution panelists include Patrick Ross, Executive Director, Copyright Alliance; Iain Scholnick, CEO & President, ImageSpan; Daniel Harris, CEO, MediaPass Gigantic; Keyvan Peymani, COO, Nettwerk Music Group; Steve Oedekerk, CEO, O! Entertainment; and Laura Tunberg, Principal Partner, We Get It Consulting.
Solutions Development panelists include Michael King, CEO, Abacast; and David Ulmer, Sr. Director, MultiMedia & Entertainment Products, Motorola; David Rice, VP of Marketing, Move Networks; Jonathan Lee, SVP, PiCast; JD Lasica, President, Social Media Group; and Neerav Shah, VP, Business Development & Strategy, Verimatrix.
The summit will end with a Special Session featuring Ron Berry, Business Advisor, Isle of Man; John Waclawsky, Software Architect, Motorola; and See-Mong Tan, Director of P2P, Microsoft.
Registration can be done online here or by calling 410-476-7965. For sponsor packages, please contact Karen Kaplowitz, DCIA Member Services, at 888-890-4240 or karen@dcia.info.
Report from CEO Marty Lafferty
 This week's report highlights industry developments from the first half of 2008. Part two (July-December) will be featured next week.
Meanwhile, please click here for a more detailed year-in-review from our newsletter archives.
The headline of the lead article in DCINFO's first issue from January 2008 was Obama Wins in Iowa and on the Web, and our report that week announced the DCIA's support of the candidate's technology platform.
Also in January, BitTorrent outlined its new strategy to make online businesses profitable by marrying P2P architecture with existing content delivery networks (CDNs).
VeriSign published The Power of Commercial P2P Delivery, describing how P2P can maintain security and integrity of content, provide a high-quality experience, integrate with essential business systems, and efficiently manage network traffic.
The DCIA, as an allied association of the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), mounted the first-ever P2P MEDIA SUMMIT Conference within CES.
Vuze, the peer-to-peer television (P2PTV) high-resolution video platform, reached 4 million monthly registered users, after being downloaded 14 million times since 2007, and joined the DCIA.
Against opposing backdrops of an accelerating decline in CD sales along with double-digit online advertising growth, at MIDEM, QTRAX conducted the most ambitious launch promotion in our industry's history for the world's first free-and-legal P2P music service. Campaign elements included a standing-room-only (SRO) press conference and celebratory live performances by the Sugarhill Gang, James Blunt, LL Cool J, and Don Henley. QTRAX's V.2 beta attracted 61,000 unique users per hour (1.5 million per day).
And finally, in January, the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) opened a public comment period on petitions filed by consumer advocacy groups and leading P2P firm Vuze seeking to clarify acceptable broadband network management practices.
In February, P2P-Next, a pan-European conglomerate of industrial partners, media content providers, and research institutions, including AHT International and Oversi, received a $22 million dollar grant from the European Union (EU) to develop a next-generation Internet television distribution system based on P2P.
ROO Group formed a tripartite business alliance with Abacast and Pando Networks to offer customers live P2P streaming and video-on-demand (VoD) through the ROO Media Player.
Velocix, formerly known as CacheLogic, unified its company name, products, and services under the Velocix brand; and Javien Digital Payment Solutions unveiled its New Media Payment Gateway, tailored specifically to the needs of companies that sell digital assets like music, movies, games, and software using P2P and related platforms.
RightsFlow Entertainment Group, a music-and-media-focused rights solutions provider, joined the DCIA.
Buyers of advanced televisions started noticing a curious new feature - a little jack that connects the sets directly to the Internet. The phenomenon that had sideswiped Hollywood was recast as the P2P Economy - individuals both consuming and creating content - and P2P topped the list of twenty transformations on the Harvard Business Review's annual Breakthrough Ideas list.
The FCC received ninety-two comments on broadband network management including those submitted by the DCIA as well as individual Member companies AT&T, Verizon, and Vuze; and the Internet Freedom Preservation Act was introduced by Congressmen Edward J. Markey (D-MA) and Charles (Chip) Pickering (R-MS).
Meanwhile, the Barack Obama Campaign had a record-setting month - $32 million in donations - the most ever raised by a candidate during a primary race, as traffic to BarackObama.com grew fivefold to 2.2 million.
In March, Pando Networks announced that it had been selected to provide video delivery for an improved version of NBC Direct.
The DCIA produced the industry's first-ever P2P MARKET CONFERENCE in New York, featuring a full day of sessions like Advertising in Distributed Networks with FTI Consulting's Bruce Benson. Doug Pasko, Senior Technologist at Verizon, and Laird Popkin, CTO of Pando Networks, Co-Chairs of the DCIA-sponsored P4P Working Group (P4PWG), announced the very positive results of Verizon's initial field tests of P4P, developed from the "Proactive Provider Assistance for P2P" research by Haiyong Xie at Yale University. Also at the conference, Ipercast, a company specializing in the technical management of digital media on Internet protocol (IP) networks, announced its acquisition of 1-Click Media, a P2P solution provider for media companies. In sum, Pando CEO Robert Levitan called it a historic day for P2P.
Solid State Networks, which pairs P2P technologies with CDNs, joined the DCIA. PeerApp, a leading provider of intelligent media caching and delivery solutions to ISPs worldwide, and MediaMerx, a leader in delivering premium syndicated digital video to global markets, partnered to accelerate the distribution of aggregated digital content to ISPs around the world. P2P monetization start-up Skyrider landed $5 million in capital. And the LimeWire Store launched with 500,000 songs for sale.
