Verizon's FiOS Service Pays Off: Adoption Growing, Service Capable Of 50MB Today

A few months ago I did a review of my Verizon FiOS Internet service commenting on just how good their 20MB fiber connection is for $45 a month. Since that post, I have gotten a lot of e-mails from users all over the country asking for more info on FiOS. Many can't yet get FiOS or their service does not yet have the ability to get 20MB (I actually have the ability to get 50MB today if I pay more) but they will before too long. To date, my post about FiOS has been the most widely read post on my blog over any other topic.

Verizon has been getting a lot of play in the media lately and in my eyes, it is well deserved. Last week, Verizon announced they had signed up their 1 millionth FiOS Internet customer and has almost half a million FiOS TV subscribers. I know those numbers sound small in relation to the market, but they are growing very quickly quarter to quarter and right now, their percentages are big. 50% of all their Internet customers are also buying video and they have a 16% market penetration rate for FiOS in areas where it is offered. In addition, nearly 80% if all FiOS customer take Internet, video and phone all as one package. Verizon plans to make the service available to 9 million homes by the end of 2007, and 18 million by the end of 2010.

In addition to the fast Internet service, Verizon also offers TV over the FiOS service is some areas. In NY State, Verizon has to apply to each town to get a franchise license to offer the service. I called my town Mayor last week to ask what the hold up was and was told I that a deal with Verizon for my town should hopefully be done within the next 30 days. I can't wait.

For me, TV is just as big as the Internet because for the first time, I see Verizon having the opportunity to be able to take the Internet and the TV and combine them into a real compelling experience. Last week, Verizon also announced that it plans to offer HD video on demand over the FiOS service. And doing a little bit of research about the cable box that Verizon uses and I found out that in some cases Verizon is using a Motorola set-top boxes, called the “QIP” series that allows broadband companies the ability to offer IPTV services. In addition, the Verizon DVR allows you to record in HD and add the multi-room functionality that allows you to watch recorded programs on multiple TVs in any room in your house.

There is also some interesting reading on CNET, who posted an article about a Q&A session that the CTO of Verizon did with a room full of reporters at the NXTComm telecom tradeshow two weeks ago. Verizon's CTO said their goal is "to eventually deliver 100 megabits per second to any device in the home." I believe them, as where I live, they are already halfway to that number.

I will be posting a lot more about Verizon's FiOS service over the coming months and will do a review of the TV service as soon as I can sign up for it. FiOS is the future and for some, the future is now. I have 20MB today, what can I do with it? Not much yet, as there is not a lot of content on the web taking advantage of this type of connection, but there will be soon as Verizon cuts content deals and starts looking at ways they can become a content distributor along with being a carrier.

FiOS is the real deal. It is the service that the industry has all been talking about wanting for years and it's finally a reality. Good service, fast, cheap and lots of support. Exactly what any product needs to have in order to get mass market adoption.

Job Opening: Sales Director/Senior Sales Executive, Ortiva Wireless

Fresh off their announcement on Monday of raising $15 million, Ortiva Wireless is looking to hire a Sales Director/Senior Sales Executive for the Eastern United States. This person will be responsible for developing strategic partnerships with other ecosystem participants as well as identify opportunities among Ortiva’s target customers, qualify these opportunities, present Ortiva solutions and negotiate sales.

If you are interested in the opportunity and would like more details on the position, contact John Rogers who is conducting the search.

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.

Reuters: Asia To beat Europe In Mobile TV

Interesting short story on Reuters last week talking about how industry executives are saying that they are seeing a shift to where the market in Asia is going to beat out the European market for the adoption of TV to mobile. Newsworthy to me as I always thought the Asian market already had beaten out the European market in terms of adoption. Of course the article also mentions how the lack of standards and spectrum availability in some markets is also hindering the progress.

Job Opening: Technical Project Manager, Video, NYTimes.com

Now that Nick Ascheim has been promoted to VP of Editorial Products at the NYTimes.com, they are looking for someone to take on the roll of technical project manager for video. This position, based in NYC, will lead the development of video, audio, and multimedia software products for The New York Times' Web site.

You can see full details of the job description, responsibilities and requirements and apply here.

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.

