July 13, 2009
Volume XXVII, Issue 2
$4 Billion Down-Payment to Expand US Broadband
Excerpted from Washington Post Report by Cecilia Kang
US Vice President Joe Biden this week announced guidelines for $4 billion in stimulus funds to expand high-speed Internet access across the nation, jump-starting a program that has been criticized for taking too long to get off the ground.
The first round of grants and loans is part of a total $7.2 billion in funds for expanding broadband networks tucked into the $787 billion fiscal stimulus package signed by President Obama in February. The administration has touted the expansion of broadband access as a way to quickly create jobs during a stubborn recession.
"This funding is a down-payment on the President's commitment to bring the educational and economic benefits of the Internet to all communities," Biden said.
While many other stimulus projects are already in the works, the first dollars for broadband expansion won't be spent until the end of the year at the earliest. Some analysts and telecommunications industry insiders have said that orders for telecommunications network equipment and services have been delayed as potential applicants for broadband funds wait for the government to push forward with the grants and loans.
The Commerce and Agriculture Departments said they will accept applications from private firms, non-profit groups, and state and local governments for the first allotment of $4 billion from July 14th through August 14th. The winners will be announced in early November, and the grants are expected to be distributed within 30 days.
The timing, however, coincides with the start of winter, when the ground freezes in some parts of the country. That could delay for months some projects that require digging trenches to lay fiber and cable lines. The other two rounds of funding are expected to be completed by September 30, 2010.
If they wanted to get this done in the fastest way, they could have done tax credits and not grants; but given they have chosen to do grants, they have to make the process fair and that takes time to set up," said Debbie Goldman, Director of Research at the Communications Workers of America labor union.
The guidelines also set minimum speeds for new broadband networks at 768 kilobits per second - speeds that would not allow Internet users to download picture files or watch video clips.
Harold Feld, Legal Director at public interest group Public Knowledge, said the low speed standards were set to include wireless Internet access in some remote areas where cable and fiber-optic networks are more difficult and costly to build. The administration said in its rules that projects which deliver higher speeds will be weighted more heavily than those with lower speeds.
The largest network operators, Verizon, AT&T, and Comcast, said they aren't likely to apply for the grants or loans. But equipment makers and some carriers such as Level 3, XO Communications, and RCN, which provide network services for businesses and Internet providers, could benefit from the broadband program.
"Broadband stimulus is a big opportunity Level 3 is excited about," said Sureel Choksi, Chief Marketing Officer at Level 3. "We are working through details on how we might participate directly and indirectly through our customers who are last mile providers."
Myka's BitTorrent STB: Great Home Theater
Excerpted from BetaNews Report by Tim Conneally
With as many set-top boxes (STBs) as there suddenly appear to be in the home video market, as long as any one of them has a strong central feature, it could be the one that becomes a household name. Look at TiVo, Slingbox, and AppleTV. Each of these built a TV-based ecosystem around a single unique feature: TiVo's was the DVR, Slingbox was the place-shifting concept, and AppleTV was iTunes.
Now, Myka has designed its own media center STB, focusing on BitTorrent as its winning central feature, and has managed to deliver a Linux-based STB with the fantastic customizability of that open environment that still manages to "just work."
For example, it can be used as a simple home media server and be loaded with content such as movies, music, and pictures to be watched on the living room TV. Personal media players (it's iPod friendly) and mass storage devices can all plug into Myka via USB and be navigated with its remote control. Users can also browse streaming web video sites.
To set up torrent downloads, users can log onto my.myka.tv on their PC, type in their desired torrent's URL, and the STB automatically starts to download it. It ends up feeling a lot like the Netflix Instant Queue for the Roku STB or Xbox Live.
Myka's Torrent Manager includes a weekly scheduler, which lets the user set limits on downloads so as to not trigger throttling or exceed bandwidth caps. The simple graph sets limits on upstream and downstream speeds and selects times of day when full sharing, limited sharing, or no sharing is allowed.
While video quality will vary depending upon the file being played, Myka's default resolution is 720p at 60 Hz. When the device is connected via HDMI to a higher resolution screen, it automatically corrects itself. We tested the device at its maximum resolution of 1080p 59.94 Hz, and .MKV and .Xvid files played back in high-definition (HD) with no lagging or crashing.
Beyond the simplicity, the device offers a number of features that will appeal to users looking for more control, or users who are familiar with Syabas Networked Media Tank (NMT), upon which Myka is based. The device includes a UPnP AV Server, myiHome Server, an FTP Server, Samba Server, NFS Server, its Torrent Client, and a Usenet Client, all of which can be turned off or halted as the user needs. Because of this server technology, Myka can be contacted via telnet, FTP, or simply through a web browser connected to the home network.
In the end, Myka is a solid product that delivered everything it is capable of delivering with zero failures in our tests. Every USB device we plugged in, which included phones, MP3 players, and USB HDDs were all instantly recognized, our networked HDD was recognized, and FTP and browser-based access were all flawless. There are other products on the market which have been designed to do the same things as Myka, but actually offer less at a higher cost.