The DCIA presented The Evolution of P2P & Music: From Enemy to Business Partner at Canadian Music Week with BigChampagne, DoubleV3, MediaDefender, MusicDish Network, the RIAA, and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. Terry McBride, CEO of Nettwerk Music Group, was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award. After the hubbub surrounding QTRAX's launch, it announced deals with EMI Publishing, Sony/ATV Music Publishing, and TVT Records, auguring well for its promise to offer music available on P2P networks as ad-supported downloads.
An experiment in distributing DRM-free content via BitTorrent proved to be extremely positive for Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK). BitTorrent and Comcast, the largest US cable ISP, agreed to work together to more effectively address issues associated with rich media content and network capacity management; and Comcast conducted trials of the new protocol-agnostic capacity management technique it plans to deploy by year-end.
With the work of the DCIA-sponsored Inadvertent Sharing Protection Working Group (ISPG) well underway, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) added a new module to OnGuard Online more broadly addressing P2P file-sharing program safety; and the DCIA made P2P Safety the lead item in the column of permanent links on the DCIA home-page.
In April, Pando Networks announced more details of its field tests demonstrating that P4P is capable of operating at far higher speeds while also optimizing network costs for ISPs. Pando's tests - conducted using data from over 3,000 ISPs around the world - revealed a 235% increase in delivery speeds across US cable networks alongside an 898% increase for international broadband networks.
Datasphere Interactive and Double V3 joined the DCIA. A new online community, designed very much like Digg, but dedicated to P2P services, launched as P2PViNE.
Comcast introduced a superfast Internet service called "wideband" with download bandwidth speeds of 50 megabits per second (Mbps). Blinkx announced BBTV, pairing a video distribution service with Blinkx's speech-to-text search tools.
Bob Pisano, President & COO of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) agreed to be the conference luncheon speaker at the upcoming P2P MEDIA SUMMIT LA, underscoring the importance of proactively improving and expanding relationships with the entertainment sector.
And finally, in April the FCC conducted its second en banc hearing on broadband network management practices.
In May, US News & World Report declared that P2P networks were turning into web saviors.
CloudShield Technologies, Comcast, and TVU Networks joined the DCIA.
Kontiki, the leading provider of managed peer-assisted delivery for high-quality video and digital content, completed its divestiture from VeriSign with funding from MK Capital. Comcast Interactive Capital, the cable operator's technology investment arm, invested in GridNetworks, a start-up developing software to distribute high-quality video in a P2P architecture over the Internet, as part of a first-round financing of $9.5 million led by Panorama Capital, which included participation from Cisco Systems.
NBC opened a trial of the new version of its web VoD software, NBC Direct, incorporating the P2P download-speeding assistance of Pando Networks. BitTorrent continued to expand its reach by entering into a partnership with Orb Networks, bundling BitTorrent's P2P software with Orb's, allowing users to stream their music, movies, or other media to PCs, phones, and other devices. Ad-funded P2P file-sharing service QTRAX signed a deal with Universal Music Group (UMG), the world's largest record label.
The DCIA presented the third-annual P2P MEDIA SUMMIT LA, focusing on delivery efficiency and content security. The steadily growing P4PWG, now with more than eighty participants, added sub-groups to accelerate advancement in critical areas and improve overall productivity. The DCIA also hosted Will P2P Become a Legitimate Means of Delivering Video at Streaming Media East (SME), featuring Comcast, Pando, Verizon, and Wachovia.
In June, Cisco Systems predicted that traffic on the world's networks will increase annually by 46% through 2012, nearly doubling every two years. As a result, there will be an annual bandwidth demand of approximately 522 exabytes, or more than half a zettabyte.
A new study called Music Experience and Behavior in Young People was released by British Music Rights (BMR) showing that 70% of 18-24 year-olds download their music from P2P networks. Reports from the United Kingdom (UK) suggested that open, authorized P2P-music-file-sharing services, offered by broadband ISPs on an opt-in basis, could be introduced by early 2009 and contribute substantially to a renaissance of the music industry.
Along with commercializing un-monetized traffic, content discovery improvements and file delivery efficiencies could in theory simultaneously be advanced with this type of licensed P2P music system, so that far less network bandwidth would be consumed than currently is the case.
South Korea offered a global model with the adoption of a similar plan, although with the significant difference that the service there is offered by a P2P company, Soribada, rather than an ISP.
VeriSign said content providers need to embrace P2P. Comcast more than doubled the maximum upload speed for many of its cable Internet subscribers.
Sandvine announced that P2P file-sharing applications now represent 44% of all bandwidth consumed on networks operated by North American ISPs, up three points from 2007, and that P2P is now the top overall generator of Internet traffic.
Veoh Networks, one of the world's most commercially successful P2PTV services, closed an additional $30 million round of funding led by Intel Capital.
D-Link, the end-to-end networking solutions provider for consumers and business, announced a free upgrade for its best-selling network attached storage (NAS) device to enable BitTorrent file downloads and uploads independent of a PC.
EMI Music entered into a new agreement with ad-supported digital music service QTRAX, which conducted a re-launch on June 18th.
Ignite Technologies and MediaDefender joined the DCIA.
