December 22, 2008
Volume XXIV, Issue 9
P2P MEDIA SUMMIT Coming Soon
The second annual P2P MEDIA SUMMIT Conference-within-CES is coming to Las Vegas, NV, on Wednesday January 7th.
Featuring industry experts on all aspects of today's most advanced digital distribution technologies from around the world, the summit represents the best investment you can make at the start of the new year to learn about upcoming developments for 2009 and beyond.
The most cost-effective way to attend the P2P MEDIA SUMMIT is with an all-access pass to the 2009 International CES, which includes the summit at no extra charge.
The P2P MEDIA SUMMIT offers a dozen keynote addresses; policy, technology, and marketing tracks; plus panels on content distribution, solutions development, and best practices. There will be a continental breakfast, conference luncheon, and VIP networking reception.
New speakers added to the summit line-up this week include Aaron Markham, VP of Research & Development, BayTSP; Rafael Solis, Director of Marketing, ImageSpan; Alex Limberis, COO, Syabas Technology; and Boh Dupree, Marketing Manager, Verizon Communications.
DCIA Members now offer solutions for content delivery networks (CDNs), network operators, client applications, content providers, consumer electronics manufacturers, and other participants in the rapidly emerging digital distribution marketplace. Several important industry announcements will be made at the summit.
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 second half of 2008. Part one (January-June) was featured here last week.
For a more detailed year-in-review from our newsletter archives, please click here.
In July, a Generator Research report on 17 different P2P content delivery network (CDN) platforms explained why P2P will develop a very strong marketplace position.
Pacific Epoch reported that Xunlei was raising $100 million, and iResearch reported that PPStream was attracting increased advertising dollars. PPLive inked a deal with China Central Television (CCTV) to provide coverage of the Summer Olympics.
The P2P-Next project began testing a new open-source streaming solution through its BitTorrent-based SwarmPlayer. Scientific Director Johan Pouwelse pronounced the results "positive beyond our expectations."
Velocix launched its P2P+ initiative, a new offering for developers of commercial P2P media services and applications. Velocix also entered into a partnership with Kontiki and acquired an exclusive license for RawFlow's P2P Streaming technology.
Comcast and Vonage announced a plan to work together on network management of their respective products and services.
Hiro Media, which enables video publishers to manage and distribute downloadable advertising, and Pando Networks entered into a P2P video advertising alliance. mBit surpassed 200,000 downloads for its mobile P2P sharing. P2P storage service Wuala previewed its cloud computing entry. And Leaf Networks released its "Web-Peer-to-Peer" platform demonstrating the first true P2P Facebook application.
The DCIA culminated a year of work among leading P2P companies and US federal regulatory authorities on an industry-wide program to protect P2P users against inadvertently sharing personal or sensitive data.
Also in July, the Isle of Man and Telefonica Group joined the DCIA.
In August, the DCIA-sponsored P4P Working Group (P4PWG), Co-Chaired by Verizon's Doug Pasko and Pando's Laird Popkin, completed its second round of P4P field trials with Pando, Yale University, and multiple Internet service providers (ISPs), focused on optimizing performance for various broadband network configurations.
Yale Professor Richard Yang and Department of Computer Science PhD candidate Haiyong Xie presented their white paper on P4P at ACM SIGCOMM 2008.
Pando Networks became the first content delivery service to use Intel's Remote Wake technology, and Pando CEO Robert Levitan accepted the 2008 DCIA Innovator's Award on behalf of the company at the inaugural P2P MEDIA SUMMIT Silicon Valley, saying, "P2P technologies will be necessary to enable wide-scale online delivery of video content."
Electronic Arts (EA), publisher of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, chose BitTorrent for the distribution of its closed beta client.
Kontiki was granted its fourth patent by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in the area of distributed content delivery across a computer network.
NextMedia Radio Group selected Abacast's hybrid P2P CDN service for deployment across its 27 stations. And P2PTV leader TVU Networks added a Telemundo channel to its lineup.
Also in August, Octoshape and CDNetworks, a top-tier full-service CDN, joined forces to deliver affordable live P2P streaming for millions of concurrent viewers. Vatata launched its conceptualization of P2P set-top box (STB) solutions. MonArc Corporation (MONA) developed an English language version of the company's PP2008 software. 2Peer launched as "Your own Private Internet." And Cucku began enabling users to automatically save their files to friends' computers over the Skype P2P network.
In September, Napster agreed to be acquired by electronics retailer Best Buy for $121 million. Networking industry giant Cisco Systems acquired privately held Jabber, which specializes in instant messaging (IM) solutions. And Abacast purchased Tukati, a producer of peer-assisted on-demand delivery solutions.
Abacast also successfully powered the SBS Internet Olympics live online broadcast of the Olympics and began streaming a program for ClearChannel's 94.5 the Buzz.
