Silverlight Versus Flash: Rich Media Platform Comparison Chart

Microsoft will be making a bunch of announcements this week from their MIX event surrounding Silverlight and StreamingMedia.com's Editor Eric is at the event and will be covering the announcements shortly.

From the week of NAB, Microsoft was distributing with its press kit the below chart comparing Silverlight's features and benefits with that of Flash. I have not had a chance to really review them side by side but this is how Microsoft sees their platform stacking up to Flash.

MTV Networks, BitTorrent, Turner Broadcasting and The DCIA To Speak On P2P At The Streaming Media East Show

We have some great sessions at the Streaming Media East show, May 14-16 in NYC talking about P2P and other forms of content distribution. One of the sessions on May 15th is entitled "Is P2P The Answer To Large Scale Video Delivery?"

Moderated by Rich Mavrogeanes the Founder and CTO of VBrick, this session discusses whether P2P will finally revolutionize online video distribution. They will discuss whether the cost savings advantage with P2P is real, how P2P will translate into a competitive advantage, how P2P distribution may affect the networks and CDNs and what some of the potential problems are that P2P technology may face from the telco's. The panelists include:

• Nick Rockwell, CTO, MTV Networks
• Christopher Levy, Chairman, Digital Media Management Working Group, DCIA
• Monty Mullig, SVP, Internet Technologies, Turner Broadcasting System
• Brian Taptich, VP, Business Development, BitTorrent

Register for the show and come hear the debate on whether P2P is the answer to the fundamental capacity limitations for large-scale video audiences for today's Internet. Are there any topics or points would you like to see discussed at this session? If so, please include them in the comments section.

Job Opening: Online Media Director, CMP

CMP currently has two Online Media Director positions available to lead, manage and oversee the digital media strategy for their Channel (targeting the sellers of technology) and Technology Innovators Group (targeting the builders of technology). Locations: San Francisco and Waltham, MA.

For more details, contact Beth Rivera at CMP.

If you are looking for a new position, have taken a new job or are a company that has a job opening, let me know. In many cases I will highlight it here on the blog - free of charge.

Do P2P Networks Really Support Streaming?

I know it may seem strange to ask that question, but part of the problem with P2P technology is that most content owners don't know what P2P does and does not support. I'm with them. Even I don't know what P2P distribution can and can't do. For instance, many P2P providers call their service "P2P streaming" but is it really streaming? If you are not using a Flash Media Server for example, then how are the P2P networks delivering "streaming" Flash video?

There seems to be no standard amongst the P2P providers as to what they all provide, the range of services vary greatly and many speak to P2P as being a live solution, others say only on-demand. Yet what is interesting to note about nearly all of the P2P delivery providers websites is that they all have the exact same sales propositions. All of the sites talk to the same value proposition being quality, cost and security.

And none of them that I can find talk to reporting, which seems odd. How are the P2P delivery networks going to distinguish themselves from one another? They have to do something, because as of right now, visiting each of their sites, they all sound and look exactly the same.

Motionbox, VideoEgg, Veotag & Magnify.net To Speak On UGC At The Streaming Media East Show

We have some great sessions at the Streaming Media East show, May 14-16 in NYC talking about user generated content. One of the sessions on May 15th is entitled "User-Generated Content Tools".

Moderated by Steve Bryant, Associate Editor of eWEEK and Hollywood Reporter blogger, this session covers how with more than 50 user generated content sites available on the Web today, what tools are currently being offered and used by consumers for content generation? Learn what tools consumers want, how they manage content today and what the future holds for making consumer-generated content even easier to create, upload, and deliver. The panelists include:

• Chris O'Brien, CEO and Co-Founder, Motionbox
• Matt Sanchez, CEO and Co-Founder, VideoEgg
• Steve Rosenbaum, CEO and Founder, Magnify.net
• Scott Rhodes, CEO, Veotag

Register for the show and see firsthand presentations from some of the leading companies offering tools in this niche vertical. Are there any topics or points would you like to see discussed at this session? If so, please include them in the comments section.

Streaming Magazine: Cookin' With P2P - Recipe for Success or Flash in the Pan?

That's the title and focus of the June/July issue of Streaming Media magazine. In addition to discussing P2P we'll also have a SPECIAL REPORT: How Will Silverlight and Adobe Media Player Change the Online Video Landscape?

Additional editorial topics for this issue include:

- Online Video and Web 2.0
- This is Not Your Father’s TV, Part 2
- Streaming vs. Progressive Download: The Business Case for Each
- Putting VideoLAN to the Test
- First Look: Microsoft Windows Media’s New Video Encoding Profiles
- Reviewed: VX30 Video Encoder
- Case Study: MTV’s The Hills Are Alive on the Web

Streaming Media magazine is published bi-monthly and is free to U.S. residents that qualify. International readers can also purchase a subscription to the magazine.