And finally, in June TorrentRelay introduced a service to take the URL of any torrent on the Internet and automatically download it through a user's web browser to multiple PCs, Wiis, PS3s, and even iPhones.
Next week, we'll summarize the second-half of 2008, during which the pace of industry development accelerated substantially as cloud computing made its debut and the cost savings of distributed computing solutions of many kinds became increasingly important. Share wisely, and take care.
Consumers Won't Cut Media Spending
Excerpted from Broadcasting & Cable Report by Marisa Guthrie
Despite the official word last week that the United States (US) is indeed in a recession, US consumers have no plans to reduce spending on Internet, wireless, cable, and satellite services. That's according to a new study from Amdocs, a customer experience consultancy.
According to Amdocs' second annual Experience Matters Index (EMI), subscribers do not plan to cut service-related costs and a significant majority (67%) would pay more for a better customer experience.
"We were pleasantly surprised by some of the findings," says Anthony Piniella, Director of Corporate Communications for Amdocs. "Ultimately, what it's really saying is that customers are willing to pay for value. If there's a perceived value, even in difficult times, they're willing to pay for it."
The survey, which polled 2,003 consumers of wireless, cable, and satellite services in the US and the United Kingdom (UK), also found that more consumers report they have had a "very good" customer experience and would "definitely" recommend their service providers. That's up 8% compared to Amdocs' first EMI study, released last February. Amdocs' clients include Comcast, Dish Network, and AT&T.
Taking the long view, what the Amdocs survey spells out is that service providers need to continue to improve customer experience, be it service, content, or user interface, in order to differentiate themselves. Today's consumer is technologically empowered with more choices than ever.
"Consumers' access to information is critical," Piniella says. "In an economy where every day in the news you're hearing, 'Tighten your budget and don't spend money on lattes,' these services are no longer luxuries. They're requirements."
P2P Drives Nearly $5 Billion in US ISP CapEx & OpEx
$4.1 billion of US broadband operator capital expenditures (CapEx) could be attributed to consumers' use of P2P networking in 2007, according to recent research by MultiMedia Intelligence.
Allocations could also be made to operating expenditures (OpEx). In 2008, almost $700 million in OpEx of US broadband operators could be attributed to P2P networking activity.
Due to very high adoption rates, P2P data flow represents a large share of consumer Internet usage.
MultiMedia Intelligence's research uniquely attempts to quantify the impact that P2P has on broadband operators. The cost savings of solutions that significantly improve the efficiency of P2P, such as P4P, can therefore begin to be estimated. The research also reported the following four key findings.
The value of unlicensed music trafficked on P2P networks in 2007 was $69 billion.
Not all P2P content is unlicensed. The growth rate for licensed content files distributed over P2P networks is much higher than unlicensed - by an order of magnitude - although it is fair to note that we are starting from a much smaller base.
P2P Internet traffic, despite having already grown at a torrid pace for years, will continue to grow almost 400% over the next 5 years. Growing from a level of 1.6 petabytes of Internet traffic per month in 2007 to almost 8 petabytes per month by 2012.
Perhaps the greatest potential for P2P rests with solutions like P4P and hybrid services that are more efficient. These platforms can provide live or near-live content as well as efficiently distribute recorded material. In addition, caching solutions will further enhance the efficiencies of these networks by further reducing the need for network interconnections.
The research, P2P Networking: Content's "Bad Boy" Becomes Tomorrow's Distribution Channel, analyzes the P2P market in terms of worldwide broadband penetration, consumer consumption of data, audio, and video files, and associated revenue. Forecasts are provided on an annual or per-month average from 2006 through 2012. Please e-mail research@dcia.info to learn about special rates.
Obama Vows Broadband Expansion in Recovery Plan
Excerpted from Broadcasting & Cable Report by John Eggerton
President-Elect Barack Obama made ubiquitous Internet access a key part of the economic recovery plan he outlined for "Wall Street and Main Street" in his radio/web address Saturday.
Saying the country needs action "now," he echoed criticisms leveled often by legislators at the pace of broadband roll-out. In addition, he said, "We'll also renew our Information Superhighway."
He said that "it is unacceptable that the United States ranks 15th in the world in broadband adoption."
"Here, in the country that invented the Internet, every child should have the chance to get online, and they'll get that chance when I'm President," he said, "because that's how we'll strengthen America's competitiveness in the world."
The President-Elect said he would work with Congress to get it to pass an economic recovery plan immediately.
Most industry players concede that there needs to be greater stimulus for broadband roll-out, but there are disagreements over how relevant the rankings are given that some of the leading countries are smaller and easier to wire. They also disagree on the best way to close the gap.
Network operators also argue that network neutrality legislation, which the President-Elect also supports, could discourage broadband investment and the ubiquitous roll-out Obama seeks.
One proposal the FCC has been considering is to reform the government-run, telecommunications company-funded subsidy of rural telecommunications to underserved communities - the Universal Service Fund - to help fund the broadband roll-out.
FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has also proposed creating a baseline free-Internet-service as part of an upcoming auction of national wireless spectrum, and recently agreed to allow unlicensed devices like laptops to share broadcast spectrum, in part to boost broadband penetration. The spectrum is "beachfront property" because it travels easily through walls and other obstructions.
In addition, both Congress and the FCC have taken steps to improve collection of broadband data, including upping the definition of high-speed access and tightening the definition of what qualifies as access. For example, the FCC used to define as having broadband any zip-code with even one subscriber.
