Tracy Swedlow and the folks at InteractiveTV always put on a terrific event, and I'll be speaking on a panel at this year's TV of Tomorrow show on March 11th @ 11:30 am (San Francisco, Yerba Buena Center). The topic of our panel is "New Developments in Broadband Video: Can the Internet Keep Up?" It is sure to be a lively discussion - my co-panelists are from BitTorrent, Level3, Brightcove, Thompson, Narrowstep and Tandberg.
Chris Anderson's (also wrote The Long Tail) got a great article posted on Wired today called "Free! Why $0.00 is the Future of Business." Think about it - Google is one of the most profitable companies of our time, is used every day by everyone you know, yet you'll never see a charge on your credit card bill that says "Google."
Head over to Wired and read the article. It'll make you think.
VeriSign/Kontiki and other market leaders (including Verizon, Pando and others) in the P2P technology and ISP worlds are involved in a DCIA (Distributed Computing Industry Association) working group called P4P. With support and commentary from many involved in this group, the DCIA today sent a letter to the FCC with formal content on potential legislation (see my previous posts on Net Neutrality) surrounding network management guidelines for broadband operators. With Marty Lafferty's permission (Marty is the CEO of DCIA), I've pasted a copy of the letter into the extended portion of this blog entry. To read the letter, skip below the jump.
The DCIA P4P perspective is notable because it represents the interests of technology providers, P2P providers, and ISP's. It's stated mission, which appears below, is to work with each of these interest groups to deliver the best ultimate experience for end user consumers.
2/14/08 ADDITION: Click here to go to the letter as posted on the FCC web site
Continue reading "P2P and Network Management: DCIA P4P Comment to FCC" »
As readers of this blog know, I have been saying for some time that Net Neutrality would be one of the hottest topics of 2008. Well, it's officially taken center stage again with a flurry of coverage this week (go to Google News and type in "net neutrality"). Yesterday, representatives of Comcast appeared before the FCC to discuss the company's practices around network management. Today, the Washington Post reports Representative Ed Markey (D-Mass.) is expected to introduce a bill calling for an Internet policy that would prohibit network operators from unreasonably interfering with consumers' right to access and use content over broadband networks (he must not be at the Roger Clemens Circus). This is a corporate blog, and thus my position is officially neutral on this subject (as noted by Will Richmond back in November) - but it is a topic I believe is worth following, even for the average consumer, for two primary reasons:
1) The ongoing dialogue, and any legislation tied to this subject, will have an impact on the ability of carriers, cable providers, Internet and media companies to compete for your dollars and mindshare, especially as it relates to rich media (music, video, movies, etc.).
2) The outcome will have a significant impact on what the Internet looks like in 5-10 years time. As the Internet becomes more important to your daily life, you should care about this. Kind of simple statement, but it's a pretty basic concept.
For more on Net Neutrality, here are a few links (and different perspectives):
Today's confirmation by Yahoo of its planned $160M acquisition of Maven continues what has been a banner 12-18 month period for digital / Internet media companies. Although the day to day battles in the trenches are brutally competitive (talk to anyone who's running a digital media startup), the classic Silicon Valley innovation cycle (entrepreneurs found startups, startups rapidly out-innovate big ones to take advantage of new opportunities, small companies get acquired by big ones, founders repeat process) and the broader macro trends towards digital media distribution via the Internet and mobile devices will continue to drive a huge amount of investment and M&A activity for years to come. In addition to the note on Maven, three relevant data points which provide context to this point:
Parks Associates new forecast for "new media" advertising is $12.2B by 2012
AlwaysOn takes a look back at 2007 financings, sales and M&A activity among the OnMedia 100
Media and Information Investment Bank The Jordan Edmiston Group has a great presentation available on the firm's website which outlines "M&A Outlook and Valuations" in the new media sector
I'm often asked "is market pricing for CDN services going down faster than distribution rates are going up?" It's a good question, and while prices for basic content delivery have been going down, encode rates and volume are going up (significantly). In other words more people are watching more high quality video online. Dan Rayburn has a very good post on his BusinessofVideo.com blog today on this topic, along with the basic math required to answer this question. Click here to go to his post.
One of the blogs I visit frequently is NewTeeVee. Liz Gannes put up a post on the site last week called "Need to Know Video Stats." If you're tracking the growth of key sites and video online overall, see here post for the latest data from ComScore, etc. To summarize, they are all going up and to the right.
138 million Americans watched 9.5 billion videos online in November '07 (31% of them on Google sites like YouTube).