Adobe's Marketing Of Flash and Apollo Should Be Copied By Others

In all the years of watching Apple, Microsoft, Real and Adobe (Macromedia) talk about their video players and platforms, I'm still amazed at how quickly Adobe seems to be able to get people to talk about their products before they're even available. In this industry in particular, perception can quickly become reality, like it or not. I credit Macromedia will really being the first to market like crazy their Flash player in that regard, talking about some of the functionality and uses for it before much of that functionality was even available, thereby creating a "perception" in the market that the player always had the functionality. I still get people who call today saying that DRM works well in Flash or that Flash video works great on mobile devices, when in fact neither is yet the case but they assume it is since they have heard of other Flash products that Adobe is working on to address those problems.

It's the same with Apollo. I keep reading news articles, like the one on Yahoo! news today, where people say things like, "Adobe's new media player downloads video for offline viewing." What new media player? Apollo, now named Adobe AIR, is NOT available for download, only the SDK is. Yet many in the press, investment community and the industry keep asking me or telling me that the new Apollo player is working really well or that it is changing the way content creators develop for offline viewing. Maybe it will, but considering the Adobe Media Player is not even available for at least another few months one can't say that those things are happening today. Even more interesting to note is that this same article on Yahoo! talks about the new RealPlayer and says, "which will be available for public testing next week" but then it doesn't say anything about the Adobe Media Player not being out till the fall. A great example of how Adobe seems to just always stand above the others in the perception factor.

But that's the kind of perception Adobe has in the market with its Flash product line, people just assume all sorts of things about it, right or not. Sure, it's good for Adobe and bad for its competitors and it has both a negative and positive effect on the market. Yes, anytime you can get a content creator interested in creating more compelling video for consumption and get people excited, that helps the industry. But at the same time, customers with wrong expectations then are harder to work with on adopting technology that they think should already be there. Yes, it gives me and StreamingMedia.com a chance to educate people, but I'd rather educate them on facts as opposed to "perception" in the market, but I seem to do more of the latter of late.

Other companies should take note on the way Adobe markets its entire Flash product line and the ways they go about getting others to talk about it. In my eyes, other companies could learn a lot from Adobe's marketing skills.

User Generated Video Bubble Needs To Pop, And Soon

The entire market for user generated content, in particular video, has just gotten completely out of hand. I must get 2-3 releases a week now from new UGC sites that are launching, yet none of them say anything about their business models. They all talk to how their player is different, their video looks better, their search capability is improved or some other aspect of the user experience.

What about the business model? Where is it? By my last count, there were over 60 UGC sites on the web that I am tracking, the majority of which I have no idea how one differs from the other. Yes, some of them are more focused than others and provide content for just one vertical like comedy, or independent films, but still, there are too many of them. It is only a matter of time before this UGC bubble bursts and these sits consolidate or disappear completely.

Mediaweek published an article yesterday about ManiaTV and how they are shifting their business model away from UGC to focus solely on original content. Will it help? Too early to know, but I give ManiaTV credit for realizing that much of UGC is purely hype. ManiaTV’s chief marketing officer Peter Clemente said it best in the Mediaweek article, "Hype doesn’t necessarily equate to profitability."

What Questions Would You Ask ABC, FOX, Yahoo! and AOL About Video?

This Thursday, I am moderating a panel at the OMMA Video show in NYC entitled "TV Content Comes Online: Prime Time on the Web" with panelists from ABC, FOX, Yahoo! and AOL. I plan on focusing the discussion around the "business models" that are trying to be established around professionally produced content. My questions will include:

• do the major broadcasters really see Internet video as "TV on the Web"?
• how many people are really watching this content on the Web?
• what does it costs to sponsor/buy ads around video content?
• how many eyeballs do content creators need to get before advertising can support and cover their costs of producing and distributing video online?
• has anything been successful from a sponsorship or advertising side of monetization of video?
• who has real numbers on how many more eyeballs the networks are getting to the TV, where they make their real money, because of their use of video on the Web?

What other points of discussion do you think should be discussed?

Readers of the blog can get a discounted pass to the show ($395) by registering here and using discount code VEDISCSTRM.

Mobile Video Delivery Heats Up: Ortiva Wireless Raises $15 Million

Ortivia Wireless, a network specializing in mobile video and multimedia content delivery announced that they have raised $15 million in its Series B funding led by Comcast Interactive Capital. I first met Ortiva at the Streaming Media West show last year and profiled them on my blog back in February.