Note to New Administration: FCC Needs Transparency
Excerpted from TechNewsWorld Report by Sonia Arrison
This week, the House Energy and Commerce Committee released a report accusing Kevin Martin, Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), of being deceptive and opaque in his management of the agency's affairs. The report should send a strong signal to the incoming Obama administration.
"Chairman Martin withheld important and relevant data from the other Commissioners during their consideration of the 13th Annual Video Competition Report in an apparent attempt to enable the Commission to regulate cable television companies," the report states.
This finding was one of many pointing out how the Chairman wielded his power inappropriately.
It is common knowledge that Chairman Martin personally dislikes the cable companies. This animosity seems to be what drove his reintroduction of a rule to require a 30% market share cap on cable companies. In 2001, the US Court of Appeals struck down a similar cap; since then, competition in the video services market has skyrocketed.
When asked why Chairman Martin would reintroduce a rule already rejected by the courts, Joy Sims, a spokesperson for the National Cable and Telecommunications Association (NCTA), simply said, "Look at the House report issued today."
One man's vendetta, the report reveals, has the ability to influence an entire industry. To those who marvel at that reality, Berin Szoka of the Progress and Freedom Foundation (PFF) explains that "the FCC is one of the most unaccountable agencies. The problem is not isolated to Chairman Martin, but was probably worse under him because of his war on cable."
It's true that over the last decade or so, cable has lost significant market share to satellite and other alternative video delivery systems - a trend that looks likely to continue with the growing availability of online video services.
Indeed, just this November, Verizon announced a new strategic alliance with UK-based Velocix. The new content delivery network, which will support P2P, will be used to distribute content that Verizon contracts for directly with content owners like movie studios, TV networks, video rental sites, and entertainment services; and also to distribute content from content owners with which Velocix has agreements of its own - all at competitive speeds and costs.
The FCC has problems with transparency, so now is the time to open things up to greater public scrutiny. It is also questionable whether the FCC should have as much power as it does over the marketplace.
At a time when bankers and automakers are lining up to surrender chunks of control to government bureaucrats, everyone should consider the potential consequences. The results of political decision-making, as opposed to market demand-based decisions, often yield disastrous results.
LimeWire Adds Friend Sharing Feature, Licenses Music
Excerpted from Ars Technica Report by David Chartier
What's better than sharing multiple gigabytes of music, videos, and photos with the entire world? Sharing files with just the friends you want, according to LimeWire. A new version of the P2P company's client allows content to be shared only with specific individuals that users select.
Available from the company's alpha page, LimeWire 5 sports a completely redesigned UI and new, granular options for sharing specific files or types-of-files with friends instead of (or in addition to) the entire world.
To establish a personal identity for this feature, LimeWire users add Google Talk (or other Jabber credentials) to a buddy-list area in LimeWire's sidebar. Once a friend also installs the new alpha, every piece of media a user has can be shared with that individual, and users can chat inside of LimeWire to make others aware of what to download. Users can also select a "collection" of content, such as all audio, video, documents, or applications, to share with specific friends.
The new features are part of an effort by LimeWire to make file sharing more personal. According to Wired, the company is working to add more friend networks like Facebook. LimeWire COO Kevin Bradshaw sees this new version (which runs across all flavors of Windows back to 95, Mac OS X 10.5, Ubuntu, Debian, and more) as a great way to share photos with less tech-savvy family members.
LimeWire 5 can collect files but not share them publicly. This allows each file to be shared with one or more specific friends from Google Talk and other Jabber networks.
When we took our first look at LimeWire's music store beta in March, we noted that the company had to bring something new and interesting to the table. Using LimeWire 5 to share one's multi-gigabyte photo library (or raw independent film footage) with specific friends across the country or the world is indeed interesting, especially in light of the limits of other services.
BitTorrent doesn't really apply here, and Flickr has a low cap on free photo sharing and doesn't allow videos at all unless users pay. Documents can be shared over many services like Google Docs or Box.net, but each has its limitations, such as an entirely web-based UI (Google Docs) and very low storage space caps (Box.net).
The company doubled its music store catalog to two million indie tracks recently, but still has not signed a major label.
Ignite v7.0 for Mobile Devices & Enterprise Streaming
Ignite Technologies, the leader in providing secure and scalable enterprise content delivery solutions enabling customers to efficiently publish, deliver, and manage digital assets, this week announced version 7.0 of the Ignite Content Delivery Solution. The key features of the release further extend the Ignite solution to deliver rich media within the enterprise and include support for enhanced capabilities for delivery of content to mobile devices.
"Enterprise content delivery demands distinctive capabilities and feature-sets which differ from content delivery solutions targeted primarily at consumers," said Fabian Gordon, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Ignite. "Security, reporting, and the ability to distribute many combinations of rich media are paramount to the enterprise. At Ignite, we continually enhance our solution to meet the rich-media demands of our customers to offer an enterprise-wide, comprehensive content delivery solution."
Ignite v7.0 provides the ability for the enterprise to target, deliver, track, and report on content or notifications to mobile devices. Through the Ignite Delivery Manager, content administrators within an enterprise can manage content delivery to all registered devices such as Windows Mobile enabled devices, iPods, iPhones, and iPod Touch units. Employees within an enterprise can individually select, for any media type, the preferred device and method by which they would like to view their content.