Myka is available with either a 250 GB ($199) or 1 TB ($299) internal hard drive, and is shipping now.
LimeWire Store Tops 3.5 Million Tracks with CD Baby
LimeWire this week announced a partnership with CD Baby, one of the largest digital distributors of independent music representing over 240,000 independent artists, to sell its expansive digital catalog in the LimeWire Store. This deal brings the total number of licensed tracks to over 3.5 million.
The agreement provides access to titles from artists such as Regina Spektor, Gary Jules, Joe Purdy, Ingrid Michaelson, Melissa Ferrick, Charlotte Martin, Colin Hay, Stan Ridgway, and hundreds of thousands more.
"CD Baby has established itself as a major player in the indie community, so we are excited to be working together," said Tom Monday, Director, Partner Relations for LimeWire. "CD Baby and LimeWire Store both champion independent artists and give them access to new customers and revenue opportunities, so it's a perfect partnership."
"We are very excited to add LimeWire's rapidly growing online store as a new partner and opportunity for CD Baby artists," said Phil Bauer, Director of Digital Distribution, CD Baby.
LimeWire Store, launched in the spring of 2008 by the makers of the popular P2P software, sells 256kbps, DRM-free MP3s provided by leading distributors including The Orchard, IODA, Redeye, IRIS, Tunecore, CD Baby, and respected labels like Kemado, Delicious Vinyl, Dulatone, Militia Group, Fader, Ghostly, plus many more.
Its digital music offering has grown to include more than 3.5 million recordings by today's top indie artists and music legends. LimeWire Store also produces exclusive content, such as its Live at Lime series, which includes live sessions by indie icons such as Matt & Kim, Juliana Hatfield, Sloan, School of Seven Bells, O'Death, Lisa Loeb, and others.
LimeWire Store's music team is committed to providing participating artists and labels unique promotional opportunities with exclusive releases, targeted marketing, and events.
Started in a garage in 1998, CD Baby has grown to become the world's leading distributor of independent music. To date, CD Baby has paid out over $111 million directly to independent artists.
Separately, LimeWire also announced that Jason Herskowitz has joined the company as Vice President, Product Management. In this newly created position, Herskowitz will oversee LimeWire's integrated product strategy, planning, design, and management. LimeWire's product teams will report to Herskowitz who will report to LimeWire CEO George Searle.
Herskowitz comes to LimeWire from TotalMusic, where he held the position of Vice President, Product Management, managing a team of product managers, UX architects, designers, and QA engineers in the creation and management of music platform products and services.
Abacast Live Peer-Assisted Flash Delivery Platform
Abacast, a leader in real-time streaming solutions, this week announced the availability of Adobe Flash support on its live hybrid P2P platform. The Flash option is now fully integrated into Abacast's industry-leading Live Peer-Assisted Delivery technology.
With over 50 million client installs and millions of hours of consumer video delivery, Abacast Live Peer-Assisted Delivery is the most reliable, tested, and scalable peer-assisted delivery platform in the industry.
"With this release we are providing our customers with the benefits of our peer-assisted solution, including proven longer audience engagement and more ability to monetize content, now utilizing the world's most popular video format," said Jim Kott, Abacast Co-President.
Abacast's Live Peer-Assisted Delivery combines the security, quality, and control of traditional unicast technology with the efficiency and resiliency of peer-assisted delivery. The result is a very secure, high quality delivery network that provides the highest video bit-rates and a higher quality of service (Qos) than traditional server-based delivery. With the support of the Flash format, Abacast now supports both live and on-demand peer-assisted Flash video delivery.
"We are seeing a huge demand to distribute live video in the Flash format," said Sun Jin Lee, CEO of FutureStream Networks, an Abacast reseller. "Based on the success we've had with Abacast's current live peer-assisted video solutions, we think the ability to utilize Flash will further accelerate demand."
"Our customers want to deliver video using Flash and want to do so on a large scale," said Randall Ache, Technical Director and Partner at Synapse. "Abacast Live Flash Peer-Assisted technology delivers these requirements and does so on top of a robust, battle-tested platform."
Welcome Global Gaming Factory
Please warmly welcome Global Gaming Factory (GGF) to the DCIA. GGF has the largest network of Internet cafes and gaming centers in the world and provides advertisers, software publishers, and service providers with unprecedented access to the large community of tourists and gamers that visit these centers.
GGF's existing wholly owned subsidiaries, Smartlaunch and CyberCafePro, are the leading publishers of cafe management software that is used by thousands of cafes globally.
GGF has agreed to acquire P4P Working Group (P4PWG) participant Peerialism, a technology company which has developed next generation file-sharing technology, for $13 million, and The Pirate Bay (TPB), one of the 100 most visited websites in the world, for $7.8 million.