The size of this funding should be a clear indication to the industry that mobile video delivery is starting to gain traction and will soon become a real business. Using a content delivery network that has been built to deliver content just for mobile devices is going to become a requirement for content creators, especially since the traditional CDNs are setup to do very limited mobile video delivery. Of the nearly ten content delivery networks in the U.S. today, seven out of ten of them don't have any mobile video delivery offering at all. And the few that do offer a very basic service in some cases charge up to 10x what they charge for regular CDN delivery as they are not properly setup to truly deliver video to mobile.

InternetNews.com just profiled the CEO of Ortiva Wireless, DeWayne Nelon this past Friday and did a Q&A interview that discusses some details of Ortiva's offering. Ortiva is one to watch.

The FeedRoom Receives $5 Million In New Debt Financing

On Friday, BlueCrest Capital Finance announced that it had provided The FeedRoom with $5 million in new debt financing. To date, The FeedRoom has previously raised nearly $50 million in venture equity funding and recently opened new offices in Toronto and California.

Back in February I posted about The FeedRoom and other companies who had just recently gotten received a third round of funding and was questioning how many more rounds of funding can all of these companies get before they have to show investors some real revenue numbers. Before too long, there is going to have to be a tipping point in our industry where the VC money is not going to be as easy to get as it is now.

Looking For Bloggers To Write About Online Video

Ok, so I'll put my money where my mouth is so to speak. If you are interested in doing a blog about some facet of the online video industry, we'll setup the blog for you, drive traffic to it, promote it on StreamingMedia.com AND sell sponsorships and ads on the blog and split the revenue with you. All you have to do is blog, which is enough work by itself. I'll even blog with you on your site to start.

We can get you the traffic if you can provide the content. While I am open to all ideas, in particular I want to start blogs on enterprise video, mobile video, webcasting and P2P video. I own domains already like p2pvideoblog.com, enterprisevideoblog.com, webcastingblog.com etc... and you can use one of them if you so choose.

So that's about as easy as I can make it. You'll get a login to TypePad and can just blog, we'll do all the rest. If you are serious about it, please contact me.

Why Don't More Companies In The Online Video Industry Have Blogs?

As my previous post has pointed out, many times there are a lot of questions members of the media have for vendors and suppliers in this industry that should be getting answered on that companies blog. I understand that not all questions will be answered but why is it that bloggers and others in the media have such a hard time getting companies to respond to questions in an open forum?

Why don't more companies in our space have blogs? It costs you nothing to have one, it drives more traffic to you, it gets you more visibility and you're seen as being a thought-leader. The excuse I always hear is "we don't have the time", which to me means you're lazy. If you are really small company, that's understandable, but when you're a hundred plus organization, there is no excuse. People also say to me, "we're not StreamingMedia.com and you can easily get traffic to your blog". You're wrong. Google sends more traffic to my blog than StreamingMedia.com does. Each month, Google accounts for over 60% of all the traffic I get simply based on people typing in phrases they are looking for. If done correctly, with the right tags and feeds, your blog can get a lot of traffic too. This blog does over 100,000 page views a month now and it's only been online for four months.

All day long people contact me to write about them, feature their product, etc..... and to many of them I ask why they don't have a blog to talk about what they are doing? Or better yet, team up with two or three other companies that are in the same vertical industry you are and do a blog together. Why are there no blogs that I am aware of about topics like "Enterprise Video" or "Mobile Video" or "Webcasting" or better yet "P2P Video". Yes, I know there are some sites about P2P applications, but P2P for video is a great example of a product that is not understood by most in our space and even more so by customers. Why hasn't three or four of the P2P/grid computing/delivery vendors gotten together to start a blog to educate customers on what exactly P2P is all about? What are you waiting for? Customers don't know what you do, I can't explain it as well as you can, so where is the outreach?

And I'm not just picking on the P2P guys, although they are at the top of the list as that subject has more confusion than most. Myself, StreamingMedia.com and the other sites out there can only educate the market so much for you. We have limited resources, we have to cover so many technologies, products and vertical markets that we can only get to so many things. Vendors and suppliers need to step up and start educating the market at well via channels like blogs.

If your company wants to do one, wants to work with others to do one, I'll even help you as much as I can - free of charge.

RealNetworks Rob Glaser Responds To Questions About New RealPlayer

As I had written about in an earlier post, Rafat at PaidContent.org interviewed Rob Glaser about the new RealPlayer that allows anyone to save and download videos on the web that aren't protected by DRM. In a follow up to Rafat's interview, he posted on his site some additional questions that Rob answered and posted to Real's blog.