In addition, high priority notifications, such as all-employee-alerts, can be quickly published by the content administrator and targeted to mobile devices for immediate delivery. As companies and employees increasingly rely on mobile devices for their communications needs, Ignite's mobile support enhancement enables enterprises to deliver important and timely communications.
Ignite v7.0 also supports high quality enterprise streaming of live events, with real-time and historical reporting of audience participation. Ignite differentiates its enterprise streaming solution by greatly minimizing the bandwidth used within the enterprise by leveraging its secure, managed P2P technology. Ignite's implentation of P2P is network-friendly and more efficient than traditional streaming models where each participating user's computer has to receive its "own" copy of the live stream directly from the source server or a caching appliance. This P2P delivery efficiency enables customers to provide their audiences with high-quality streams without adversely impacting the network, and enables employees in lower bandwidth locations to participate in live streaming events.
Ignite also features proactive notifications and extensive reporting capabilities. Through Ignite, the content administrator can schedule an Ignite delivery alert which proactively notifies the viewer the event is about to begin, eliminating the need to send e-mails notifying or reminding the audience of the event. To view the stream, the recipient clicks on the alert and immediately connects to the live stream. Ignite provides valuable statistical data relating to the streaming event, and the unique ability to report, throughout the streaming event, the average audience attendance by direct connection to the content server and average audience by peer connection. Ignite also provides peak audience, average audience, and unique audience statistics.
Velocix Metro Supported by Adobe, Microsoft, Sun
Velocix, provider of a leading worldwide digital asset delivery network, this week announced Velocix Metro, a next-generation web video delivery solution that offers radical improvements in quality of service and a dramatic reduction in cost of delivery.
Velocix Metro is a new deployment alternative for the Velocix Digital Asset Delivery Network (DADN), adapted and optimized specifically for operation within Internet service provider (ISP) access networks.
Industry leading hardware and software technology providers have already lined up behind Velocix Metro. Velocix has built strategic relationships with Adobe and Microsoft to provide streaming technologies for the Velocix Metro platform. Sun Microsystems is the preferred equipment provider to Velocix Metro.
"We are delighted to be included in this revolutionary new initiative from Velocix," said Bill Rusitzky, Senior Director of Strategic Alliances at Adobe. "With Adobe Flash Media Server software, Velocix Metro deployments can deliver a rock-solid high quality video stream from the edge of ISP networks directly to their subscribers."
"Our support for Velocix Metro enables the creation of a cost-effective, reliable video delivery platform for Microsoft Silverlight," said Chris Knowlton, Senior Program Manager in Microsoft's Web Server Platform Group. "Hosting Windows Servers inside ISP networks provides a highly efficient, scalable platform for delivering Windows Media (VC-1) content to both Silverlight and Windows Media clients."
"Sun is delighted to team with Velocix to provide a robust and highly scalable hardware platform for Velocix Metro," said Mauricio Arango, CTO, Communications and Media Practice at Sun Microsystems. "Our collaboration combines industry leading server and storage technology, with advanced digital delivery capabilities from Velocix to provide a world-class platform that helps customers meet the increasing demand for a high quality on-line video experience."
"Fundamentally, the infrastructure and economics of the Internet were defined in a time when the web was predominantly text and image based," said John Dillon, Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) at Velocix. "Today, these models are outdated and creaking at the seams as the web of the past attempts to deliver the video web of today. With this announcement, Velocix is responding to the need for a new generation digital delivery solution that redefines web video performance levels at dramatically reduced costs."
The globally deployed Velocix DADN offers a comprehensive suite of delivery services and options available on the market today. Velocix is designed to enable content owners, studios, and broadcasters to deliver video and other large digital assets, such as software, games 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.
Seamless Streaming Servers Powered by TVU Networks
TVU Networks and NGCDN (an operating unit of Tulip Systems) this week announced the launch of NGCDN's Seamless Streaming Server powered by TVU.
At the core of the solution is TVU's Seamless Streaming technology, which together with NGCDN's high-quality, dedicated Windows Media hosting and distribution services, enables broadcasters and content owners to stream live at a pre-determined, known low-cost with the assurance of a high-quality, optimal viewing experience.
Today, TV broadcasters and content owners wanting to provide live streaming are often deterred by high costs and the inability to control these costs. CDNs charge for bandwidth, so flash crowds and increased viewership mean higher bandwidth and higher streaming costs.
Not allocating enough bandwidth, however, means a less than desirable viewing experience. Seamless Streaming Servers offer a hybrid solution that combines the instant-on/always-on access of NGCDN's hosting and distribution services, with the quality, low-cost, and unlimited global scalability of the TVU live P2P solution.
This technology, based on P2P, offers the following benefits: Low broadcast costs - an unlimited number of viewers can be served with no incremental cost per viewer. Broadcasters need only dedicate a single ADSL-sized pipe to TVU to reach an unlimited number of viewers worldwide.
Unlimited scalability - the TVU technology has no limit to the number of viewers who can watch simultaneously and the viewer experience does not degrade as the number of viewers increases. High quality everywhere - unlike traditional CDN streaming services, the TVU technology delivers a high-quality viewer experience everywhere in the world.
"Seamless Streaming Servers allow the broadcaster to completely control the cost of the live streaming event while providing the high quality necessary for the viewer's experience" said Nino Doijashvili, CEO of Tulip Systems. "We are very excited to combine our hosting applications with licensing of TVU Networks' Seamless Streaming technology. We believe that their broadcasters will find our program extremely valuable and cost effective."
