Will Limelight's New XD Platform Threaten Akamai's High-Margin Business?

Yesterday, Limelight Networks made two related announcements; a new global content delivery platform, called the XD platform, and two new services based on that platform, called LimelightCONTROL XD and LimelightDELIVER XD. I’ve been getting a lot of questions from folks about these announcements, especially since one of the releases contained a quote from Overstock.com, a customer that as far as I had known, had only been using Akamai.

Many are asking me if this new platform is going to allow Limelight to really push into the value add services market that Akamai has dominated for so long. I’ll be posting a deeper look at Limelight's technology hopefully later in the week, but in the meantime, here’s an overview of the news, as well as an answer to the question I’ve heard the most: is this a threat to Akamai's high margin business?

Limelight's new XD platform features the same basic architecture as Limelight’s previous network, still utilizing their 15,000+ servers deployed around the globe, connected to 900+ last-mile networks. In addition, Limelight now has 8 million externally-deployed user agents, deployed around the Internet, feeding data back to Limelight about conditions on last-mile networks and Internet backbones (this is one of the areas that I hope to learn more details about during a scheduled briefing with Limelight later this week).

The new XD platform uses new edge server software that includes something Limelight calls “Adaptive Intelligence” that adjusts protocols in real-time for each connection or user request, which Limelight says significantly improves delivery performance. All existing services run on the new platform, so there is no migration for current customers as they are already running on the new XD platform. (Limelight’s delivery this past weekend of “The Wizard of Oz” for Netflix was all done on the new XD platform).

Limelight's XD platform also supports new services, the first of which Limelight also announced yesterday, called LimelightDELIVER XD and LimelightCONTROL XD. LimelightDELIVER XD uses the new Adaptive Intelligence feature of the XD platform to provide faster and more consistent object deliveries to users and LimelightCONTROL XD provides enhanced reporting and management features, including self-provisioning.

It is important to keep in mind that “CDN services” is not one single market, but a collection of sub-markets: streaming, large object delivery, small object delivery, whole site and dynamic content delivery, and overlay routing.  As I have written in the past, CDNs are starting to do a lot more than just deliver video on their networks. CDNs offer services in some or all of these areas, and also mix and match these, or parts of these, into services aimed at particular customer business problems. What Limelight announced yesterday is focused on object delivery, not whole site and not transactions. So just by themselves, today’s announcements probably don’t fundamentally rewrite the rules of the CDN industry.

But it seems pretty clear to me that today’s announcements are just the beginning and that there’s more to come. Limelight's XD platform announcement, in particular, seems like a “foundation” announcement on which Limelight will likely build other services. Globally deployed user agents that collect data on Internet and last-mile conditions – all the way to end user devices – and feed that data back to the CDN is potentially pretty important stuff.

And the Adaptive Intelligence approach seems pretty interesting too, as it extends the CDN “toolkit” beyond just resolving hostnames to edge servers that will handle the next few minutes’ worth of content requests. It’s an approach that extends down to the individual connection and out to the very end of the last mile. If it really does make Internet connections significantly faster (by using them more efficiently) on a case-by-case basis, and if Limelight applies this approach to other kinds of CDN services, like whole site delivery and transactions, then this could disrupt Akamai's value add services.

But Limelight hasn’t announced those kinds of services just yet. So today, I’d say this is a pretty important announcement for companies doing object delivery – small or large – and that it may just be the beginning of something fundamentally very significant – but we’ll have to wait and see for sure if it has any impact on Akamai's value add services.

Related Posts:

- Rumor Of AT&T Acquiring Akamai Appears To Be The Latest Of Many

- NBC and Microsoft Kick Off NFL Season Tonight, Akamai Doing The Delivery

- CDNs Need To Evolve To Offer Tiered Performance And Pricing Plans

- Featured Article: The Future Of The CDN Market

SM West Speaker Lineup: Sling, Roku, Vizio, Xbox, YouTube, MobiTV, TiVo, Cisco and More

The Streaming Media West show and Online Video Platform Summit are less than two weeks away and between the two events, we've got 140 speakers across 40 different sessions. If streaming devices and platforms is your interest we've got speakers from: Xbox 360, Roku, Sling Media, Vizio, TiVo, FLO TV, Boxee, MobiTV, Motorola, Cisco, ZillionTV and Verizon amongst others.

In addition, we've also got many of the major content owners represented with speaking spots including: FOX, Disney, NBC Universal, MTV, HBO Broadband, EPIX, MLB, YouTube/Google, Turner, CNN Money, Comcast, Associated Press, FUNimation and Mountain Sports International amongst others.

It's not too late to get a pass and readers of my blog can register using my own personal discount code of DRF1, which gets you $200 off the ticket price. You can attend all three days of the SM West show for only $695.