While many of the answers to the questions were vague or didn't really answer the question, I have to agree with Rafat that others should take the example Real has set and answer questions from the media in an open forum on their own blog. It's going to drive a lot more traffic to your site, multiple bloggers like me are now posting about the blog and linking to it and ir probably took Rob all of 5 minutes to answer a few questions.

Streaming Media Europe Show: Few Speaking Spots Remain Open

There are a few round-table speaking spots open for the Streaming Media Europe show, taking place October 4-5, at the Copthorne Tara Hotel in London that I am looking to fill. First priority will be given to those speakers and companies based in Europe. Vendors welcomed. E-mail me if interested. Open panels are:

Thursday, October 4, 2007

Streaming Video Content To Mobile: What Works Technically and Commercially
Much hype around Mobile TV, but is it really working in streaming video content to mobiles? Which content genres work commercially?  How can one reach consumers without being on the operator portal? Understand the genres that work on mobile; understand that there is an ecosystem of players to help them mobilise content IP.

Beyond Pre-Roll: What’s Next for Online Video Advertising?
As video advertising evolves in the coming months and years, technologies and business models will naturally extend beyond those in practice today. Sponsorships in the form of product placement and brand ‘overlays’, pre-roll teasers that encourage post-roll clicks and other creative techniques, more effective use of in-banner video, creation of standards and best practices, identifying key performance metrics, establishing content syndication models, affiliate marketplaces and other distribution and monetisation strategies - these are just a few of the challenges and opportunities that face the online advertising industry.

Friday, October 5, 2007

From the Web to your TV: New Media Delivery Revolution
AppleTV, TiVo, Slingbox and a host of other hardware and software products are starting to deliver new media content from the Web to TVs. Learn what latest devices are being used to deliver consumer content and find out how content creators big and small are utilising these new tools. Also discussed will be how online content is being treated differently from traditional broadcast content and what potential business models are being created for the monetisation of consumer content.

Delivering on the Three Screen Video Experience
Digital entertainment offers the opportunity to engage consumers on a multitude of devices, creating new opportunities to market, sell, boost ratings and increase customer loyalty. Speed to market and the quality of the service delivered often define success. This session will discuss how content creators can best prepare today to take advantage of the opportunities created by the rapid growth of new media audiences. Learn which business models are most likely to work and why a cross-platform approach to the business of new media is essential.

Microsoft Announces New IPTV Features, Renames Product Mediaroom

This morning, Microsoft announced that it had updated its IPTV software platform, providing several new capabilities and renamed the product Mediaroom. The new capabilities include music and photo sharing, picture-in-picture capabilities, digital terrestrial television support and mostly importantly, an application development toolkit. Opening up the platform is a crucial step for Microsoft as it now allows developers access to a once closed system and gives them an opportunity to develop new applications for Mediaroom.

Microsoft's press release states that "more than 18 of the world’s leading service providers have selected the Microsoft Mediaroom platform for their digital TV offerings, and commercial deployments are currently underway with 10 providers."

At the time of this posting, both the www.microsoftmediaroom.com and www.microsoft.com/TV websites were not working and giving directory listing errors.

While we're on the subject of IPTV, I think there is a lot of confusion as to what an IPTV service offering is and how that ties into streaming media technology and the online video industry. I hear the term IPTV and Internet TV used in the same manner but it's important to remember that IPTV is a closed network, the Internet is not. The two are very different technologies and distribution platforms.

User Generated Video Sites Veoh and Kyte.tv Both Receive Funding

In more funding news this week, Veoh and Kyte.tv both announced investment deals.

Veoh raised $26 million in a series C funding led by Goldman Sachs and existing shareholders Spark Capital and Shelter Capital Partners. For Veoh, this gives them a combined total of just over $41 million raised to date, by far the largest of any of the user generated video sharing sites. That's a lot of money for a site that shares videos and I know I speak for many in the industry when I say that I can't wait to see how they will monetize this type of content and show investors a return on their money.

Kyte.tv, a new company on my radar which launched its website in May, said on Tuesday it had received funding from the investment arm of Nokia. Kyte.tv which aims to take the video sharing model on the Internet over to the handset, did not disclose the size of the investment. Kyte also lists as investors Swisscom and Niklas Zannstrom, who started Web phone service Skype.