Comcast submitted plans to the FCC detailing how the company plans to manage its broadband network. The company received no customer complaints in trial runs of its new system in five areas. Comcast also challenged its FCC sanction.
Kontiki debuted its Delivery Management System (DMS) 5.4, an advanced peer-assisted delivery technology that increases efficiency and control.
MyToons inked a partnership with P2PTV leader Vuze. Spike Lee launched the second annual Babelgum online film festival. And Joost unveiled the beta version of its web-based version with a host of social media-ready features. PiCast also entered the market for peer-assisted video delivery with the expertise of its parent company ARTISTdirect, owner of anti-piracy firm MediaDefender.
Solid State Networks partnered with leading independent game publisher Funcom to launch new digital delivery solutions. PPLive experimented with its P2P accelerator, PPVA, for Flash video streams from sites like YouTube.
Conviva secured $20 million in funding. On the heels of BitTorrent's new game company partnerships, the company took on $17 million in new financing. Investors also put $6 million more into CrossLoop, the P2P IT help desk app.
QTRAX and SOASTA, the leading provider of cloud-based testing solutions, made a significant breakthrough in the load testing of web applications in the cloud. LimeWire finalized a content agreement with The Orchard, adding 1.2 million songs to the LimeWire Store, and pushing the total catalog past two million. Grooveshark extended its free P2P music streaming service, Grooveshark Lite, with the addition of autoplay. And Marillion made history by leveraging the power of P2P networks for distribution of its new album. YouLicense, the global online music licensing platform, and RightsFlow partnered to offer synchronization and private label licensing solutions for record labels.
At Streaming Media West (SMW), the DCIA presented Can P2P Deliver On Its Promise For Video Distribution with BitTorrent, Comcast, Verizon, and Cushman & Wakefield, which uses Ignite Technologies' enterprise file-sharing system to exchange everything from training videos to CEO announcements. "The poster child for P2P is the enterprise solution," said Brian Jensen, Managing Director of Global Corporate Communications.
Hiro Media joined the DCIA. DCIA Member companies exhibiting at SMW included Abacast, AT&T, Ignite Technologies, Kontiki, PiCast, and TVU Networks.
In October, MultiMedia Intelligence released P2P Networking: Content's "Bad Boy" Becomes Tomorrow's Distribution Channel, not only projecting a massive 400% increase in P2P traffic over five years from a level of 1.6 petabytes to almost 8 petabytes per month by 2012, but also indicating that authorized use of P2P is growing at a rate ten times faster than unlawful use.
P2P service Spotify raised $21 million at a $96 million pre-money valuation while in beta. VBrick Systems, a provider of live, online networked video services, secured $10.4 million in financing.
Brilliant Digital Entertainment (BDE), parent company of Altnet, introduced CopyRouter, a new tool to stop unauthorized content from being redistributed on the Internet. CopyRouter uses deep packet inspection (DPI) to monitor e-mail attachments, HTTP downloads, and P2P protocols.
The DCIA conducted the first-ever P2P & MUSIC CONFERENCE at PopKomm with the support of Thomas Reemer, CEO of CUGate; and, two weeks later, the first-ever P2P & VIDEO CONFERENCE at Digital Hollywood Fall (DHF).
QTRAX Chairman & CEO Allan Klepfisz gave a live demonstration at the P2P & MUSIC CONFERENCE, and the company made several high-profile appointments. LimeWire signed +1 Records to break an album by one of the label's new bands. MP2P launched Blubster 3.0, the latest version of its flagship P2P file-sharing software.
Dow Lohnes joined the DCIA. MP2P's CEO Pablo Soto accepted the 2008 DCIA Pioneer's Award at the P2P & MUSIC CONFERENCE, and Oversi's Eitan Efron accepted the 2008 DCIA Trendsetter's Award at the P2P & VIDEO CONFERENCE, on behalf of their respective companies.
Comcast unveiled its new tiered broadband packages and service enhancements, doubling the bandwidth capacity of its 6 and 8 Mbps packages to 12 and 16 Mbps at no extra cost. Two new residential tiers offer 50 Mbps downstream and 10 Mbps upstream for additional fees.
Brand Asset Digital (BAD) launched the public beta of its groundbreaking search-engine marketing platform, P2Pwords, the first pay-per-click (PPC) for P2P search, which gives advertisers the ability to target and connect their branded content directly to consumers.
Buffalo added the NAS built-in DLNA Server to its high-performance line of LinkStation Live. Vuze introduced version 4.0 of its BitTorrent client, broadening the overall user base of the file-sharing protocol. Shareaza released version 2.4 of its P2P file-sharing client, which supports the Gnutella, Gnutella2, eDonkey, BitTorrent, FTP, and HTTP network protocols.