User Comments On NFL.com and MLB.com Starting To Look Like YouTube's

Over the last few months, I'm noticing that a larger percentage of fan comments on NFL.com and MLB.com are starting to look like those on YouTube. Readers are posting comments that contain racial slurs, four letter words, physical threats to others as well as additional content you'd think the NFL and MLB would not want to allow.

Unlike YouTube, the NFL and MLB have professionally produced content with lots of major advertisers who can't possibly want to advertise around such user generated comments. And while no one expects every bad comment to be caught, it seems as if neither the NFL or MLB is even trying to do anything about it. It's very easy to find dozens of such comments, many times in the same subject thread on both of their sites.

On NFL.com, they are being even more careless when they randomly take user comments from the site and highlight them, in big fonts, right on the main page, as you can see here. One has to wonder why either organization would allow this, unless they don't care since user comment sections drive up their page views. One of the excuses we hear as to why it's so hard for YouTube to generate ad dollars from the vast majority of their videos is that advertisers don't want to be associated with specific UGC content or the comments that gets generated from those videos. So why would the NFL and MLB put monetizing their content with their advertisers in jeopardy?

I sent inquiries to both the MLB and NFL asking for them to explain their policies around user generated comments, but weeks have gone by with no answer from either company. Whatever their policies are, clearly neither organization is doing enough to address this and it's simply a bad business practice on their part to ignore it. The NFL and MLB logos/websites are highly valuable brands, being tarnished by a lot of really bad comments from users.

Readers Of My Blog Can Get Special Discount Ticket To Streaming Media West Show

The Streaming Media West show is only six weeks away and nearly all of the speakers have now been confirmed. Leading up to the show, I'll be highlighting on my blog some of the sessions taking place to give everyone a flavor for the topics we'll be covering. I'm also pleased to announce that readers of my blog can still register using my own personal discount code of DRF1, which gives you $200 off the 3-day conference ticket, making it only $695 to attend.

You can also register online for a free exhibits pass which also gives you access to the keynotes from Xbox, FLO TV and EPIX.

KIT Digital's Acquisition Of FeedRoom Has Potential, But Lots Of Questions Remain

This morning, KIT digital (KITD) officially announced they have acquired NYC based The FeedRoom in an all stock deal valued at around $9.8M. While that's only about 1.5x The FeedRoom's $6M in revenue, the deal will probably end up being closer to 2x revenue since The FeedRoom agreed to the deal some time ago, back when KIT's share price was somewhere around $7.

Mark Portu, CEO of the FeedRoom left the company on Friday and will be consulting to KIT digital during the transition period. Daniel Webster, SVP of Business Development and a ten year veteran of The FeedRoom also left on Friday. As expected, there have been a few other personnel changes at The FeedRoom since last week and I expect we'll see some more as the company gets folded into KIT. The FeedRoom's SF office is going to be closed down and KIT is currently evaluating what their long term plans are for their office space in NYC.

For The FeedRoom, being acquired was really their only option. They raised $12M two years ago and while they still had some cash in the bank, Mark would of had to have raised another round before too long if the company really wanted to grow their revenue. On paper, the services of KIT and FeedRoom fit nicely together and considering that KIT paid FeedRoom investors with all stock, it was an easy deal.

While the deal makes sense on paper since it gives KIT a U.S. presence, enterprise and government customers, and all of The FeedRoom's technology, the success or failure of this acquisition will all come down to the integration of the two companies. KIT has a challenge ahead of them since they are doing multiple acquistions and integrations and can't yet know how much of The FeedRoom's revenue will remain come next year.

As with any integration, the real test comes 6-8 months later when you find out if customers are still happy and keeping their business at the new company. If KIT can keep the vast majority of The FeedRoom's $6M in revenue twelve months from now and integrate The FeedRoom's platform with their own, the deal could be positive. But if the integration does not go quickly and smoothly, some of the revenue KIT gains from the acquisition will surely be lost and that will have a negative impact on their bottom line.

Another concern is that KIT loses focus since they have made so many acquisitions as of late and are now entering completely new vertical markets and appear to be trying to be everything, to everyone, across every device. It's possible they can pull it off, but all of that remains to be seen. I believe that KIT now has all the pieces they need to be successful, from a product perspective, but how they price, package, market, sell and deliver those services is going to decide their success or failure. I think we'll know either way when we look at their business in another 9-12 months.

Busy Day For News: Adobe, Limelight, KIT Digital, Kaltura, VBrick, AEG, Scripps

It's been a busy morning with a bunch of news on the wire from many different companies. Here's a quick run down and I'll have more detailed posts on Adobe, Limelight and KIT digital's announcements later in the week.