Digital Media Patents For Profit In The Online Video Industry

I've covered the topic of patent litigation in the past as it pertains to the online video industry and from recent announcements, it shows no sign of slowing down. Acacia's not the only company aggressively pursuing these hot patents as potential revenue generators, and target companies need a sound response strategy should Acacia or any other firm come looking for licensing fees.

Last week, Nokia filed a counter-infringement lawsuit against Qualcomm accusing them of infringing on six patents in Nokia's MediaFlo mobile TV service amongst other things.

In May, Streamcast Networks was seeking an injunction against Joost and also last month, Media Rights Technologies and BlueBeat.com issued cease and desist letters to Microsoft, Apple, Adobe and RealNetworks over technology that controls access to copyrighted material.

Tracking all of the litigation taking place that pertains to video over IP continues to be very important and staying on top what is taking place is crucial if you are involved in video. It is important that you and your customers are aware of how this is and will continue to affect the online video industry. Suppliers and vendors in the IP video industry as well as content creators need to have the background information to make eductaed business decisions. With that in mind, myself and the Analysis Group wrote a featured article for the Streaming Media sourcebook that covers this topic.

The article, entitled, "Digital Media Patents for Profit", can be read on StreamingMedia.com and gives an overview of what all companies should be aware of.

Content Delivery Video Pricing Rises In The First Half Of This Year

While most people assume that the cost of bandwidth is continuing to decline, the cost of delivering video over a content delivery network has gone up slightly this year. The big price drop in bandwidth has been on the network side of the business as opposed to the delivery side. Since most CDNs still charge on a per GB delivered model, that pricing has been pretty stable over the past 12 months and in the last 6 months, we've seen a price increase of between $0.02 - $0.03 per GB delivered.

The reason for this is primarily that CDN providers are no longer selling on price alone. They are selling on customer service, SLA, geographic reach, customized reporting and additional value ad services like content management and the like. And on the flip side, customers are now buying services based on these factors as opposed to just who gives the lowest pricing, which is the way they should all be buying.

Based on the pricing I have seen in the market which comes directly from customers contracts and RFPs that are sent to me weekly, asking for feedback, below is a breakdown range on the latest pricing trends for delivering audio and video content, across CDNs like Akamai, CacheLogic, Internap, Limelight Networks, Mirror Image, NaviSite and VeriSign.

• 1TB: High, $2.00GB, Low $1.50GB
• 5TB: High, $1.60GB, Low $0.95GB
• 10TB: High, $1.20GB, Low $0.89GB
• 25TB: High, $0.95GB, Low $0.75GB
• 50TB: High, $0.65, Low, $0.45GB
• 100TB: High, $0.29, Low, $0.19
• Above 100TB: It's all over the map

While delivery pricing will always vary based on many factors, the most important of which is the customers needs, the above pricing is the going rate today for delivery on all of the major CDNs. While I have seen that pricing rise slightly, I don't see the trend continuing for the rest of the year. I think the slight rise we have seen for the per GB delivered pricing model will pretty much flatten out the rest of the year.

For more details on pricing, you can watch my presentation from the Streaming Media East show in May entitled "HOW TO: Costs for Outsourced Hosting And Video Delivery" and can read my article from February entitled "How to Shop for Video Hosting: Five Questions To Ask".

Looking For Keynote Presenters For Streaming Media Europe Show

I am actively looking for keynote presenters for the Streaming Media Europe show, taking place October 4-5, at the Copthorne Tara Hotel in London. Keynote presenters should be from a company that is based in Europe that is currently using online video in some way that can talk to the adoption, deployment and success that they have seen from the technology and how it has helped their business. They can be from the media and entertainment, enterprise, broadcast or government verticals.

At this time, I am not accepting any vendors or suppliers for these presentation spots however I am interested in hearing from any vendor who may have a customer that would fit into the requirement. You can send me e-mail or call me at 917-523-4562 with any suggestions.

Internet TV Platform Provider PermissionTV Gets $9 Million Investment

PermissionTV, the self described "Internet TV technology platform provider" announced today that it had received $9 million in funding from Castile Ventures and Point Judith Capital. Both are new investors in the company joining the other six investments firms who have already invested in PermissionTV. The  press release also says the company has signed over 30 new customers in the past year.

