Discussion Focuses on Increase in Web Video Presence, Best Formats for Video, and Contribution of Content Delivery Networks
TEWKSBURY, Mass.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Mirror Image® Internet, a leading provider of content delivery solutions powered by a patented global network, held a virtual roundtable featuring customers and analysts. The discussion centered on the growth of web video and how it is affecting the way viewers consume content.
Panel participant Marwan Saleh of StressManagementTV, a Mirror Image customer, commented, “There is an increase in video demand, and users snack on videos. People are bored at work and need a quick break. A lot of major news sites offer short videos rather than long form content.” StressManagementTV is an on-demand video site dedicated to helping people beat chronic stress in order to live healthier and more productive lives.
In this new Internet revolution, more video formats are popping up. Analysts agreed that the content delivery networks have been influential in moving users closer to content. As more than 62 million households have broadband connections, people can connect to content faster and have grown an appetite for more lengthy online content.
Analysts on the panel also pointed out that as the YouTube phenomena has grown, user generated content and user generated postings have dominated the online space. “The consumption of online videos is increasing at a remarkable rate,” said Counse Broders, Sr. Research Director, Telecom Services, Current Analysis Inc. “It is a global phenomenon driven in part by Internet connections which are now readily available. This intense demand for online video points to strong continued growth within the CDN market.”
The panel agreed that untapped industries most ripe for online video include the gaming industry, training in the public sector and education. Participants also pointed to business training as an area for growth, since many companies are utilizing web video internally in cross training and sales.
Brad Wendkos of TrueFireTV, a Mirror Image customer, expressed that an important area for growth in online video is incorporating product manufacturers into providing more video content. “It is important that we migrate marketers over to the world of online video and have them leverage it. Other areas for growth include educational applications, more viewer controls, and programmed content versus on-demand content.” TrueFireTV is an Internet TV broadcast network comprised of 12 musician-centric Internet TV stations, which broadcast music instruction, performances, interviews, gear demonstrations and other music-centric content.
On the topic of mobile video, the panel consensus was that mobile video is still in the beginning stages and needs to mature.
“We are aware that the subject of the growth in online video is ongoing,” said Martin Hayward, Director of Marketing for Mirror Image Internet. “Mirror Image felt it was important to bring together these noteworthy customers and analysts to discuss the trend.”
A download of the virtual roundtable is available on the Mirror Image Internet web site.
Please visit: http://www.mirror-image.com/Site//Portals/0/Media/VRT16kbpsv2.mp3 for details.

Got this emailed to me today…

Easy-to-use web streaming provider now supports live video, H.264, while announcing new customers and price promotions.

Oakland, CA (July 22, 2008) - Imediasee, the first pay-as-you-go video streaming service with no required monthly fees or long term commitments, opened officially as a full release, after six months in beta testing and simultaneously announcing major new features, new customers and aggressive new price promotions. Imediasee’s affordably-priced service combines the strengths of web 2.0 ease-of-use with innovative video streaming technology to offer a compelling new way to deliver broadcast and HD quality video on the web.

Source: http://www.streamingmedia.com/press/view.asp?id=9677

Panther Express Selected to Power VerticalResponse EMail Marketing and Survey Programs. Panther Delivers with 100% Reliability.

New York, NY - (July 21, 2008) - Panther Express, a leading global provider of high-performance content delivery services, today announced they have been selected as the content delivery network (CDN) for VerticalResponse, Inc., the leading supplier of self-service email marketing, survey and direct mail solutions. VerticalResponse has chosen Panther Express’s content delivery network to deliver tens of millions of user-requested personal messages and graphic images every day, reliably and quickly.

“We choose Panther Express because we needed a reliable content delivery partner who could provide a rapid, flexible service, international coverage, an extremely high level of network performance and high quality ongoing support to help us ensure that our customers and partner’s messages were delivered to end users throughout the world,” said Janine Popick, CEO and founder of VerticalResponse. “Panther scales to meet our needs and is able to guarantee the level of excellence we promise our customers. They have been 100% reliable.”

Source: http://ecommerce.phpmagazine.net/2008/07/verticalresponse_picks_panther.html

Easy-to-use web streaming provider now supports live video, H.264, while announcing new customers and price promotions.

Oakland, CA (PRWEB) July 22, 2008 — Imediasee, the first pay-as-you-go video streaming service with no required monthly fees or long term commitments, opened officially as a full release, graduating after six months in beta testing and simultaneously announcing major new features, new customers and aggressive new price promotions.

Imediasee’s affordably-priced service combines the strengths of web 2.0 ease-of-use with innovative video streaming technology to offer a compelling new way to deliver broadcast and HD quality video on the web.

With Imediasee I have a partner that can deliver quality video 24/7 at a reasonable price. They have proven to be an excellent partner at all stages of the development process.
“The time has come for high-quality web video to be easy and accessible to everyone,” said Steve Popper, CEO of Broadline Media Corp, Imediasee’s parent company. “With Imediasee, any website can now have spectacular-quality, full-screen video - affordably and with remarkable ease-of-use for both website owners and their viewers.”

Imediasee delivers true streaming video, which supports live and on-demand video, offers superior content protection, and enables DVD-like “trick-modes” like pause, fast-forward and rewind (for on-demand content). Most importantly, Imediasee’s streaming video service significantly reduces bandwidth costs compared to progressive download and traditional download delivery methods.