Following the completion of these acquisitions, GGF intends to launch new business models that will allow compensation to content rights holders and monetize the bandwidth contributed by P2P users. The responsibility for and operation of the TPB site will be taken over by GGF in connection with closing of the transaction, which is scheduled for August.
Peerialism's product for video distribution over the Internet - PeerTV - enables content owners to distribute better quality video at significantly lower costs to many more viewers than alternative approaches. Cost savings are between 50% and 90% depending on network conditions, while the maximum number of simultaneous viewers is almost limitless.
Its PeerNet helps broadband operators minimize network traffic by making better use of existing infrastructure. Large and popular content files are temporarily stored and distributed from local P2P-caches in the access networks, reducing peak traffic loads on weak links further up in the network.
And finally, Peerialism's P2P Components are tools to build and analyze P2P networks: MyP2PWorld, a complete P2P network simulator; Link Assess, which measures the instantaneous quality of any link between two nodes; and Net Topology, A P2P component to help construct a locality-aware overlay network.
Hans Pandeya, CEO of GGF, said, "As a result of the acquisitions of Peerialism and TPB, GGF will have a strategic position in the international digital distribution market. File-sharing traffic is estimated to account for more than half of today's global Internet traffic."
He added that technology and broadband providers, service providers, search engines, and rights holders will all benefit from a clearer authorized downloading landscape.
"GGF wants to accept the challenge to position itself as a respectable participant in the market and contribute to the Internet's infrastructure, with the goal to establish working models for cooperation and a clear allocation of responsibilities on market terms, respecting both intellectual property (IP) rights and the rights of privacy," the company said.
Report from CEO Marty Lafferty
 We are very pleased this week to announce the name and mission statement for the DCIA's newest initiative: the P2P-for-Games Working Group (PFGWG).
The PFGWG's mission is to work jointly and cooperatively with leading peer-to-peer (P2P) software developers and distributors, online games publishers and marketers, and other qualified entities involved in games distribution over broadband networks, to ascertain appropriate and voluntary best practices to optimize the commercial distribution of digital games and updates to games systems of end-user consumers, including computers, game consoles, handheld and mobile devices, by means of P2P applications, P2P-enabled software, and related P2P technologies.
The mission will be carried out in two or more phases: phase one will focus on consumer protection; phase two will focus on intellectual property (IP) protection. Additional follow-on phases may be added as determined by P2P-for-Games Working Group (PFGWG) participants.
The objectives for phase one are to: provide P2P software developers and distributors with practices and procedures designed to instill the greatest degree of consumer confidence in, adoption of, and satisfaction with P2P technologies used for the distribution of digital games and updates; provide online games publishers and marketers with practices and procedures designed to instill the greatest degree of consumer confidence in, adoption of, and satisfaction with digital games and updates distributed by means of P2P technologies; and offer consumers optimal transparency, control, and value when using P2P technologies for the distribution of digital games and updates.
The objectives for phase two are to: provide P2P software developers and distributors with practices and procedures designed to commercially optimize P2P technologies used for the distribution of digital games and updates to protect the IP of such content offerings; and to provide online games publishers and marketers with practices and procedures designed to commercially optimize digital games and updates in terms of IP protection for such content offerings being distributed by means of P2P technologies; and offer relevant vendors and Internet service providers (ISPs) with recommendations to participate in the commercial enhancement of IP protection for digital games and updates distribution by means of P2P technologies.
The overall goals are to: determine, validate, and encourage the adoption of methods for P2P software developers and distributors and online games publishers and marketers to work together to enable innovative business models for digital games and updates distribution using P2P technologies and protecting the interests of consumers and IP rights-holders; provide compliance monitoring, digital rights management (DRM), online data tracking, payment services, and other support entities, as well as ISPs, with opportunities to commercially enhance the distribution of digital games and updates by means of P2P technologies; and establish appropriate and voluntary best practices for the deployment of P2P technologies for digital games and updates distribution to meet the above identified objectives in a way that can be sustained by all of the necessary participants.
Potential participants include P2P software developers and distributors; online games publishers and marketers; compliance monitoring, digital rights management (DRM), online data tracking, and payment services firms; Internet service providers (ISPs); and DCIA Member companies.
Our path to progress will be to publish the Mission and Objectives of the PFGWG, which we have done this week at the DCIA Activities website; to publish a call for participants in the PFGWG and recruit a balanced representation of core members, which is now in process: please call +1-410-476-7965 or e-mail PFGWG@dcia.info for more information or to sign-up; and to announce the sponsors, leaders, and charter members of the PFGWG, which we hope to do shortly.
Once these formative steps have been taken, our next steps will be to draft and reach agreement on practices and procedures to fulfill the objectives of phase one; to organize and conduct testing to validate the benefits of these approaches to end-user consumers, P2P software developers and distributors, and online games publishers and marketers; to draft and reach agreement on practices and procedures to fulfill the objectives of phase two; to organize and conduct testing to validate the benefits of these approaches to P2P software developers and distributors, online games publishers and marketers, vendors, and ISPs; to prepare and publish voluntary DCIA guidelines for the recommended PFGWG business practices and procedures and their adoption based on results of the testing; and to develop and implement a compliance program.