PermissionTV falls in the category of other companies like Narrowstep and Maven Networks that allow companies a platform by which they can create branded Internet TV channels and monetize the traffic via ad supported content, subscription based and various other means. There are a lot of players in the Internet TV platform space, whatever that means, but quite frankly, I can't really tell the differences between most of them. They all seem to focus on professional content, nothing user generated related, and sell the platform as more of an ASP model. The suite of features and functionality they have is all pretty similar but does vary from one provider to another.

For me, it all boils down to what exactly is defined by the term "Internet TV"?

P2P Content Delivery Company Oversi Receives $8 Million In Funding, Including From Cisco

Yesterday, Oversi, a P2P caching and content delivery company headquartered in Israel announced it had received $8 million in funding led by Cisco. The release says the funding will enable them to expand Oversi's sales and distribution channels and will help fund the development of new products in the P2P streaming and delivery space.

I know there are at least two other P2P based delivery networks that are currently closing funding which would give vendors in the P2P delivery market a lot of dollars combined. I would expect/hope to see many of them really push hard into the market shortly with their value propositions.

Video Content Creators Like Rocketboom Can't Survive On Advertising

There has been a lot of talk about Rocketboom as of late (read Frank Barnako's Story on MarketWatch.com) as to how they are going to monetize their videos as they try to generate revenue. I think Rocketboom is a great example of where sometimes, our industry and the media that covers it, really goes overboard. From day one, Rocketboom was always talked about as being "successful" simply because they had a ton of traffic and eyeballs. Everyone talked about Rocketboom as the example of how to build a video business on the Internet even though enough people out there were saying, "where's the revenue"? What's the business model? Where's the syndication strategy?

Rocketboom should serve as a wake-up call to those who think that simply having traffic equals revenue and a sustainable, growing business model. Or to those that think online video advertising alone is going to generate a lot of revenue in today's market. Even companies like ABC and others are supplementing their advertising with corporate sponsorships, and in ABC's case, they have content that is professionally produced and is content people actually want to watch, unlike many of the other content sites on the web.

As an industry, we should be judging the success of any company based on revenue. I hate to say that as it sounds like something you'd hear from an analyst on Wall Street talking about a public company, but without real revenue, no company can survive. Sure, not all companies need to be huge and do tons of revenue. There is nothing wrong with being small, growing slowly and capturing more eyeballs or market share. But at some point, it all does come down to generating enough revenue to keep the company going, no matter how many eyeballs or notoriety your site has.

eBay To Use More User Generated Video, Amazon.com and Others Need To Follow Suit

Thanks to Rod Bacon over at Media Publisher for giving me the heads up about eBay making an announcement last week about their planned use for expanding user-generated video functionality on their website. In conjunction with an announcement by Onstream Media, eBay sellers now have the ability to easily place their own embedded videos in any listing on every category of eBay. Options include a "Show and Tell" feature which is a talking image gallery for use on all eBay listings and an "About Me" video feature which enables sellers to create a short, :30 to :60 second spot about themselves which eBay hopes will further establish trust and credibility. In addition, eBay is also running some user-generated video submission contests tying into the Transformers movie premiere in July.

I always felt sites like eBay, Monster.com, Amazon.com and others are behind the curve when it comes to video. Why can't I see a video of an item on eBay instead of just a picture? Why can't I see a video resume on Monster.com instead of reading a word document? (Only Monster's India website has the option, announced two days ago) And why doesn't Amazon.com allow companies to upload videos of the product they are selling, so we can see how it actually works before we buy it.

As much as we talk about video having mass-market adoption, some of the biggest sites on the web, that generate the most revenue, hardly use video at all.

Video Player Functionality: Are Companies Putting Functionality Over Content?

About a week ago, Break.com launched a new video player with some interesting capabilities that I have not seen on many other sites. These user controlled capabilities include TV-style picture controls that let you change brightness and colors of the video, a click and drag option to make the video window any size you want, electronic picture guide within the player and some other additional functionality. You can see a demo of the new player here.

While additional player functionality and customizable options are always cool to have, my real question for Break.com was how this would translate into additional revenue for the company. As anyone who knows me has heard me say over and over again, "technology means nothing unless it moves your business forward". The answers I got back from Break.com on how this would help their business makes sense, but I think in some part, many sites are focusing too much time on their player and its controls instead of the content being shown in the player itself.

For Break.com they said the new player functionality is important as they are using it to hopefully help drive more consumption. When someone e-mails a link to a video, Break.com is hoping that the enhanced player will keep the user at the site and turn that visit into multiple video views, which for them equals more advertising dollars. Allowing the user to browser other videos while continuing to watch the current channel, hence the electronic picture guide option, also is a very important tactic for them and is what drove the creation of their guide.