List Of P2P Delivery Networks

The list of providers who are selling P2P based content delivery services to distribute video continues to grow rapidly. I am trying to create a comprehensive list of all the P2P distribution networks in the market today so I can better compare the solutions they have to offer. Below is the list of P2P video delivery networks that I currently track. I know there are others out there I forgot or that I don't know about and I would be interested to hear from others who they would add to this list. I am primarily interested in those providers delivering video as opposed to P2P technologies that specialize in audio. I've also separated those providers who have just a P2P offering and those who offer both a P2P and regular CDN offering.

 P2P Offering Only

• www.1-click.com
• www.bitgravity.com
• www.gridnetworks.com
• www.itiva.com
• www.movenetworks.com
• www.octoshape.com
• www.rawflow.com
• www.rinera.com
• www.swarmcast.com
• www.voddler.com      
  

P2P & CDN Offering

• www.cachelogic.com
• www.verisign.com

Who's missing from this list?

Job Opening: Sr. Product Manager, Business Development Manager, Microsoft Silverlight Team

Microsoft is looking to hire two full-time Sr. Product Managers and a Business Development & Deployment Manager working on the new Silverlight platform. All jobs are based in Redmond and you must have at least five years experience in the enterprise streaming and/or content delivery space.

Contact Sean Alexander at Microsoft if you are interested.

If you are looking for a new position, have taken a new job or are a company that has a job opening, let me know. In many cases I will highlight it here on the blog - free of charge.

P2P Delivery Networks Can't Survive On Their Own

Since the acquisition of RedSwoosh by Akamai, a lot of P2P delivery providers have been contacting me saying that the acquisition now validates their service offering. One has nothing to do with the other. Over the years, we have seen many acquisitions in the market where the company that was acquired then got close down or went under. The fact that one company in the P2P distribution market got acquired does not mean that all of a sudden P2P is going to get adopted.

Yes, it has a chance to become another means of distributing content, but it's not about comparing P2P distribution to other forms of content distribution. So many people want to talk about P2P as if you have to use that, or something else and no one talks about it as a hybrid. It's like the people who say they will either do streaming or progressive downloads. It's not one or the other. It's always about using the best combination of delivery platforms depending on the type of content being delivered along with who it's being delivered to and how they want to consume it.

In order for P2P to make it, it has to be combined into a service based business. It can't stand alone and be supported by itself. P2P can't try to fight against the traditional means of CDN distribution or else it will lose. It has to be combined with all other forms of delivery and be thought of as just another means of video distribution.

P2P vendors also need to stop referring to Joost and BitTorrent as successful P2P companies and trying to use those as examples when talking to people about P2P. Joost and BitTorrent are NOT P2P companies. They are content companies who happen to use P2P for delivery. But if consumers do not adopt Joost or BitTorrent's content business models, then the form of distribution they are using does not matter. They are content companies trying to sell content, that's the bottom line. The consumer does not care how the content is being delivered or what the protocol is as long as it meets their own personal expectations of how they judge quality.

It's a natural fit for a traditional based CDN like Akamai to want to add P2P delivery to the many other forms of content delivery offered and I expect we will see more CDN do this over time. That is the best way to get P2P adopted, offering and using it as another means of delivery be it streaming, progressive download or P2P.

What Ever Happened To TiVo Being A Hub For Content?

In December of 2005, TiVo announced it had partnered with Rocketboom so that TiVo users could watch Rocketboom on their DVRs and TiVo emphasized how this would be the first of many content deals to come. The industry praised this as a big deal for content owners who's content would now be able to cross over to set-top-boxes and the integration of online content to TV's.

But since this announcement, TiVo has made very few content deals of any significance. As of now, from what I can tell, they have fourteen content partners via TiVoCast. Aside from the New York Times, all of the other content deals are from small web only properties. Yes, they have the whole Amazon Unbox deal, but when was the last time you even heard anything about that?

You'd think at a time when TiVo's CEO is saying that "hopefully" they will pull in more subscribers and grow their business based on TiVo's unique kinds of features that help differentiate its DVR from the others on the market that they would had a lot more content deals in place.

So why hasn't TiVo done more content deals? Has anyone approached TiVo about a content deal and can comment on what it takes to become a content partner? Is it too expensive to get your content on TiVo's platform? I'm interested to hear from others who may know as to why TiVo seems to have so few content deals in place.