Given Kontiki's role in digital media, and our role as the download platform for BBC's iPlayer, I'm frequently asked "how's it going?" The short answer: very well. Ashley Highfield, Director Future Media and Technology at the BBC, put up a blog post last week called "iPlayer Launch: First Indications" that provides some insight into the success of the iPlayer since it moved from beta to official launch on Christmas day. To quote Highfield:
"Demand for long-form video content over the web may be much higher than iTunes has witnessed before; It's too early to say, but I think we may be at the start of rewriting the rule book."
For more on this topic, see another good article on iPlayer by the Guardian's Mark Lawson from January 3rd.
Interesting article today in the WSJ by Nick Wingfield on the blurring line between Internet and TV. He breaks down what he sees as the five primary barriers to consumers merging their Internet connections and their tv's to - voila! - watch video from the Internet on their tv. It's worth reading the article, but I am curious why he uses a data point (see graphic in middle of print article) from Forrester Research dated 3Q of 2006 (80% of consumers aren't interested in Internet video on their tv) - it sure seems like video on the Net has come a long way over the last year, and all of the most recent statistics and surveys point to rapidly rising demand (see my post on the Parks Associates report in September).
I'd agree with a lot of Nick's points, but I think the groundswell of demand is perhaps higher than you might take away from the article. One data point from the article - NBC alone streamed more than 50 million shows from its web site in October.
At the end of the day, a significant percentage of consumers just don't - and won't - move quickly on new technologies. Witness the adoption of DVR's. I don't know anyone who doesn't have one, but I live in the Bay Area, and DVR penetration across the US still stands at around 17%.
On Wednesday I was at the NewTeeVee event in San Francisco. I have to say it was one of the better digital media conferences of the year. I can't really pinpoint why (it still seemed to focus on the same subjects we've heard at conferences throughout the year: a) "advertising will be big," b) "social networking is really important for video," c) "consumers want HD, and d) "let's hear from YouTube or MySpace..."), but quite a few people I talked to thought it was a great event.
For two anecdotes from the event, click to the rest of the post.
Continue reading "Recap from NewTeeVee and Dinner with a Ninja" »
Today on Will Richmond's blog VideoNuze he goes into more depth on the Net Neutrality topic (see my previous post on October 19th) - will can take a much more aggressive stance - he's a journalist, I'm not). Will's post came out of a long and involved dialogue we had on Wednesday night over a few drinks at our Kontiki User Conference in Atlanta. As will points out, my OFFICIAL position is neutral on this subject, but I will point out that a few of the folks who posted comments on Will's blog make some good points :).
We had Will Richmond, President of Broadband Directions, speak at our Kontiki User Conference this morning. Will's recently launched a great blog called VideoNuze which covers the new media space with a deep focus on broadband. Check it out.
The Ferrari and the Vespa. Both are in the class of "motorized vehicles," but I think we'd all agree they're at opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to the classification. Kind of like "Commercial P2P" vs. "filesharing" technology (or "non-commercial P2P").
Over the last few months, we've seen a major surge in awareness of P2P technology as a legitimate technology for content distribution. Much of this can be attributed to CDN market leader Akamai's endorsement and purchase of RedSwoosh (see my previous blog post "Akamai Follows VeriSign's Lead"), but I believe it is also due to a growing awareness of the difference between what we call Commercial P2P vs. the technology generally utilized by filesharing networks (predominantly for illegal downloads of copyrighted material).
One of the reasons this topic is important is because I believe we are going to see quite a bit of P2P technology utilized by major media players in 2008 (following the lead of BBC, Sky and Channel4 in the UK). As they do so, it's critical that these companies consider the positives and negatives of using proven vs. unproven platforms. I'm not pointing this out to be altruistic - Kontiki is the most widely deployed, commercially successful P2P platform on the market - and we hope a smart buying community will result in lots of new customers for VeriSign/Kontiki.
For depth on this topic, read below the jump, and I'd also suggest reading our white paper on the subject.
Continue reading "What is "Commercial P2P" and Why Should I Care?" »
If you'll be attending Digital Hollywood the next few days in LA, stop by the DCIA's P2P Advertising Upfront LA. I'll be speaking at 2:45 pm, and you can find my presentation on SlideShare.
I often get asked what the best sources for information are on the digital media space. While I am sure there is a long list I could publish here, the following are the sources I read on a daily basis (all have RSS feeds or subscriptions available).