Jack Layton, leader of the National Democratic Party (NDP) in Canada, said that P2P networks are part of innovation and should not be regulated.
In November, a report from the Rubicon Project stated that millions of dollars were being shifted into online advertising, a global industry no longer subject to any one country's economy. eMarketer projected that online advertising will grow from $24.5 billion in 2008 to $28.5 billion in 2009.
BAD entered a strategic marketing alliance with Bollywood's Saavn; acquired Heritage Tower in Battle Creek, MI and began expanding regional employment; and appointed Jim Caparro to the company's Board of Advisors.
CloudShield Technologies announced record Q3 growth, achieving a more than 100% increase in bookings versus the same period in 2007, and marking the largest revenue generated by its sales teams since the company's inception.
BitTorrent appointed Eric Klinker as the company's new Chief Executive Officer (CEO). PPLive raised $20 million from venture capital investors; PeerApp brought in $8 million; and Boxee, a company that delivers online content to Apple TVs and computers through its social media center platform, secured $4 million.
Level 3 Communications was selected to provide caching and downloading services to Pando Networks to support the delivery of rich media content for commercial customers.
LimeWire announced version 5.0 of its popular file-sharing software offering many social features. LimeWire also struck a deal with Viacom's Comedy Central to sell the cable network's library of digital comedy albums.
GridNetworks announced GridCast TV, which matches the distribution reach of broadband-delivered web video with the preference among consumers to watch television in the living room.
Verizon and Velocix put commercial and technological arrangements in place to create a next-generation CDN, which includes P2P capabilities to meet the needs of the rapidly evolving cloud-based media-distribution industry.
Comcast released the first-ever real-world data on P4P technology from the second round of field trials - which were a massive success. P4P's iTracker technology can increase P2P download speeds by 80% on ISP networks without materially increasing the network load. Pando announced further results of the trials with other major ISPs including AT&T and Verizon.
Oversi deployed the first implementation of its NetEnhancer management tool for P2P traffic. Designed to complement P4PWG technological advances, NetEnhancer optimizes service providers' network resources to accelerate content delivery.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported on how Kevin Bermeister and Michael Speck joined forces to invent technology to eliminate redistribution of unauthorized material over P2P networks and the Internet: BDE's Global File Registry and Copyrouter tool.
Digital Media Exchange (DME) selected Solid State Networks' game delivery solution. BFM Digital signed with RightsFlow. Jamendo entered the US market with a multi-dimensional platform for music published under Creative Commons licenses. GigaTribe launched its US service, a private, encrypted P2P environment to share entire file folders of photos, videos, and music. LittleShoot launched a new web-based P2P file-sharing program. And Mezeo Software Corporation announced the first deployable, white-label online file-sharing and collaboration solution, Mezeo Personal Cloud Storage (PCS).
During the first half of December, BitTorrent and Oversi announced their collaboration to deliver an integrated solution that optimizes P2P traffic across ISP networks.
A new Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) working group, Application-Layer Traffic Optimization (ALTO), started to look into improving the routing of P2P data traffic.
uTorrent - the client of choice for most BitTorrent users - released its long-awaited Mac version. BitTorrent also introduced uTP, the UDP-based micro transport protocol for communication among peers. RightScale, a leader in cloud computing management, secured $13 million in funding.
TorrentAds launched the world's first torrent-tracker-related advertising network. Ultramercial began production of its new Ultracelerator, a high-performance ad server and software package for Wi-Fi. And BayTSP entered into a commercial agreement with NTT Data to offer content owners a new business intelligence service.
Velocix introduced Velocix Metro, a next-generation web video delivery solution with support from Adobe, Microsoft, and Sun. Ignite Technologies announced version 7.0 of the Ignite Content Delivery Solution.
QTRAX concluded a global agreement with Sony BMG Music Entertainment that will make its premier digital music catalog available to music fans worldwide on the QTRAX platform.
Vuze released its third beta for version 4.0 with several UI and core enhancements. TVU Networks and NGCDN launched a Seamless Streaming Server. Joost previewed its application for the iPhone; Livestation previewed live P2PTV to the iPhone; and MewSeek brought P2P music to the iPhone.
LimeWire 5.0 launched in alpha with a new UI and granular options for sharing files with friends. The LimeWire Store released "Live at Lime with Lisa Loeb," donating proceeds to the Camp Lisa Foundation to send underprivileged children to summer camp. FrostWire launched its new FrostClick service to promote up-and-coming artists. And Blacksmith's founder and P2P activist Al Smith was featured at the Annual Celebration of International Human Rights Day.
As uplifting as it has been to recall our industry's continually building momentum during 2008, we are even more excited by the new opportunities to work with you in 2009 to achieve the commercial potential of P2P, peer-assisted hybrids, cloud computing, and even more advanced implementations of distributed computing. Share wisely, and take care.