"We are very pleased to be partnering with NGCDN, our very first licensee of Seamless Streaming," said Paul Shen, CEO of TVU Networks. "Together we are able to offer a very attractive, low-cost hybrid model combining the easy, instant access of streaming with the unlimited global scalability of the TVU solution coupled with NGCDN's dedicated always-on hosting solution."
Seamless Streaming Servers are available to consumers in two different plans. The first plan offers dedicated servers with a 10 Mbit Dedicated Bandwidth Port. The second plan offers dedicated servers as well but with a 100 Mbit Dedicated Bandwidth Port. It also includes: no set up fee, 24/7 network monitoring, customizable multi-bitrate streaming, and scalable bandwith.
Babelgum Introduces Free Mobile Web TV Platform
Excerpted from New Media Age Report by Danielle Long
Industry-leading peer-to-peer television (P2PTV) platform Babelgum has launched a free mobile web TV platform.
The platform launched earlier this week in Italy in partnership with Vodafone to enable customers with iPhone's and Nokia smart-phones to access short-form content free.
The service is expected to launch officially in London next week in partnership with Vodafone. It's already available in the iPhone App store. The service will roll-out to other countries including the US in the coming months.
The aim is to make the platform available to all smart-phones and Android-enabled phones within the next six months. The goal is to provide tailored and localized short-form entertainment content for each country, which will eventually be supported by advertising.
PrismTech Launches Distributed Caching Technology
Excerpted from CTR Report
PrismTech introduced OpenSplice Cache, a distributed data caching technology. Based on the OpenSplice DDS technology, OpenSplice Cache features a fully distributed, multicast enabled, high-availability architecture.
It is designed to provide better performance and scalability to traditional caching applications, as well as the advantages of caching to a wider spectrum of applications, ranging from distributed embedded real-time systems, to business-critical and mission-critical systems requiring low-latency, extreme throughput, and large scalability.
"Distributed caching technology is emerging as an enabler technology for a variety of scenarios, including high performance computing, extreme transaction processing, complex event processing, and cloud computing," said Massimo Pezzini VP and Gartner Fellow, Application Platform Strategies.
"After years of incubation, distributed caching platforms are entering mainstream adoption. They will increasingly sit at the foundation of users' application infrastructures driven by business imperatives to reduce costs and boost performance and scalability of data intensive applications."
Caching technologies are becoming ubiquitous in a variety of application domains, such as: Distributed Caching Platforms, Cloud Computing, Software as a Service (SaaS), Web Servers, Financial Services, and a variety of other large-scale and data-intensive applications.
This quick uptake has been fostered by the conceptual simplicity of the technology - the distributed caching of data objects for superior accessibility - together with its broad applicability, the cost reduction it enables, and the reduced workload it creates for back-end servers and mainframes.
However, this technology has yet to see broad uptake in distributed embedded real-time systems or in low-latency and throughput-sensitive applications - primarily due to the performance and scalability limitations of the hub-and-spoke architectural style commonly used in existing caching solutions.
OpenSplice Cache enhances OpenSplice DDS with advanced data caching functionality. OpenSplice DDS is an ultra-low-latency real-time publish/subscribe technology. OpenSplice Cache will be available in Q1 2009.
RightScale Secures $13 Million in Venture Funding
RightScale, the leader in cloud computing management, this week announced that it has secured $13 million in its second round of venture capital funding, led by Index Ventures. Current investor Benchmark Capital, which led RightScale's first round of venture financing, also participated in this round.
In addition, RightScale announced that Index Ventures partner Danny Rimer has joined the company's Board of Directors. RightScale will use the proceeds to accelerate product and market development of its cloud computing management platform to meet growing demand, including support for new clouds and expansion into additional geographic markets
Michael Crandell, CEO of RightScale, commented, "Index Ventures has a superb track record in identifying winning technology companies in high growth markets, and we are very pleased that they have demonstrated their confidence in RightScale by leading this financing round. The market for cloud computing is exploding, and this funding will provide the capital to cement our position as the leading cloud computing management vendor and to prepare for further growth in a very promising and expanding marketplace."
Over the next five years, spending on IT cloud services is expected to grow almost threefold, reaching $42 billion by 2012, according to industry research firm IDC. Specializing from its inception exclusively on cloud computing technology, RightScale is well positioned to maintain its leadership position as this industry matures. The company has two years of real-world cloud computing experience and thousands of live deployments. Over 200,000 servers have been successfully launched using the RightScale cloud management platform.
"Having looked at this space in great detail, we believe that RightScale will continue to be the clear leader in cloud computing services," said Index Venture's Rimer. "With RightScale's platform, organizations can quickly realize the benefits of cloud computing without the risks commonly associated with cloud deployments, such as vendor lock-in and loss of IT control. We're very excited to be working with RightScale's experienced team to guide the company's growth, including its expansion into the European market."
BayTSP & NTT Data Partner on Business Intelligence
BayTSP announced this week that it has entered into a commercial agreement with NTT Data Corporation (Tokyo, Japan) to offer content owners a new business intelligence service that identifies where audiences are gathering online, what they're watching, and strategies to tap lucrative new revenue streams from user-generated and user-posted content.
"We have the ability to identify videos before they go viral and our web-based analysis tools deliver previously unattainable metrics on viewership, virality, and propagation, all of which are crucial to leveraging the power of fan-posted video to generate more revenue," said BayTSP CEO Mark Ishikawa.