Continue reading "Getting the Scoop on Digital Media - What I Read on a Daily Basis" »
It's official - the readers of Streaming Media have selected VeriSign's Intelligent Content Delivery Network as the industry's top Content Management Platform. An excerpt from the Streaming Media web site:
"By pairing Kontiki's technology with its own backbone and customer base, VeriSign has been able to achieve a level of awareness much higher than either it or Kontiki could have achieved alone."
For more info, read the article on StreamingMedia.com or the press release that went out this morning.
...will be Net Neutrality. I don't think the average consumer really understood this topic when it was front and center in 2006, and it has somewhat stayed in the background away from mainstream media throughout 2007. However, as today's articles on Comcast's efforts to manage traffic running across its network point out, the rapid rise in video consumption (broadcast, live events, movies - not just UGC) over ISP networks will make this topic a very hot one as we head into 2008. Every player in the ecosystem has something to win or lose in this debate - consumers, media companies, carriers, cable companies, etc. Shouldn't be long before it hits Congress again :)
For those looking for data points suggesting a rapidly growing market for online video - beyond UGC - I'd recommend reading a new report from media research house Parks Associates. The report, titled "Broadband Video: A Market Update," provides some very interesting data points as well as insights as to a) what is working (hint: complimentary services like BBC's iPlayer) and b) what the hurdles are to mass adoption. Read the rest of this entry for some of the points I found most interesting in the report (and visit the site and download the free report).
A couple of significant events have occurred over the past few weeks which should provide reassurance - to those who keep asking the question "What's the future of digital media?" - that we are in fact witnessing a massive industry shift in the way media is distributed and consumed. A few that are particularly noteworthy:
Continue reading "The Future of Digital Media - Happening Now..." »
Online publication PC Advisor reported the results of a recent reader survey which show the BBC's iPlayer (yes, it runs on the VeriSign Kontiki platform) is as popular with readers as Apple's iTunes. Congratulations BBC - quite an accomplishment for a beta launch!
"When asked to name the best online TV download service in the UK, nearly 37 percent of respondents chose BBC iPlayer. This just beat off the challenge of Apple's iTunes store, which 36.2 percent of respondents voted as their favourite." - From PC Advisor, Sept 10th, 2007
Over the last few weeks I think I may have been asked 107 times "what just happened to the CDN market?"
It's a pretty good question. Noted market leaders Akamai and Limelight had difficult times in the public market (somewhat for reasons that don't really tie to the market overall), and out of the woodwork came analysts and media reports that the CDN market was collapsing before our very eyes - a little more than a month after many agreed it was booming following Limelight's IPO.
Last week in VeriSign's Mt View HQ, I met up with Andy Plesser from Beet.tv. On Monday, Andy posted the video on Beet.tv (click here to go to the site and watch the video). We talked about a wide range of subjects associated with VeriSign's play in the content space. The most timely happened to be the successful launch of the BBC's iPlayer Beta, and most of what Andy posted on the site talks about the role of the VeriSign/Kontiki platform in the BBC's delivery platform.
Update: The BBC confirmed that its recently launched iPlayer has been downloaded more than 120,000 times, and predicts 500,000 users after 6 months in beta.
One of my favorite (definition: I get an RSS feed and read daily) blogs on the new media and video space is Dan Rayburn's StreamingMedia.com blog called The Business of Video. Dan recently posted a list of online video and media sites he subscribes to in his Google Reader (sites he gets an RSS feed from). IMHO, it's a pretty complete list, and I subscribe to more than half of the sites on his list.
Of course this is also a bit of a self-serving post - Demand Insights is on the list.
Yesterday web research firm eMarketer released its forecast for online video advertising and - surprise - the numbers get big fast. eMarketer is projecting a 40% annual growth rate, from roughly $700M in 2007 to more than $4B in 2011.
Continue reading "eMarketer Confirms Web Video Advertising Will Be Hot...In Case You Hadn't Heard" »
I posted a comment on Dan Rayburn's StreamingMedia.com blog this morning in response to his point that pure broadband adoption rates are not what's driving online video adoption. I think we're on the same page here...
As posted yesterday on the BBC News page, the BBC plans to launch its web video service, called BBC iPlayer, on July 27th. As with UK broadcasters Sky and Channel 4, the BBC iPlayer utilizes VeriSign's Kontiki content delivery platform.
Given the BBC's extensive content library and reach worldwide, this is a big step forward in the world of premium content online.
This may have been widespread news, but I first read it on Cory Bergman's Lost Remote blog. NBCU projects $1B in digital revenue this year, with growth at over 50% to next year (>$1.5B).
If the numbers are accurate (and there's no reason they wouldn't be), it's a pretty significant signal to those who are still wondering how fast the digital/online/mobile content market is moving.
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