In addition, we are planning for our fall conference in Los Angeles to focus on P2P and games. As previously noted, continued growth of online games representing numerous genres on many types of networked devices is very exciting, and the increasing interest of publishers and marketers in harnessing P2P technologies for distribution of games and updates in a wide variety of ways is particularly encouraging.
P2P for games is currently an area of ongoing rapid expansion and enormous promise. The games industry is digitally sophisticated, aggressive, prolific, and highly innovative - in many ways the ideal content partner for the P2P industry.
The games industry has demonstrated the greatest potential to exploit the advantages of P2P and to address outstanding issues associated with this powerful technology. We look forward to a productive collaboration on the PFGWG. Share wisely, and take care.
100 Million Used-Games Traded Annually in US
Excerpted from Games Industry Biz Report
The number of second-hand games trading annually in the US has reached an estimated 100 million units, accounting for one-third of games sold every year and bringing in revenue of $2 billion, according to an industry report published by Wedbush Morgan.
However, the research finds that as few as 5% of new games sales are affected by the pre-owned market, and the trade-in of old product could result in more new games being bought.
"The vast majority of used-games are not traded-in until the original new game purchaser has finished playing - more than two months after a new game is released - typically well beyond the window for a full retail-priced new game sale," said analyst Michael Pachter.
According to Pachter, the commonly held perception that retailers such as GameStop are "pushing" used-games on customers prepared to buy new ones is largely untrue and that, on the contrary, used-game sales are benefiting new games sales by providing currency to gamers with less disposable income to purchase additional games.
"If trade-ins occur at GameStop, they should position the trade-in customer to buy more new games than he/she would otherwise normally purchase. Because the average used-game value is around 20% of the new game price, we think that used-game trade-ins fuel incremental sales of over 6% of total new game sales, suggesting that the cannibalization from the used-game "push" is more than offset by the benefit from used game currency," the report concluded.
The Pirate Bay's New Business Plan
Excerpted from Business Week Report by Mark Scott
When the founders of file-sharing website The Pirate Bay (TPB) were given a year's prison sentence in April for allowing users to swap copyrighted content without permission, many thought the swashbuckling Swedish-based Internet company was finished. Not so. On June 30th, Sweden's Global Gaming Factory, which runs cyber cafes and sells gaming software, announced it would buy TPB for $7.8 million.
What does Hans Pandeya, Global Gaming Factory's chief executive, plan to do with his new acquisition? In an interview with Business Week, Pandeya said he first intends to pay royalties for online content to media companies such as Warner Bros., Sony BMG, and Vivendi Universal. He didn't say how much he'll pay - and concedes he hasn't yet entered into discussions with music and movie companies. Analysts estimate that up to 90% of downloads from TPB's 20 million users currently are unlicensed.
But Pandeya's ambitions for TPB 2.0 are much greater. He has a novel scheme to bundle together the collective Internet bandwidth of TPB's users into a giant P2P network. Then, he'll resell that broadband capacity on an ad hoc basis to Internet service providers (ISPs) - companies like Comcast or AT&T - that are in need of a quick injection of cheap bandwidth. TPB aims to split the revenue with its users, who will be financially compensated for sharing their connections.
"The technology will use the community of file sharers to cut costs of data traffic for ISPs by more than half," says Pandeya. "Users will earn money by joining, which can be spent on TPB's other services such as an expected online music store, or transferred to their bank accounts."
It's an intriguing notion, though not unprecedented. Other global P2P networks have similarly used the collective computing and network capacity of participants - ranging from the Skype free Internet phone-calling service to massive research projects that distribute number-crunching work to millions of PCs.
Perhaps the best known among these is SETI@Home, based at the University of California at Berkeley, which has used P2P technology for more than a decade to speed the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. SETI participants allow access to their computers via the Net when they're not in use, creating a giant pool of processing power - a "virtual supercomputer" - that analyzes radio telescope data for signs of life from outer space. The technology also is being used by researchers to probe diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.
TPB's plans aren't quite as philanthropic - and some analysts say pooling bandwidth for resale to ISPs won't be a slam dunk. Mark Mulligan, Research Director at consultancy Forrester Research, warns that TPB could face defections by its existing users. What's more, many ISPs may balk at buying back network capacity from their own customers.
Aside from the P2P bandwidth strategy, TPB also hopes to make as much as $56 million per month from running ads on its content portal. With 16.1 million unique visitors in May - the latest figures available from researcher comScore - TPB has enough scale to attract major advertisers.
GGF expects to complete its TPB acquisition by the end of August, so it has a couple of months to iron out details. Pandeya is convinced he has a great opportunity in hand. "Content is just one revenue source," he says. "Data transport, that's where the money is."