Source: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2008/7/prweb1132644.htm

Technicolor’s Electronic Distribution Services business to leverage Highwinds for online content distribution

Winter Park, Florida (July 22, 2008) - Highwinds Network Group, Inc. and Technicolor, the Services Division of Thomson (Euronext 18453; NYSE: TMS), announced today that the companies have signed a major partnership agreement. Under the agreement, Highwinds’ RollingThunder™ content delivery network will provide lightning-fast content delivery, real-time analytics and other advanced capabilities for Technicolor’s digital content distribution solutions that power distribution of some of the world’s largest media and entertainment companies.

As a top-tier Highwinds content delivery partner, Technicolor’s Electronic Content Distribution Services (EDS) business will expand its electronic content delivery capacity and reach with the massive, high-performance RollingThunder network. RollingThunder is comprised of 21 POPs spanning two continents, including a large private peering infrastructure that will further enable Technicolor to deliver content directly to its customers’ end-users. Backed by Highwinds’ full range of partner services, Technicolor will receive other key partner benefits including 24×7x365 support, extensive technical training, creative co-marketing strategies, and Highwinds’ StrikeTracker™ user management console.

Source: http://www.streamingmedia.com/press/view.asp?id=9646

Delve Networks, formerly Pluggd Inc., announced today that it has selected EdgeCast Network to provide its Content Delivery Network (CDN) services to support Delve’s online video publishing platform.

“We’ve brought the most advanced online video publishing platform to market and in order to offer the best experience along with the technology, we need the ability to rapidly expand our capabilities as popularity increases,” said Alex Castro, CEO of Delve Networks. “EdgeCast Networks’ scalable and dedicated CDN gives us the ability to offer our platform to a worldwide audience with the speed, quality and reliability that online video consumers and publishers demand and, more important, expect.”

Delve Networks recently launched its breakthrough online video publishing platform. With its innovative and accessible user interface, Delve’s platform gives content publishers state-of-the-art tools to upload, manage and track the performance of their online video. Delve is the first video platform to offer semantic video web technology and HeatMap functionality, which enables users to navigate within a hosted video file to find the desired content.

Source: http://www.reelseo.com/delve-edgecast/

Level 3’s CDN Supports High-Volume Traffic Spikes for Multi-player Online Game

BROOMFIELD, Colo., July 21, 2008 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX/ — Level 3 Communications’ Content Markets Group today announced that it has been selected by Funcom, a leading independent developer and publisher of computer and console games, to be that company’s exclusive provider of content delivery network (CDN) services for the Age of Conan Hyborian Adventures online game launch and ongoing content patching. Level 3’s content delivery services enable Funcom to deliver game updates during times of extremely high-traffic volumes.

“The Age of Conan was developed with the latest technologies to be the next generation of massive multi-player online games (MMOG),” said Ole Schreiner, vice president of operations at Funcom. “Funcom needed a Tier 1 CDN provider that could provide the quality, dependability and scalability to support critical game patch update files at all times. With the Age of Conan launch, one of the largest MMOG releases in history, Level 3 has proven that it can deliver game patch updates without issue during peak traffic times of extremely large flash crowds as hundreds of thousands of players log in to play the game.”

Source: http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/level-3-selected-funcom-exclusive/story.aspx?guid={6849A7A2-9077-48A9-88D0-A87CF74ACBEF}&dist=hppr

NEW YORK, July 21 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — White-label content management platforms are emerging as key enablers to help developers and producers of Internet video monetize their digital content assets. This trend could affect business models of other digital content distributors, including content delivery network (CDN) providers, according to the latest report published by Light Reading’s VOIP Services Insider (www.lightreading.com/entvoip), a subscription research service from TechWeb’s Light Reading (www.lightreading.com).

Source: http://newsblaze.com/story/2008072107031000008.pnw/topstory.html

SAN FRANCISCO — In a significant step toward vanquishing the local video store and keeping couch potatoes planted firmly in front of their televisions and computers, Amazon.com will introduce a new online store of TV shows and movies on Thursday, called Amazon Video on Demand. Customers of Amazon’s new store will be able to start watching any of 40,000 movies and television programs immediately after ordering them because they stream, just like programs on a cable video-on-demand service. That is different from most Internet video stores, like Apple iTunes and the original incarnation of Amazon’s video store, which require users to download files to their hard drives. “For the first time, this is drop dead simple,” said Bill Carr, Amazon’s vice president for digital media. “Our goal is to create an immersive experience where people can’t help but get caught up in how exciting it is to simply watch a movie right from Amazon.com with a click of the button.”

So I wonder how far they are from offering streaming video as a CDN service??? Hmm…

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/17/technology/17amazon.html?ei=5087&em=&en=9c6ab9229ba49aff&ex=1216526400&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1216497158-xwG09wZcqnRTiYYMx3PMjQ

WINTER PARK, Fla., July 16 /PRNewswire/ — Highwinds Network Group, Inc., a multi-platform IP services and content distribution provider, today announced that Castfire, Inc., is leveraging Highwinds’ high-performance content delivery network for the global distribution of its customers’ rich media files. The new partnership is rooted in Castfire’s commitment to delivering a best-of-breed, turnkey mediacasting solution, enabling its customers to efficiently create, store, manage and deliver branded episodic content, including audio and video files, to their target audiences. Many of Castfire’s high-profile customers are already distributing content over the Highwinds CDN, including the Atlanta Falcons, Boing Boing TV, Themis Group, What’s Your 2wenty, Channel Flip and KCET. “We are able to get customers up-and-running quickly on the Highwinds CDN because they’ve made integration so simple,” said Brian Walsh, founder of Castfire. “We’ve found their CDN to be highly extensive and reliable and it’s easy for us to put customers on Highwinds’ RollingThunder(TM) network, knowing that Highwinds goes that ‘extra mile’ in both their delivery and service.”

Source: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/highwinds-and-castfire-join-forces,469621.shtml