Supercharged P2P - Cooperation Averts Congestion
Excerpted from MIT Technology Review Report by Kurt Kleiner
As ISPs struggle with increasing traffic from P2P file-sharing networks, some have resorted to simply throttling this data, attracting ire from both users and regulators. Under a scheme that should be rolled out early next year, some ISPs plan to take a different approach: cooperating with file-sharing networks so that they share data more effectively.
The new scheme is called Provider Portal for Applications (P4P), and it's a voluntary, open standard that requires ISPs to share some information about how their networks are laid out. Initial tests have shown that the P4P framework can dramatically speed up download times for file sharers while also reducing the bandwidth costs for ISPs.
P2P file sharing has exploded over the past decade, driven by increasing consumer bandwidth and growing demand for large amounts of data. Rather than serve files from a centralized location, file-sharing networks scatter pieces among thousands of individual computers and help users find and download this data. File sharing now accounts for about 70% of all network traffic, and some ISPs have found it hard to deal with the increased load.
The new protocol reduces file-trading traffic by having ISPs reveal some internal network information to "tracker" servers that are used to locate files for downloading. Trackers can then use this network information to arrange file sharing more efficiently, by connecting computers that are nearer and sharing files at the lowest resource cost to the ISPs involved. As an example, suppose someone running a BitTorrent client tries to download an MP3. As it stands, the file might come from a computer halfway around the world, even if someone next door also happens to have a copy. By using P4P, the tracker knows to connect computers that are closer together, requiring bits to travel less distance.
"We knew, as a peer-to-peer company, that in order for P2P to become successfully commercialized, network operators had to be cooperative," says Robert Levitan, CEO of Pando Networks, a company that offers commercial P2P content delivery services. "Instead of blocking traffic, they had to get involved in it."
Pando is a founding member of the DCIA-sponsored P4P Working Group (P4PWG), a consortium set-up in 2007 to develop and test new technologies to make P2P more efficient. Members include the ISPs Verizon and Comcast, the P2P software company BitTorrent, the network equipment manufacturer Cisco Systems, and academic institutions including Yale University and University of Washington.
Small-scale tests conducted in March by Yale researchers, Pando, Verizon, and Telefonica Group suggest that the system could cut the average distance that data has to travel from 1,000 miles to 160 miles, and reduce the number of connections that have to be made through major hubs from 5.5 to 0.69. This would help ISPs avoid the costs incurred when information is handed-off among major networks. The approach could also benefit users, by increasing download speeds by an average of 20%, according to the same tests.
A more recent study carried out this fall with Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T showed that P2P download speeds could increase 50-to-150% using the technology. And the amount of content that is delivered entirely within each ISP chould increase from 14% to as much as 89%.
But the P4P approach is not without its challenges. The protocol depends on ISPs calculating and making available "p-distance values" to the trackers, to tell them how best to connect different file sharers.
Nonetheless, Richard Woundy, Senior Vice President for Software and Applications with Comcast, admits that the idea is appealing. "The ISP benefits because traffic isn't going over as much infrastructure," he says. "It's staying within a metro area, or at least staying within the ISP. It's not going over a transit link to an upstream provider."
Doug Pasko, Principal Member of the Technical Team at Verizon, says that Pando and Verizon have plans to roll out a P4P implementation soon, possibly by the end of January. The P4PWG has also submitted a technology framework document to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) seeking official approval for the P4P standard.
Comcast is also interested in implementing the technology, says Barry Tishgart, Vice President for Internet Services for the company. "Our inclination is, we want to do it. The results of our trial are very positive," he says. But the tests carried out so far have been relatively small: the one performed this fall shared a single 21-megabyte video file, which was downloaded 15,000 times. So Tishgart wants to see what happens when larger file sizes and large swarms of peers try to download a popular file.
Finally, the success of the scheme depends on the thousand or more P2P software applications that currently exist agreeing to use the P4P protocol. Tishgart says that they tend to be suspicious of ISPs' motives. But if they see performance gains for their users and no downside, then they may be much more likely to cooperate.
Brand Asset Digital Launches P2Panalytics for P2P Search
Brand Asset Digital (BAD), the distributed technologies company with a focus on P2P search marketing, P2P intelligence, and efficient live content delivery, announced this week its robust P2P intelligence service, P2Panalytics.
P2Panalytics enables marketers to access consumption-behavior statistics of users across P2P networks for the branded content advertised in BAD's ad network, P2Pwords. Business intelligence is available for all major content categories including software, games, music, film, and television.
"The ability to promote products and new releases to consumers where they search for and consume content is a powerful tool," said Tim Hogan, Co-Founder & CEO of Brand Asset Digital. "But being able to document the consumption of the content is unheard of even in the digital space."