Peer-to-Peer Enterprise Computing, Anyone?
Excerpted from BNET Technology Report by Erik Sherman
Bernard Lunn at ReadWriteWeb has an interesting discussion in the context of enterprise customers often demanding on-premise deployment, rather than software-as-a-service (SaaS) delivery. And in his reporting is a nugget that suggests an entirely new business model that I'm calling peer-to-peer (P2P) enterprise computing.
According to Lunn, the vendors he spoke to at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference delivered services on-site, versus in a SaaS or hosted model. Why? Because that's what the enterprise customers demanded. They had a few reasons. Though how many do you need to hear beyond, "This way or no pay?" However, one of the most interesting was a matter of resource utilization:
But the figure that really tells the story is 6%. That is the percentage of server utilization in enterprise data centers, according to McKinsey. That is a lot of wasted cycles. It would be much better to use them up with new applications, and to bring in virtualization technology to use them more efficiently.
Why rent more cycles from a SaaS vendor when you are swimming in excess capacity? That is such an important and sharp observation as to be beyond over-emphasis. The companies have made investments and want to get as much from them as possible. I'm guessing that they negotiate a substantial price reduction as they're bearing the hosting cost.
But it got me thinking. You see some people setting up solar or wind power generation on their property and then feeding back electric to the grid, reducing their power costs in the process as they make that meter spin backwards. Why not enable the same thing for enterprise computing?
Essentially, this would be treating enterprise computing like P2P grid computing for projects like the distributed grid computing project, SETI@home. The difference is that the enterprises would not be doing this for free. Instead, you'd have an international computing grid virtually deployed over the Internet.
Companies that needed a hosted app would make arrangements through their service provider. There would be two separate line items: the application license and the hosting/communications. Enterprises could either pay for hosting or make some of their excess capacity virtually available.
Yes, there would be a number of thorny issues to solve: billing and credit, a central directory of availability, security, and the like. But if there really is that much excess capacity in large corporations, you'd think they could wall-off parts, maybe using some form of network segmentation, to have it available for mid-sized or small companies that could benefit most from an incremental approach to adding capacity, or to service providers who needed machines to run their software.
To put it differently, corporations could create a giant communal cloud that vendors could make available. This would reduce the massive capital investment that would otherwise be necessary while offsetting the operating budgets of IT departments. And even with some of the potential difficulties and concerns, there is something emotionally transformative to a CIO, CEO, or CFO about lowering operating costs.
US Advertisers Act on Privacy Fears
Excerpted from Financial Times Report by Richard Waters
The US advertising industry moved on Thursday to try to head off the growing threat of legislative action over so-called behavioral targeting, a form of Internet advertising that critics complain could violate the privacy of Internet users.
The set of self-regulatory principles follows a stark warning from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) this year that it would step in if the industry did not take more action to control how websites and advertisers collect and use personal data.
Privacy advocates gave lukewarm support to Thursday's self-regulation move, which was announced by four US trade associations representing advertisers, advertising agencies, and Internet companies, and said it might not be enough to prevent legislation.
"There has been a lot of talk about this for years," said Alissa Cooper at the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT). "Now we'll see how well advertisers actually implement it."
She said the CDT still believed consumers would be better protected by a broader privacy law, a view echoed by other privacy groups.
In behavioral targeting, advertisers collect information about the browsing habits of Internet users, usually by placing a small text file called a cookie on their PCs, then use this to serve up ads based on their perceived interests.
This targeted advertising commands a higher price, but has led to the emergence of large databases of personal information.
The FTC called the self-regulation move "a good first step," although it did not lay out what further measures would be necessary.
In what is likely to be the biggest change for Internet users, the new guidelines call for Internet companies to draw users' attention to how their data is being collected, and offer them a chance to opt-out of the arrangement.
That should lead to far better disclosure than burying the practice in the fine print of broad privacy policies, Ms. Cooper said.
The guidelines also state that Internet service providers (ISPs) should not be able to collect information on their users' browsing habits unless they get specific consent, placing stricter limits on a controversial practice.
This "opt-in" condition is likely to make it harder for ISPs and companies that make software for Internet access, to track which Internet sites people visit.
Akamai, Limelight to Deploy P2P for Higher Quality
Excerpted from Seeking Alpha Report by Dan Rayburn
Most of the content currently being delivered via P2P is for software and gaming downloads, and so far we haven't seen major content delivery networks (CDNs) offer a real peer-assisted solution on their network. Later this year, that is going to change.
Within the next two quarters, Akamai is going to bring to market peer-assisted delivery services on its network, and Limelight Networks will start to work with other existing P2P companies who want to use the Limelight Network for peer-assisted delivery. Unlike previous deals where some CDNs were simply reselling a third party P2P platform, these solutions are going to be deeply deployed and integrated directly into their networks.