• Adobe Announces HTTP Delivery, Flash Player 10.1, Bit Encryption and More

• Limelight Networks Introduces XD, the Company’s Next-Generation Global Network Platform

• Limelight Networks Introduces LimelightDELIVER XD and LimelightCONTROL XD

• KIT digital Acquires Nunet and The FeedRoom

• VBrick Unveils VEMS, The VBrick Enterprise Media System

• AEG Acquires Webcasting Company Incited Media To Form AEG Digital Media

• Kaltura Delivers Video to Educational Institutions & Students

• Scripps Networks and 5min Form Strategic Content and Advertising Partnership

KIT Digital Buys Another, Acquires Germany Based Nunet

Last week I reported that KIT Digital had acquired The FeedRoom, in a deal that will be announced today. But in addition to The FeedRoom, KIT Digital also acquired Germany based Nunet which will also be announced this morning. I'll post more on my thoughts about both of the acquisitions later in the week.

Update: The press release from KIT Digital is now on the wire.

Moderators Needed For: Syndication and Aggregation & Monetizing Long-Form Video

I'm still looking for moderators for two sessions at the Streaming Media West show in November. The sessions are "Successful Content Syndication and Aggregation Strategies" and "Monetizing Long-Form Video".

I'm interested in moderators who can be neutral on the topic and aren't from vendor companies, unless the person you are suggesting has a blog and is already writing a lot about either of these subjects. I have to close out the program for good next week, so please send me an e-mail ASAP if you're interested or if you think you know of someone who would be a fit. I'll give a free conference pass to anyone who helps me place either moderator.

Does The iPhone Support HD Video? I Say No. Akamai Says Yes

I thought I was all done covering the Akamai HD webcast earlier in the week, but Tim Siglin, one of the writers over at StreamingMedia.com made a really good point about the webcast that I totally missed. During the webcast, Akamai said they can now deliver HD video to the iPhone, but as Tim points out, the iPhone isn't capable of getting HD content.

From Tim's Blog:

[I have nothing against Akamai in particular, but unfortunately some of the claims made can't be substantiated. One in particular struck me as key to the whole press conference. Leighton claimed that, "Today there's [sic] 50 million homes that have connected gaming consoles - or other devices - that are capable of displaying HD video, of getting it and displaying it into the home. Also, there's [sic] 45 million iPhones out there today capable of displaying HD video."

Let's take a look at the facts:

a). No one else has ever claimed that the 1st gen iPhone or even the iPhone 3G is capable of of HD playback, which is the only way to get to the 45 million iPhone number.

b) Even the claims that the iPhone 3GS is capable of displaying HD content are conjecture, as Apple does not allow HD playback on the iPhone 3GS (even 480p content can't be played back).

c) While everyone is doing "higher definition" for live streams to desktop Flash and Silverlight players, many are doing HTTP streams, and a few are doing true HD (480, 720, 1080i/p) to these same players, there are a limited number of companies doing true HD live streams via HTTP, which is where Akamai wants to tell its story. None are doing it to the iPhone, however.

The reason I say it is key to the whole press conference is this: if all Akamai is claiming is "higher definition" as its term for HD, there's no story here, since others are doing it. If they're claiming HD for the iPhone, there's a story here but not one they can support.]

Tim's absolutely right. The screen res on the iPhone, even the new one, is only 480 x 320 at 163 pixels per inch, that is not HD. How can Akamai claim it is? Tim made multiple requests to Akamai for more details and was provided with a copy of a document called "Akamai HD for iPhone Encoding Best Practices" that as Tim says, "states, on page 5, the best practice is to encode at a maximum size of 400 x 224 and a maximum bit rate of 864 kbps. Which one of these settings qualifies as HD content? You're right if you answered none of them as content encoded at this rate / size would be considered unacceptable on the desktop, and further undermines Akamai's claim of its HD network providing content owners with the ability to encode once and play out to multiple platforms/players."

So what does Akamai consider to be HD video to the iPhone? In multiple back and forth emails with them last night, (see all of them on Tim's blog) Akamai said, "we believe the following requirements should met for HD specific to mobile:

- HD source content
- Over industry accepted video standards
- Adaptive bitrate streaming technology
- At bitrates over 700Kbps
- At an appropriately high resolution for the device rendering the video

Akamai's definition of what HD is to mobile makes no sense. You can have the best "source" you want, but that does not mean the output will be good. As Tim says, "If I take Akamai's argument about their definition of HD (which runs counter to Paul Sagan's opening comments in the webcast) and ignore the arbitrary bitrate limit Akamai has set, I can generate a 200kbps stream from the 1080p HD content I film at my children's soccer game, and then call it HD".

If "industry accepted video standards" is one of Akamai's requirements, then what would Akamai classify as non-industry accepted video standards? Does Akamai mean over industry accepted video "protocols"? There is no "standard" in the online video industry, so no idea what that word from Akamai is defining? Standard what? There is no standard video codec, bitrate, aspect ratio, platform, player, etc....

I'm sure others have have a similar take on this, so the comments section is open and you should read Tim's blog post for more details on this whole subject.