P2Panalytics provides advertisers and media companies with the most accurate metrics available in the patterns of their content's geographical use - data that's never before been available. P2Panalytics empowers brands to access business intelligence on the usage habits of over 450 million P2P users worldwide with an accountability engine of world-class proportion. This business intelligence map of P2P consumption is unprecedented.
"P2Pwords provides advertisers the same ability to connect with their targets across P2P Search, as they have for example, with Google Adwords SEM for web search. With P2Panalytics, marketers not only get unprecedented Pay-Per-Click (PPC) keyword driven targeting in P2P, but they also gain a deeper understanding of the consumption patterns of their core market online," added Joey Patuleia, Co-Founder of Brand Asset Digital.
P2Pwords is the world's first search marketing platform for P2P search. By inserting branded content within actual search results, consumers are provided with value-added experiences in tune with P2P search and exploration. Google and others place textual ads around the web search results but are, unlike P2Pwords, never the search results themselves.
The P2Pwords technology applies the same business model of web-based PPC keyword targeting to over 1.5 billion searches per day (Tiversa) / 45 billion searches a month, on P2P. That is well over four times the size of web search. Google Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing, and MSN Adcenter have created a web search market worth $22 billion in 2007 on over 10 billion web searches a month (comScore).
CloudShield Announces DNS Deployment
Excerpted from Telephony Online Report by Carol Wilson
CloudShield this week announced deployment of its CS-2000 network services platform by Dynamic Network Services, a global provider of Internet-based domain, zone, and e-mail services.
Dynamic Network Services began as a free DNS service provider for the Perl and open-source communities but has grown to provide both its signature free service as well as commercial DNS services and Dynect, an enterprise-class dynamic DNS offering.
"They've got to run cost-effectively, since they have free as well as paid-for services, and they want to make sure that service is up and performing as expected," said Bill Scull, Vice President of Marketing at CloudShield. "They are using our product to protect their infrastructure to make sure their online presence is maintained despite botnet attacks or D-DOS attacks."
Such attacks can generate from 10 times to 500 times or more than average traffic on a site and service providers such as Dynamic Network Services cannot afford to over-provision bandwidth to be able to handle such an attack. The CloudShield CS-2000 uses deep packet inspection (DPI) to detect malicious traffic and prevent it from overwhelming the websites, authentication servers, DNS server farms, and other service provider infrastructure.
"If they have a CS-2000 in front of their infrastructure, they have the ability, at line rates, to sort the good packets from the bad packets," Scull said. "Dynamic Network Services has a number of different centers around the globe and they will be deploying our boxes in each of those."
Dynamic Network Services also can use the programmability of the CS-2000 to update, on its own or using software upgrades from CloudShield, to be prepared to handle new threats as they develop.
Abacast Appoints Digital Media Exec to Board of Advisors
Abacast has appointed digital media technology and entertainment veteran Nils Lahr to the company's Board of Advisors.
Mr. Lahr is the former Co-Founder & CTO of iBEAM Broadcasting and a key architect of Microsoft's Digital Media Platform. He was also a founder of VXtreme, which was acquired by Microsoft for over $50 million. Mr. Lahr has consulted on technology strategy and projects to numerous Fortune 50 companies. He recently co-founded Synergy Sports, which indexes video of every NBA game, and Lexicon Digital, a start-up venture founded with the actor David Caruso.
"The addition of Nils Lahr as an Advisor adds valuable and deep experience in the development of Abacast's technology, including our unique Hybrid CDN and advertising injection technologies. We are delighted to have the contribution of Nils' vast experience and knowledge," said Mike King, President, Abacast. "This appointment will provide us a solid platform for accelerating our development and expansion."
"Abacast's technologies are exciting to me as it is clear that the digital media industry requires hybrid solutions to move to the next level and continue to offset demand from traditional broadcast and onto the Internet," said Mr. Lahr. "By utilizing all available delivery options, the consumer is provided with the best possible experience 24/7. I'm excited about joining the team and lending my experiences to help scale and accelerate Abacast's solutions."
GridNetworks Supports GridCast TV on Sony PlayStation 3
Video delivery platform provider GridNetworks this week announced support for GridCast TV on the Sony PlayStation 3. The GridCast TV service, which launched last month, enables content distributors and owners to stream video directly over the Internet to viewers' TVs without requiring a set-top box (STB) or any other additional hardware. GridCast TV uses existing universal plug-and-play (UPnP) devices such as the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Internet-enabled TVs.
GridCast TV can now be viewed by anyone with an Internet-connected Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3. With combined support for these two gaming consoles, which hold a majority of console market share, GridCast TV can reach over 36 million homes worldwide, with roughly half of those in the US. These numbers are also growing quickly, with Microsoft recently announcing the biggest Black Friday ever for the Xbox 360, with record sales on one of the biggest shopping days of the year for US retailers.