While some might think the reason Akamai and Limelight need peer-assisted solutions is to reduce their costs, or to offer a cheaper level of delivery in the market, they would be wrong. This is not about reducing a customer's bandwidth bill, but rather about the ability for Akamai and Limelight to guarantee a certain level of quality. For all the talk in the market about high-definition (HD) video and the word "quality," the fact of the matter is that the CDNs have no way to ensure truly HD quality video.
In order to truly control quality to the end-user, you need a client and you need a control mechanism tied to the client. While many folks have client-based solutions on the market, most don't have a central control mechanism and simply reply on the client itself to determine what's taking place on the network. The problem with that solution is that the P2P client cannot be self-aware enough to know what is really taking place on the network and can't adjust accordingly. You can't have every single P2P client on the network trying to act as the general. This is the primary reason why, to-date, none of the major CDNs have worked with the stand-alone P2P companies in the market and, in the case of Akamai and Limelight, have decided to develop their own technology in-house.
Akamai's solution will be based on the Red Swoosh technology it acquired in 2007. While the technology didn't support streaming at the time of the acquisition, Akamai has been working for the past two years to further develop the Red Swoosh platform, and continues to build out additional functionality. Limelight's peer-assisted technology is also home-grown and is something the company has been working on for some time now.
Some might ask, why come out with a peer-assisted offering now, what changed in the market? These new solutions won't be for every customer and for every type of content delivered over the CDN. Large-scale live events and other use-case scenarios where large traffic spikes occur - or the need for a guaranteed level of quality - are the best fit for peer-assisted delivery. While we keep talking about the bit-rate when it comes to HD video, delivering a quality user experience in HD has to be about more than just the bit-rate the video is encoded for. That's really where peer-assisted technology comes in.
Even though P2P technology has been around for years now, the problem is that most P2P companies pitch it as a replacement for traditional CDN services. It's not a replacement for CDN, it's a compliment. There are instances where both sets of technologies have their own strengths and weaknesses and the value of a CDN is being able to offer different levels of delivery services based on the type of content being delivered, the type of device it's being played back on, and the size and scale of the traffic.
For CDNs, having a peer-assisted solution in their bag of tools is a natural next step but it is really important for people to realize that the CDNs are not being driven to offer this service to simply drive down the cost of delivering bits. This is about guaranteeing a different level of quality that, today, the CDNs don't have the capability of doing, since they don't control the last mile.
Adoption of Cloud Computing on the Rise
Excerpted from The Enterpriser Report
The cloud computing paradigm is fast evolving, from a futuristic technology to a commercially viable alternative. According to a recent survey conducted by AppLabs to ascertain the adoption of cloud computing, organizations worldwide are increasingly interested in transitioning to a cloud computing model. This is due to the benefits and the profound impact cloud computing has on IT and business.
A total of 104 participants from global 2000 companies took part in the survey. The first question looked at how companies were planning or had already adopted the cloud infrastructure to host their applications. To this question, 30% responded that they were already using the cloud, while 20% responded that they are looking at moving their applications to the cloud within the next 12 months. 50% of the respondents claimed they had no plans to use the cloud in the immediate future.
The next question looked at the issues deterring businesses from moving their applications to the cloud. Here, 29% of the respondents felt lack of awareness was the major constraint, while 21% cited security concerns and dearth of technical expertise. 19% cited costs and 10% said limited services as the reason for them not yet going to the cloud infrastructure.
Joost Moves to a Platform Strategy
Excerpted from PC Magazine Report by Mark Hachman
In 2008, Joost shifted strategies from that of a pioneering downloadable peer-to-peer television (P2PTV) client to a video delivery website. Now, a year later, it's announced plans to build platforms for set-top boxes (STBs) and other video services.
Technically, its original platform was a standalone application for the PC. However, Joost has indicated that supplying content as an independent stand-alone operation in the current environment is prohibitively expensive, and has decided to take the company in a new direction.
"Today we've decided to make some changes at Joost," outgoing chief executive Mike Volpi said. "In these tough economic times, it's been increasingly challenging to operate as an independent, ad-supported online video platform. In order to position ourselves well for the future, we began investigating additional lines of revenue for Joost."
"After much analysis, we have decided to change our focus and to start providing online video platforms for media companies and distributors," Volpi added. "We have built a solid technology platform that there is demand for in the marketplace, and look forward to this new chapter for our company. At the same time, we'll continue to operate Joost.com and its associated video applications."
Volpi agreed to step down as chief executive, remaining as Chairman. Matt Zelesko, who has led the engineering team, will continue his current duties and take on the CEO role as well, the company said.
While the company will maintain its operating website, the company's focus will change to "white-label online video platforms for media companies, including cable and satellite providers, broadcasters and video aggregators."
Spotify Founder Hints at P2P Sharing, World Domination
Excerpted from The Register Report by Andrew Orlowski
If you don't know what the fuss is about Spotify, you probably haven't used it. The company's Co-Founder Daniel Ek treated attendees of the Music Publishers' AGM last week to the frankest public interview about Spotify I've heard.