Break.com also feels that to retain users, they need to have a differeniation in the market for their player. They say as the technology of web video delivery becomes increasingly commoditized, the barriers to entry have gotten lower. In light of that, creating a differentiated, hard-to-duplicate suite of features that users want becomes important to them. In their research, the one thing users value most is control over the playback experience... every facet of it, hence the TV-style controls with resizing, slow-motion, brightness, etc... Break.com also said that being focused on the 18-35 male demo has distinguished them to date, and they feel that in order to defend and grow within that demo requires a differentiated and superior playback experience. Some of Break.com's members would agree and some wouldn't. Based on the feedback to the new Break.com player, it looks pretty even with half of the comments saying they like the new player and the other half saying the older player was just fine. A few commented that the volume and assortment of video content should be the focus, not the player.

Break.com is like most sites when it comes to the functionality of their player, constantly trying to improve on the user experience and give that user as much control as possible. However, I think users are more focused on the type and quality of the content rather than the player. We have seen before that consumers are looking for specific video content and are searching for content based on interest, not based on which site has the best player. I think the content has to drive the technology, not the other way around. Having a lot of control over the video playback is nice, but I'd rather go to a site that has the content I want and has fewer player controls.

For me, I just want a player that has volume and pause options. Even full-screen is a waste as far as I am concerned unless the video is encoded at 500Kbps or more, otherwise it's just too pixelated. Yes, TV style controls may be nice, but I don't think I've ever changed the contrast on my TV at home, let alone via videos on the web.

Limelight Networks Shares Open At $23: Market Cap Well Over A Billion

FRIDAY: As of about 11:30am, Limelight's shares have started trading and opened at $23. That values them at well over a billion dollars. Also, Limelight Networks has launched a new version of their website.

THURSDAY: As I expected, Limelight Networks has priced its shares higher than the original estimate in their prospectus. Thursday night, Limelight announced that its initial public offering of 16,000,000 shares of common stock has been priced at $15.00 per share. Shares of Limelight Networks' common stock will begin trading on June 8, 2007 on the Nasdaq Global Market under the symbol LLNW. This gives them an enterprise value over over a billion.

Note: I don't own any shares of Limelight Networks.

RealNetworks Introduces New Player: We Already Have Too Many

Last week at the D5 conference, RealNetworks introduced a new RealPlayer that allows users to download videos from any website that aren't protected by DRM. The player allows many formats of videos to be downloaded including Flash, Windows Media and QuickTime. A premium version of the player for $29.95 allows users to burn that content to a DVD. Now aside from the obvious idea that content owners may revolt at the idea of people being able to save their content whether they want them to or not, I just don't see the value to RealNetworks in a new player. Why offer it?

RealNetworks has been out of the video format space for some time. They are a major player in the music and audio space with their Rhapsody offering but not for anything that pertains to video. So how does having a new video player help any other aspect of their business? I listened to an audio interview with Rob Glaser at PaidContent.org on this subject and still I don't see the value. Rafat asked Rob directly what the business model was for this new player but didn't get an answer that really gave any specific details.

Clearly Real wants consumers to download the player and then hopefully buy the premium version so they can burn content to DVDs. But isn't this the exact same model we saw with the free RealPlayer and the RealPlayer Plus version years ago? Is it really the right time in the market to be trying to up-sell consumers on the functionality of a media player?

And I think the bigger question is, do we really need more players in the industry? Isn't it already hard enough for consumers? How many more players and plugins are we going to try and force viewers to have to download? Windows Media Player, Silverlight Plugin, Flash Plugin, Adobe Media Player (later in the year), QuickTime Player, RealPlayer, DivX, BitTorrent etc.... and potentially other plugins depending on what site you are viewing video from. I think it is too many already, without the new player from Real.

RealNetworks Please Note: QuickTime is spelled as one word, capital Q and capital T. It is wrong in your press release.

Blip.tv and EyeWonder Both Receive Funding

And the funding deals just keep on coming. Yesterday, Blip.tv and EyeWonder both announced they had received a round of financing.

Blip.tv, best known for sharing advertising revenue 50/50 with content creators, announced yesterday that they have closed a second round, amount not disclosed, led by Ambient Sound Investments (ASI), the venture capital fund established by the four founding engineers of Skype. Blip.tv plans to use the money to develop and offer new advertising options and extend their content distribution network to reach users on multiple devices.