"Microsoft and Sony know that today's console gamers are perfectly suited for new TV offerings," said broadband media expert Colin Dixon in a report for TDG, a market planning and research firm that is a leading voice regarding the diffusion of broadband video. "The segment is dominated by males between the ages of 18 and 35 - a prized advertising demographic - with little sense of loyalty to their local cable or telephone companies. They are also heavy viewers of online video and quite comfortable spending money for online digital media."
GridNetworks CEO Tony Naughtin said, "Support for the PlayStation 3 further broadens the Internet reach we give content owners into their viewers' living rooms. And just as with GridCast TV over the Xbox 360 and Internet-enabled TVs, our customers don't have to give their content to a third party, or negotiate with cable or satellite providers. They remain in control of their brand, content, and revenue."
Nettwerk Music Group Announces Still Alive
Nettwerk Music Group has announced the upcoming release of Still Alive - The Remixes by Lisa Miskovsky, the soundtrack album for the DICE/EA video game, Mirror's Edge.
After being called upon to co-write and perform the video game's theme song, "Still Alive," a unique opportunity emerged for Lisa Miskovsky to create a full-length album containing remixes of the song by some of the world's top electronic music performers and producers.
The album includes remixes by the Teddybears, Junkie XL, Paul Van Dyk, Benny Benassi, and Armand Van Helden. The music video for "Still Alive" was shot in downtown Los Angeles and directed by Scrambled Visual, credited for work on videos for The Killers, Sting, Panic At The Disco, Juanes, the Teddybears, The Rolling Stones, Thursday, and Bloc Party.
Joost's Use of P2P Technology in Flux
Excerpted from GigaOM Report by Jank Roettgers
Joost has informed its users via e-mail that it will discontinue the support of its desktop client and instead completely concentrate on its new website. This is a big step for a company that once aimed to revolutionize online video with P2P technology, and whose founders previously succeeded with P2P apps like Kazaa and Skype.
Others are far more successful with P2P video clients, but it looks like Joost may bring back some elements of its software sooner or later. This includes not only P2P distribution, but also other social and interactive features that made Joost's software unique.
Joost obviously spent a lot of resources developing a working P2P infrastructure for its client. Initially, it had some scalability issues, but it worked fairly well later on. We asked Joost CEO Mike Volpi what's going to happen to his company's P2P technology now, and he was quick to point out that this effort is not going to be wasted. "As we find the right application for that technology, we will reintroduce it into a service," he told us.
One possible scenario would be live sports or music programming. P2P works best when many people access the same video simultaneously. In fact, Chinese P2P start-up PPLive was able to handle 1.6 million concurrent viewers for the opening ceremony of the Olympics. Numbers like these tend to still cause hiccups for traditional CDNs, but a well-done P2P solution is able to scale up without any major issues.
Major sports events could also help Joost to overcome a big obstacle of its previous client-only model: installing a dedicated video client - only to discover that the content wasn't worth the effort. Video distribution companies like Move Networks have demonstrated that people don't mind installing a little plug-in when it gives them content they actually want.
There also have been some speculations about Joost-enabled set-top boxes (STBs) in the past, and some people have wondered in recent days whether this could be a way for Joost to leverage P2P.
It seems that the company now wants to get a larger audience with its web platform and then gradually re-introduce some of the client's more advanced features.
Volpi promised that one of the upcoming releases of Joost's service will feature the ability to tag and comment on specific points within a video. It also plans to open its website to widgets from third-party developers, but this will require more development.
Wuala Launches New API for P2P Social Online Storage
Wuala, the place for free social online storage that allows users to securely store and share files online, announced this week the release of a new web interface and application programming interface (API) to the Wuala service.
This will now enable Wuala users to make selected files available on the web, so they can be easily and directly accessed by anyone or embedded in blogs and websites. Users can now also send secret links to privately shared files without requiring recipients to register or sign up to view the files.
The newly released API enables developers to securely access Wuala's data for the seamless integration with other applications, widgets, social networking sites, blogs, and mobile services. The API is now available at http://www.wuala.com/api.
"The web interface is a major leap forward for Wuala and for its users," said Dominik Grolimund, Co-Founder & CEO of Wuala. "We are constantly looking at new ways to enhance the Wuala experience and are very excited to deliver the new web access to them."
Since the launch in August, Wuala has gained substantial traction within the community of online storage. Users have quickly adopted Wuala's unique vision as a central hub for combining online storage and social content sharing, with over 30 million files stored and shared already. Wuala's rapid growth is not only attributed to its social network and sharing capabilities, but also to the unique way of securing user files.