Ek admitted the ad business has not really launched yet; he also discussed using Spotify for P2P downloads, and even a public flotation. He also confirmed the popularity of the service, which stealth-launched in January and now boasts over half a million UK users. Spotify has "five-to-six times" the usage of any other streaming service, he said.
Ek described the original rationale behind Spotify. The focus was on performance, performance, and performance. "We spent a lot of time looking in intricate detail about how to play music. What sound codecs you use; how you distribute, how you stream, and how you present. Spotify looks like it plays instantly but actually it doesn't."
Spotify is on a fascinating knife-edge between attracting P2P downloaders and not repelling them again with intrusive advertisements. Was Spotify on target with its revenue forecasts?
"Not really, to be honest. We're in one of the world's worst recessions, and it's taken longer to get started. We view it as we haven't really started yet. In four months you can't build a self-sustaining model."
Ek outlined a range of future revenue options. "We think the future of the music industry is an access model, where users pay either with their time by watching ads, or through ISPs or carriers, or through buying handsets. What is lacking in the industry now is what can facilitate those kinds of licensing deals."
Its best hope for now is making Spotify available in an offline and mobile player - that's an "access model" that people might actually pay for.
Ek was asked if Spotify was really designed to be bought. "We've invested more than 8 million euros of our own money. We're not interested in any short-term gains. We want to make this into an independent company, we might put it on the stock exchange at some point, but we're not in it for a short-term gain."
"We as an industry have to realize online music is a very nascent thing. The truth is that 95% of downloads are unauthorized, and you guys aren't being compensated at all from them. What if we can take all of those into a licensed environment - isn't that worth something? But it takes time."
Spotify maintains a huge cache of users' music and is essentially building a nice music library. Spotify has made the decision to encrypt the cache using home-grown digital rights management (DRM). But yes, it is a music library.
Now consider that Spotify already does P2P. Songs can be pulled from users on the network, and that's the company's sales pitch to ISPs: partner with us, and save bandwidth. So couldn't Spotify at some point just flip the switch and become your iTunes replacement?
Ek said when you have an access model, there's no real difference between a stream and a download, and while it's been a traditional distinction - from the days of radio and wax cylinders - the music business shouldn't get hung up on it. The important thing is access.
Spotify needs time for your music collection and playlists to accumulate - then it's ready to flip the switch.
CinemaCube: BitTorrent TV for Early-Adopters
Excerpted from Unthinkable Report
Like any early-adopter, I find it difficult not to get excited by the latest trend. Salivating over the newest bit of technology is, after all, what makes us "early" adopters. As analog TV gave way first to multi-channel digital TV and then video-on-demand (VOD), I was there updating my set-up to receive the new transmissions.
However, even I am unsure whether the latest trend, BitTorrent TV, may still be a little ahead of its time. The growth of video downloads demonstrates that there is a lot of material out there, and a TV which could access this material should offer near limitless viewing pleasure.
This is the thought behind CinemaCube. This set-top box (STB) provides a BitTorrent client and a lot of connectivity. Just select the torrent to download, and then watch it on your TV when it's ready.
CinemaCube is a good solution. The most noticeable thing is that it is physically light. No hard-drive, just a USB port to connect to your own disk. Equally, iPods and media players can be connected and the STB will project the media onto your screen.
A neat solution, which also means that the cost is low: currently $90 after a recent $20 reduction.
Innocents Accused of Online Infringement
Excerpted from BBC News Report
Some 20 Net users have come forward claiming they have been wrongly accused of sharing unauthorized videogames. This follows an investigation by Which Computing Magazine into a couple who were accused of playing a game they claim they had never heard of. That case was dropped but other Internet users have now come forward, also claiming to be falsely accused.
They face the threat of court action - or fines of up to £665 - for sharing copyrighted games. Some 6,000 letters have been sent out by law firm ACS Law, on behalf of firms such as Reality Pump and Topware Interactive, who are the copyright owners of videogames "Two Worlds" and "Dream Pinball" respectively.
The government is keen to crack down on infringers, and the recently published Digital Britain report said that they could be pursued through the courts. "The government is basically calling for a crackdown on unauthorized file sharers, which is fair enough, but we've got serious concerns about the process which identifies alleged file sharers, and we believe that innocent people are being accused," said Sarah Kidner, Editor of Which Computing.
The IP addresses of alleged file sharers are initially obtained by anti-piracy firm Logistep which uses software that monitors file-sharing sites. A court order is then sent to the relevant Internet service provider (ISP), forcing it to reveal the identity of the person behind the IP address.
The Internet Service Providers' Association (ISPA) is increasingly concerned that the process could be flawed. "We're not convinced of the efficacy of the software and not confident in its ability to identify users," it told Which Computing.