Also yesterday, EyeWonder announced they had received a round of funding from BIA Digital Partners, a private investment firm focusing on mid-to-later stage companies. The amount was not disclosed. EyeWonder plans to use the money to expand in the U.S and abroad.

Limelight Networks Should IPO This Week: Will Be Valued Near A Billion Dollars

Limelight Networks is scheduled to price their shares on or about this Thursday and could be trading as early as this Friday. While their prospectus says shares should price between $10-$12, my guess is that they could be priced higher than that simply based on how hot the content delivery market is.

Personally, I think anytime a company in our space goes public it's good for the entire industry as it brings added exposure to the world of online video. It also allows us to see the real numbers behind the business; although in Limelight's case, they are one of the few who have been showing their numbers for awhile even before they were raising money.

Based on their S-1 filing of 78.3 million shares out, at $11 a share that's a market cap of $861 million, minus cash of $127 million plus debt of $20.6 million, that gives them an enterprise value of about $750 million. And that's with it pricing at $11 a share. So if it prices higher, and goes up at all upon trading, they will be over the billion dollar mark. That would be a multiple of about 15x revenue.

UPDATE: On many news websites, articles are quoting Jim Cramer as having said on his TV show that MTV and Akamai are suing Limelight Networks. Limelight Networks is NOT being sued by MTV. As their prospectus clearly states, Akamai and MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) are in litigation with Limelight, not MTV.

ChinaCache Closes Series B Round Of $31.5 Million

Last month, the largest content delivery network in the China region, ChinaCache, announced it had raised a Series B round of $31.5 million. I'm surprised not to have seen this talked about on a lot of websites considering ChinaCache is considered to be the premier company in their region with little, if no competition.

I don't know much about ChinaCache as a company but they say they have nodes in 50 major cities across China and did $10 million in revenue for 2006. They also have Yahoo! and Nokia as partners for their CDN service. This is a company to watch. It's only a matter of time before they see some serious revenue growth in a region that is growing as fast, it not faster, then the U.S. market. I'm surprised that no U.S. based CDN has done any type of integration with them, or if they have, aren't promoting it heavily. Anyone else have more info on ChinaCache?

P2P Industry Discussion and Event, June 13th In Los Angeles

If you are going to be in the LA area on June 13th, the LA Content Networking Forum will be a great opportunity to meet folks and learn about the State-of-the-Internet in the LA area (i.e. Content Delivery, Networking, Connectivity, Metro, Co-location and Peering).

There will be food, drinks, music and a Q&A session following a panel discussion from executives at Level 3, Equinix, Peak Web Consulting and Panther Express.

For all the details, click on the flyer and make sure to register in advance for the event. Space is limited so if you haven’t already, be sure to RSVP.

Deutsche Bank Has It Wrong: Apple TV Will Not Cannibalize a Good Chunk of the DVD Market

Why is it that every time a new means of distributing video content comes out, analysts always immediately predict that it will eat into the current way of doing things? From an article on Yahoo!, "Apple will cannibalize a good chunk of the U.S. $26-billion DVD player market in the next several years, according to Deutsche Bank. One of the primary drivers of this change will be the availability of YouTube content on Apple TV."

Seriously, this is just getting ridiculous. If you want to have the opinion that online video will eat into DVD sales, that's one thing. But to say the reason Apple TV will do so is because of the availability of user-generated content, well now you're not even comparing Apples to Apples. (no pun intended)

You can't compare content on YouTube with professionally produced content on DVDs. And you certainly can't compare downloading content to your computer and having to transfer it to a device connected to your TV with that of having a portable DVD disc with content. Even online video has not eaten into DVD sales and  online video on multiple devices has way more market share than Apple TV ever will. These analysts are just getting carried away.

 

Job Opening: Technical Director, Video Product Development and Delivery, Turner Networks

Turner Networks currently has an open position for a Technical Director, Video Product Development and Delivery in Atlanta.The Director leads a team of 4-6 software engineers who are responsible for the development, integration, and ongoing management of video products for Web and broadband businesses. The teams primary activities include: Developing video players and supporting frameworks for advertising and content delivery; Leading overall technical implementation of consumer-facing video players and applications through the complete development and product lifecycle; and Working closely with Turners Web/broadband properties.

For more details, contact John Dailey who is leading the search.

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.