"Identifying exactly what's appearing in each video clip allows for extremely targeted and more dynamic advertising campaigns. This has the potential to bring a whole new level of audience interaction with video content, higher click-through rates and substantially higher CPMs."
The service integrates BayTSP's Content Authentication Platform (CAP) with NTT's Robust Media Search technology to scan user-generated content (UGC) sites, P2P networks, and cyberlockers worldwide and deliver real-time metrics that can be used by content owners, distributors, and advertisers to deliver context-sensitive advertising based on what appears in the video, instead of relying on keywords or file names.
BayTSP's CAP system monitors the top 12 UGC sites, P2P networks including BitTorrent and eDonkey, and cyberlockers, processing nearly two million minutes of video posted online daily. It tracks viewership on more than 100 million previously posted video clips and continuously updates an index of 1.7 billion minutes of previously uploaded video.
NTT's Robust Media Search technology is the first audio and video fingerprinting system capable of scaling to process the amount of video posted to the major UGC sites, cyberlockers, and P2P networks daily. BayTSP is also working with several additional content-identification companies to implement their systems in a production environment.
"This service, refined over a six-month field trial, delivers business intelligence that allows content owners and distributors to make informed decisions on release dates, pricing, marketing and distribution strategies and identifies entirely new markets," Ishikawa said. "Content owners can manage where their video appears and negotiate revenue sharing agreements with independently verified data on audience and viewership."
The service also allows content owners to compare metrics across multiple UGC sites and allows content distributors to measure their audience metrics against competitors.
What's Happening with P2P Set-Top Boxes
Excerpted from NewTeeVee Report by Janko Roettgers
Here are five P2P set-top boxes (STBs) that made headlines in 2008:
Myka was the big P2P-device story of the spring. It promised licensed content from major studios as well as BitTorrent in a nice box that looked a little like an over-sized Apple TV, and it got enthusiastic coverage from Wired, Gizmodo, Engadget and others. Its website however hasn't been updated since spring and is still taking pre-orders. One former affiliate partner complained that he hasn't seen any money nor heard from the company since April. We tried to get in touch with Myka, but didn't receive any reply - enough reasons to call this vaporware.
Vudu is definitely not vaporware, but the company has faced its own set of obstacles this year. Vudu offers its customers progressive P2P-powered downloads of 1,100 HD movies for $4 a pop. It's been struggling to get a bigger audience for its box despite price cuts, and it went through a round of layoffs and the departure of its CEO. On the plus side, it just introduced a new high-end device. TheVudu XL 2 features "aerospace-grade aluminum bezel," is available only through home-theater installers, and comes with a hefty price tag of $1,299.
Vatata promises to bring its own streaming P2P video platform Vakaka as well as popular file-sharing protocols like BitTorrent to the living room. The China-based company doesn't actually produce its own STBs, but licenses its platform to hardware makers. Earlier this year, it struck three such licensing agreements. Vatata's CEO Jian Song told us that these devices have now reached the shelves of retailers in China, but customers have only bought around 10,000 of them so far. The company is looking for a partner in the US right now and is actively working on the next generation of its platform, which will also feature Hulu playback, according to Song. This one could get interesting - if it makes its way to US retailers.
Boxee also doesn't have its own box, but instead runs among other things on Apple TVs, offering Apple users not only the chance to download torrents straight to their living room thanks to a built-in BitTorrent client, but also to use other people's guilty torrent pleasures as a recommendation engine for Hulu streams and other content sources. That's pretty clever, but the whole set-up has one downside: Apple tightly controls its own platform, as evidenced by the latest Apple TV update that broke Boxee. Granted, the Boxee community came up with a fix in no time, but Boxee will remain a niche product if it depends on its users capability to jailbreak their STB after every new update.
NextshareTV is a STB developed by Pioneer and P2P Next, a European research project backed with EU funding that aims to figure out better P2P streaming solutions. Pioneer has apparently produced a working prototype of this box for an extensive field test of the technology. Don't expect these boxes to reach the shelves in 2009 though: The P2P Next project is scheduled to run for four years, and it's unlikely that content partners like the BBC will allow anything to reach the marketplace before issues like rights management and territorial restrictions are solved.
Top 20 P2P and BitTorrent Search Engines for 2008
Excerpted from Crenk Report by Steven Finch
Torrents are a growth phenomenon, and the combined traffic of the top 5 torrent trackers is now larger than Google. Here is a list of the top 20 torrent trackers for 2008, with comments regarding several of them.
BitSoup is a growing favorite among P2P downloaders. As the trend towards private torrent sharing continues, users need to sign-up and join as a member to participate in the Bitsoup swarm.
MiniNova is the successor to Suprnova, one of the original big torrent databases of the web. Snarf It! was also born from previous Suprnova influences. BiteNova was formerly known as "Bi-Torrents." BiteNova is a free torrent site with a spartan look and fast-searching format.
Demonoid is back online. After legal conflicts in April of 2008, it has reestablished itself outside the US, and has resumed torrent operations. Demonoid is still a private community, and members are held liable for any leeching that their invited friends do in this community.
IsoHunt, in a turn of the tables this September, counter-sued the Canadian music industry claiming that previous copyright violation suits were unfounded, and that it is entitled to have its legal expenses recovered.