Last year, the magazine highlighted the case of Scottish couple Gill and Ken Murdoch, aged 54 and 66, who were accused of sharing the game "Race 07," published by Atari.
At the time, Mrs. Murdoch told Which, "We do not have, and have never had, any computer game or sharing software. We did not even know what 'peer-to-peer' was until we received the letter."
The case was dropped and the law firm responsible for sending the letter, Davenport Lyons, is being investigated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.
Thomas to Appeal Huge Record Industry Fines
Excerpted from Broadband DSL Reports
As we recently noted, Minnesota mom Jammie Thomas was recently found guilty of copyright infringement for sharing songs via P2P, and was fined $1.9 million dollars ($80,000 per song).
Quickly after the verdict, the Electronic Frontier Foundation questioned whether the extremely high damages were constitutional, citing past instances where the Supreme Court ruled against disproportionate damage awards intended to "send a message."
Not too surprisingly, Thomas, who obviously can't pay the award, says she is going to appeal the ruling on constitutional grounds.
Do Cold Calls Cost Your Company?
By NET Value Co-Author Stan DeVaughn
Telemarketers' unsolicited phone calls aren't just annoying, they're bad for business. They waste money because they consume the precious time of everyone they reach. They consume time because the callers often know very little about the businesses that are victims of their "cold calls," and generally don't offer relevant value.
"Our approach to selling is very personal and very much focused on relationships we already have," said Robbie Forkish, Founding CEO of Cloud Compliance. "But the reality is that many vendors, large and small, in their eagerness to reach out, don't always do their basic homework."
To weigh-in with your thoughts on cold calls, please click here to take our brief survey.
Business-to-business telemarketers made about 36 billion cold calls last year and the number will increase in 2009. This amounts to an average of 600 calls for every business in America. Of course, the bigger and more prominent the target, the more cold calls it will receive. An IT executive we know at a large insurance company got about 100 calls per week in 2008.
So, just put them into voice-mail, right? Consider this: B2B telemarketers are trained to leave at least seven voice-mail messages before they give up, according to telemarketing consultant Holcutt Associates. Deleting unwanted voice-mail messages just compounds the problem.
When they do get through, cold callers estimate that they spend about ten minutes talking to gatekeepers or decision-makers - who rarely, if ever, buy anything. So that adds up to almost 100 hours a year that these recipients could have spent doing something more productive.
Respondents to a recent survey said that the growing volume of telemarketing calls they received at work made them "angry." Not just because of the rude interruptions, but that so many cold callers fail to offer real value to the companies they call.
"Too many IT vendors still get it wrong when it comes to things that customers value," said Robert Hamilton, Product Marketing Director at Symantec and a marketing veteran at HP and NetApp. "When your outreach is guided by what a piece of technology can do, rather than why a specific customer would need it, you're bound to be misguided."
The economy has made the problem worse. More vendors resort to cold calling. Fewer targets are receptive. And they are not just weary of cold callers, but wary of them. The National Fraud Information Center says that telemarketing fraud amounted to $40 billion in 2008.
DCINFO reader participation in the above survey may represent a significant step forward in establishing a solution within our industry. Outsourcing to a screening service is one option and free-of-charge when the service provider charges the callers. The service screens the calls for relevance and value and reports the findings back to the parties who are called. They key is to screen the solicitation based on the needs of the business.
They can't make cold calling go away, but they can unburden you and ensure that work time is devoted to actually accomplishing work.
Coming Events of Interest
Social Media for Government - July 13th in Arlington, VA. Attend this conference to learn how to capture the power of social media in your organization. Hear practical advice, firsthand, on how to engage your employees and citizens by using social media from leading government agencies and organizations, including the US Department of State, National Institutes of Health, and many others.
Bandwidth Conference - August 27th-28th in San Francisco, CA. Annual gathering of music/media executives and digital music professionals. Bandwidth explores the evolving musical experience - how people discover, purchase, interact with, and are exposed to new music.
all2gethernow! - September 16th-18th in Berlin, Germany. An "open source" forward-looking Music 2.0 substitute for the postponed PopKomm, one of the leading international conferences and expos for the music and entertainment businesses worldwide.
New York Games Conference - September 30th in New York, NY. Join games industry leaders - including leading videogame publishers and developers, carriers, portals, technology companies, advertising execs, venture capitalists, lawyers, analysts, and many more.
P2P and Games Conference - October 19th in Santa Monica, CA. The DCIA's first-ever event focusing on the use of P2P technologies for the distribution of games and updates. Industry leaders from around the world will participate.
Digital Hollywood Fall - October 19th-22nd in Santa Monica, CA. With many new sessions and feature events, DHF has become the premiere digital entertainment conference and exposition. DCIA Member companies will exhibit and speak on a number of panels.
Cloud Computing Expo - November 2nd-4th in Santa Clara, CA. Fourth international conference on this subject. Cloud computing is a game changer. The cloud is disrupting traditional software and hardware business models by disrupting how IT service gets delivered.
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