All files stored in Wuala are encrypted on the user's computer before they are stored online. In addition, the user's password never leaves his/her computer; therefore, no one - not even the company - can ever decrypt the user's private files.
"Security is a major priority for us," said Co-Founder & CTO Luzius Meisser. "We want our users to feel confident that their files are completely secure in Wuala. They never have to worry about who has access to them because they are in total control."
How to Predict Tomorrow's Hit Songs Today
Excerpted from Popular Science Report by Brooke Borel
Researchers at Tel Aviv University's School of Electrical Engineering have developed an algorithm that predicts the next big music superstar, and the accuracy is amazingly high: so far, it has a success rate of about 30-to-50%, according to lead researcher Yuval Shavitt.
The algorithm pulls data from Gnutella, which gets about 30-to-40 million queries a day and is currently the most popular P2P file-sharing network in the United States.
So far, the algorithm successfully predicted recent breakout artists Soulja Boy and Sean Kingston a full two months before they climbed to the top of Billboard charts. And when Atlanta-based rap trio Shop Boyz catapulted to fame, the algorithm predicted that, too - nine weeks before the group signed with Universal.
Shavitt's algorithm could help record companies and music producers get early artist recommendations, and may have broader entertainment business applications, including predicting hit TV shows and YouTube videos. According to Shavitt, it could also be "applied to other electronically documented human activity" like online political forums, a subject he said might be a candidate for future research.
Shavitt's group hopes to expand their predictions for the music industry. The next step, he said, is to find an algorithm to predict how long a song will remain at the top of the charts. His team is also looking at cultural differences among countries to see if the algorithms apply worldwide.
But while his predicting tool might impact how the music world finds its stars, Shavitt doesn't see it as fully replacing the gut reaction of the talent scout.
"I see this as a tool that will save time-and-effort on the part of human scouts. In general any technological advancement may make a few professions less required or even obsolete, but it opens the door for new professions. 'Talking movies' made the movie theater orchestras obsolete - but musicians found other ways to make a living," he said.
Cloud Computing: The Ever Expanding Buzzword
Excerpted from Datamation Report by James Maguire
In the old days, say 2006, the term cloud computing referred to essentially one thing. To be using cloud computing, you accessed software over the Internet - "in the cloud." The applications were always located in a remote location, sort of like Dick Cheney.
A couple years ago I interviewed Tim O'Brien, Director of Microsoft's Platform Strategy Group, about Redmond's nascent cloud strategy. At the time, the cloud computing train was leaving the station and Microsoft knew it had to get on board. (Its recent Azure initiative being the most tangible result.) Amid the company's fits and starts, O'Brien was clear in how he used the term: cloud computing meant accessing software outside the firewall.
But that straightforward definition has been lost to the sands of time, or at least the sandstorm of vendor excitement. As cloud computing has emerged as a red hot trend, tech vendors of every stripe have painted the term 'cloud' on their products, much like food brands all tout that they're 'low fat.'
Cloud variations keep expanding. Now we not only have Software as a Service (SaaS), but also Platform as a Service (PaaS), Hardware as a Service (HaaS) and Application as a Service (AaaS). (Actually, there is no AaaS, because even hype-crazed vendors know that it's one acronym too far.)
Nick Carr, the IT guru and ardent cheerleader for the cloud, has even suggested the term Cloud as a Feature, or CaaF. A CaaF application combines elements that are installed on your hard drive with elements accessed over the web. For instance, he posits that Google Earth is "kind of CaaFy." If the term CaaF catches on, some day a poor tech blogger will write a post titled "Is your Software CaaFeinated?" That's a day we must dread.
But of all the oddness in the gold rush of cloudspeak, the most disconcerting is how the term has lost its basic meaning as an external resource. Cloud computing can now be external or internal. That's right, forward-looking companies can now access the cloud without leaving home. Please click here for the rest of this report.
Music Industry to Abandon Mass Suits
Excerpted from Wall Street Journal Report by Sarah McBride and Ethan Smith
After years of suing thousands of people for allegedly stealing music via the Internet, the recording industry is set to drop its legal assault as it searches for more effective ways to combat online music piracy.
The decision represents an abrupt shift of strategy for the industry, which has opened legal proceedings against about 35,000 people since 2003. Critics say the legal offensive ultimately did little to stem the tide of illegally downloaded music. And it created a public-relations disaster for the industry, whose lawsuits targeted, among others, several single mothers, a dead person, and a 13-year-old girl.
Instead, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) said it plans to try an approach that relies on the cooperation of Internet service providers (ISPs). The trade group said it has hashed out preliminary agreements with major ISPs under which it will send an e-mail to the provider when it finds a provider's customers making music available online for others to take.