TorrentScan is a "meta-search" engine, which is a search engine that searches other search engines. TorrentSpy voluntarily closed its doors in March. Instead of conforming to US court mandates to change privacy policies, Torrentspy opted instead to cease operations. TorrentReactor has made a comeback from a hijacking and an uncooperative hosting service. It has moved to a different server setup and a Tonga country domain outside the US.
YouTorrent is still in beta. This new torrent site claims to be the largest licensed torrent search engine today. Accordingly, the result sets are much smaller than the unfiltered counterparts.
TorrentBox was sued by the MPAA in February 2006. TorrentTyphoon is a unique BitTorrent meta-search engine that searches several of the most popular sites.
The Pirate Bay is the most popular torrent search site today. Pirate Bay has an immense database of 600,000+ torrents, the largest database at this time.
Others include TorrentMatrix, TorrentPortal, Torrentz, Torrents, FileMP3, BTjunkie, and Yotoshi.
FrostWire P2P Client Starts Artist Promotion
Excerpted from TorrentFreak Report by Ben Jones
P2P clients are a great tool to help promote undiscovered artists. This is what FrostWire is trying to accomplish with its new FrostClick service. The results from its first featured artist are very promising.
One of the most common suggestions for artists to make money is to distribute tracks for free as a sampler, and earn money through value-added services like concerts or CDs with physical bonuses. While this is a potentially viable business model for established artists like Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails, the small or just-starting artist can find it hard to generate enough buzz.
That's where sites like Jamendo and last.fm come in. Often they work in a "relational way" - you like that, so we think you'll like this - and can draw a number of new fans. However, it's rare for P2P clients themselves to start promoting artists directly, but that's what FrostWire has done.
Through its new welcome screen, FrostWire users were offered the 6-track album "Oh My" from Sean Fournier for download via BitTorrent. To make things even easier, streaming versions were also available to play, so the music could be sampled without using the torrent. The key here was the simplicity. With one click, the songs could be played. With another click, the torrent for the songs was launched in the client, and the tracks downloaded.
Was it a success? In the first weekend, there were over 25,000 downloads. Now, there are over 32,000 completed, and over 1 terabyte of data transferred via BitTorrent.
For artists, FrostClick is a unique opportunity to reach out to an audience of millions of music fans. Sean was impressed with the results of the campaign, saying, "My downloads have spiked tremendously since FrostClick / FrostWire stepped in, so I wanted to take time to thank everyone over there and let them know that I appreciate all the support! This is awesome!"
FrostClick's Kademlia told TorrentFreak they want to promote people that could get signed. "We'll be constantly looking for more professional independent content creators to give our users more licensed alternatives and great media for free." FrostClick is currently promoting Audra Hardt, and has several other artists lined up for its free promotion service.
Koch Links with P2P Marketing Firm
Excerpted from Billboard Business News Report by Jason Lipshutz
Koch Entertainment Distribution has partnered with P2P marketing company Fan2Band. Under the terms of the deal, artists on Koch's distributed label roster will have access to Fan2Band's marketing platforms, which reach more than 6.5 million members of social networks each month.
Artists will have their own "virtual street teams" on the Fan2Band system. Bands can build their own web pages and recruit fans within a social network's content areas.
Created in 2007, Fan2Band's distribution of widgets and other marketing formats has also been used by EMI Christian and Sony RED.
Coming Events of Interest
Intelligent Selling of Internet Advertising - December 15th in New York, NY. This is a must-do course to gain comprehensive knowledge of all aspects of interactive media delivery, measurement, and creative elements. If you're new to the industry, or need to improve your knowledge and skills, this is an essential course.
P2P MEDIA SUMMIT LV - January 7th 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. This DCIA flagship event is a Conference within CES - the International Consumer Electronics Show.
International CES - January 8th-11th in Las Vegas, NV. With more than four decades of success, the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) reaches across global markets, connects the industry and enables CE innovations to grow and thrive. CES is produced by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), the preeminent trade association promoting growth in the consumer technology industry.
MIDEM & MidemNet Forum - January 17th-21st in Cannes, France. MIDEM is the international music market from all genres for all professionals providing five days of business and and a global networking marketplace. MidemNet Forum focuses on digital distribution of music.
Upsizing: Reinventing Yourself and Your Career for the New Digital Economy – January 22nd in New York, NY. Shelly Palmer, President of NATAS-NY hosts this one-day course that will provide practical guidelines, ideas, techniques, and digital skills to help you become more competitive and make more money in the digital age.
Digital Music Forum East - February 25th-26th in New York, NY. Participants include top label execs, artists and reps, association heads, attorneys, investors, consumer electronics, plus technology leaders from social networks, payments companies, online retailers, mobile companies, technology start-ups and more.
East Coast Music Awards - February 26th - March 1st in Corner Brook, NL, Canada. Live, original music during a four-day festival. Terry McBride, Co-Founder & CEO of Nettwerk Music Group, will be the keynote speaker for the conference component of the ECMA weekend.
P2P MARKET CONFERENCE - March 17th in New York, NY. Strategies to fulfill the multi-billion dollar revenue potential of the P2P and social network channel for the distribution of entertainment content. Case studies of sponsorships, cross-promotion, interactive advertising, and exciting new hybrid business models.
Media Summit New York - March 18th-19th in New York, NY. Sponsored by McGraw-Hill and Digital Hollywood, the 2009 MSNY is the premier international conference on media, broadband, advertising, television, cable & satellite, mobile, publishing, radio, magazines, news & print media, and marketing.
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