Depending on the agreement, the ISP will either forward the note to customers, or alert customers that they appear to be uploading music illegally, and ask them to stop. If the customers continue the file sharing, they will get one or two more e-mails, perhaps accompanied by slower service from the provider. Finally, the ISP may cut off their access altogether.
The RIAA said it has agreements in principle with some ISPs, but declined to say which ones. But ISPs, which are increasingly cutting content deals of their own with entertainment companies, may have more incentive to work with the music labels now than in previous years.
The new approach dispenses with one of the most contentious parts of the lawsuit strategy, which involved filing lawsuits requiring ISPs to disclose the identities of file sharers. Under the new strategy, the RIAA would forward its e-mails to the ISPs without demanding to know the customers' identity.
Though the industry group is reserving the right to sue people who are particularly heavy file sharers, or who ignore repeated warnings, it expects its lawsuits to decline to a trickle. The group stopped filing mass lawsuits early this fall.
It isn't clear that the new strategy will work or how effective the collaboration with the ISPs will be. "There isn't any silver-bullet anti-piracy solution," said Eric Garland, President of BigChampagne, a piracy consulting company.
Mr. Garland said he likes the idea of a solution that works more with consumers. In the years since the RIAA began its mass legal action, "It has become abundantly clear that the carrot is far more important than the stick." Indeed, many in the music industry felt the lawsuits had outlived their usefulness.
"I'd give them credit for stopping what they've already been doing because it's been so destructive," said Brian Toder, who represents a Minnesota mother involved in a high-profile file-sharing case. But his client isn't off the hook. The RIAA said it plans to continue with outstanding lawsuits.
Over the summer, New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo began brokering an agreement between the recording industry and the ISPs that would address both sides' piracy concerns. "We wanted to end the litigation," said Steven Cohen, Mr. Cuomo's chief of staff. "It's not helpful."
As the RIAA worked to cut deals with individual ISPs, Mr. Cuomo's office started working on a broader plan under which major ISPs would agree to work to prevent illegal file sharing.
The RIAA believes the new strategy will reach more people, which itself is a deterrent. "Part of the issue with infringement is for people to be aware that their actions are not anonymous," said Mitch Bainwol, the group's Chairman.
Mr. Bainwol said that while he thought the litigation had been effective in some regards, new methods were now available to the industry. "Over the course of five years, the marketplace has changed," he said in an interview. Litigation, he said, was successful in raising the public's awareness that file sharing is illegal, but now he wants to try a strategy he thinks could prove more successful.
The RIAA says piracy would have been even worse without the lawsuits. Citing data from consulting firm NPD Group, the industry says the percentage of Internet users who download music over the Internet has remained fairly constant, hovering around 19% over the past few years. However, the volume of music files shared over the Internet has grown steadily.
Meanwhile, music sales continue to fall. In 2003, the industry sold 656 million albums. In 2007, the number fell to 500 million CDs and digital albums, plus 844 million paid individual song downloads - hardly enough to make up the decline in album sales.
And Now a New Cause for Serious Concern
Excerpted from Online Examiner Report by Wendy Davis
After instituting proceedings against 35,000 music fans since 2003, the RIAA has decided it will no longer file lawsuits against individual web users.
But here's the bad news. The RIAA is forging deals with Internet service providers (ISPs) to target alleged file sharers without going to court.
The RIAA has already come to agreements in principle with some large ISPs for a program to sanction alleged file sharers. Complete details aren't known, but reports say that the sanctions would begin with warnings and culminate with disconnections.
In other words, the ISPs will become the RIAA's private copyright police. That idea should horrify anyone who cares about preserving people's ability to communicate.
Consider, if ISPs and the RIAA do implement their own extra-judicial plan, who will decide when copyright infringement has occurred? The one thing we've learned from the last five years of litigation is that the RIAA, with its penchant for suing dead people and other now-exonerated citizens, frequently gets it wrong.
But at least the legal system has built-in safeguards. When the RIAA goes to court, it can't learn individual users' identities unless it presents a judge with enough evidence for a subpoena. And it can't prevail at trial unless it convinces a judge and/or jury that the user did actually infringe on copyright.
If ISPs simply cut users off, the burden to go to court to attempt to reverse that decision will be on individual users - many of whom can't even afford to hire attorneys to defend themselves from the RIAA's lawsuits.
From the beginning, the decision to file copyright lawsuits against individual web users was controversial. Now, more than five years after the campaign began, the strategy has proven disastrous on many levels.
It has cost the RIAA millions of dollars in legal fees, not to mention the kind of bad will you can't put a price tag on. Judges have condemned the imbalanced prosecutions and the RIAA's ability to extract ruinous damages. Meanwhile, the one case to go to a jury resulted in a mistrial.
The shift away from litigation is long overdue. But a decision to enlist ISPs as private enforcers is cause for serious concern.
Coming Events of Interest
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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