Liddell, who gained the title of president after the merger of CDNetworks and Panther Express, is leaving the company for personal reasons, according to CDNetworks chief strategy officer Steve Chung. Before the companies merged, Liddell had served as CEO of Panther Express.

Liddell’s resignation comes as the combined entity works out the integration of the two companies’ networks, about four months after they announced their merger.

In Liddell’s place, CDNetworks board member John Milburn will take over the role of president and will lead all North American and European operations for the company.

Read more @ http://www.contentinople.com/author.asp?section_id=450&doc_id=178615

“Our tech-savvy audience demands fast, uninterrupted response to breaking news, and consistently great performance on every visit to any TechCrunch network site,” said Heather Harde, CEO of TechCrunch. “That’s why we have implemented Cotendo’s CDN services — they deliver the improved performance and scalability that ensure an exceptional experience for our audience.”

TechCrunch is using two key applications of Cotendo’s content delivery applications suite, which is based on patent-pending software technology: Cotendo Content Delivery improves the static content delivery — including images and Javascript — of TechCrunch’s entire web presence, while Cotendo RT Reports gives TechCrunch decisionmakers actionable, real-time data on their traffic and audience. “We went live with Cotendo’s CDN in May and we have been impressed with the consistent performance and real-time management tools — exactly our motivation for implementing a CDN,” said Harde.

“We are pleased to have TechCrunch in our customer ranks,” said Ronni Zehavi, Cotendo’s CEO. “They are an industry pioneer and leader, and we look forward to supporting their growth as an Internet presence making a cultural and commercial impact on the new Web space.”

Before Limelight Networks Inc. (Nasdaq: LLNW) became the big No. 2 provider in the content delivery market, there was Speedera. That is, until Akamai Technologies Inc. (Nasdaq: AKAM) and Speedera entered into a protracted legal battle that began in 2002 and ended when Akamai acquired the company in 2005.

Now, it seems that a couple of higher-ups at Speedera have found their way to CDNetworks. According to the company’s freshly minted management team page, Speedera alums at CDNetworks include Vikas Garg, vice president of engineering; Rich Day, vice president of product strategy; Robert J. Gribnau, vice president of Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA); and Cameron Lorentz, vice president of North American sales.

Prior to Akamai’s acquisition of Speedera, Garg held the title of vice president of engineering and operations, while Day worked as chief architect and vice president of operations at the company. Gribnau and Loerentz both held sales positions at the now-defunct CDN.

Read more @ http://www.contentinople.com/author.asp?section_id=450&doc_id=178251&f_src=contentinople_gnews

While some might suggest this does not provide a lot of value as anyone can just go directly to Brigthcove if they need this type of solution, a customized version of the Brightcove system running on Limelight’s network would be beneficial to many customers. It would also give Limelight immediate new offerings at scale like transcoding, professional services support for things like custom player builds and I’d like to think that working together, the data that Brightcove and Limelight already collect could be used to provide customers will a very robust reporting and analytics package. We’ll have to wait to see exactly what the deal looks like when it is announced, but there is a lot of synergy between the two companies and this is a natural progression of where CDNs are headed.

Read the rest of Dan Rayburn’s story @ http://www.businessinsider.com/limelight-brightcove-getting-closer-together-2009-6

Internap CTO Tim Sullivan confirmed today that, after less than six months on the job, vice president of engineering Steve Kiene has decided to leave the company. Sullivan says Internap has hired an executive search firm to replace Kiene.

Kiene joined in January, just a few months before a restructuring that included the termination of Dave Frigeri, former vice president and general manager of the CDN group. Since then, Kiene has been tasked with leading the company’s long-term strategic objectives and software development efforts for its CDN.

Read the rest of the story @ http://www.contentinople.com/author.asp?section_id=450&doc_id=177992&f_src=contentinople_gnews

Acton, MA – June 9, 2009 – Blackwave, an innovator in Internet video storage and delivery infrastructure, today announced that CDNetworks, a top-three global, full-service content delivery network (CDN), has deployed the Blackwave 8150 System to enhance storage and distribution of video into the CDNetworks U.S. delivery network.

Having recently acquired Panther Express, CDNetworks, Asia’s #1 CDN, is rapidly expanding its U.S. and European footprint. “We are proud to have CDNetworks as our first CDN customer,” said Bob Rizika, Blackwave’s CEO. “Their choice signals confidence in our ability to reliably store and deliver premium video content for a top-tier CDN.” The deployment represents a significant customer victory for Blackwave.

“The Blackwave system has the robustness to handle initialization of the request and expedite delivery, guaranteeing a sub 1.5 second time to video for the viewer,” said Michael Kuperman, Director of Global Operations for CDNetworks. “With their system, we are able to rapidly and cost-effectively scale our implementation of the Adobe® Flash® Media Server 3 software distribution network in support of our growing customer base.”

The Blackwave system operates simultaneously at both the Origin and Middle-Tier of the content delivery network. Multiple CDN customers are able to concurrently upload their content into the Blackwave 8150 System for a low-cost origin storage. When an end-user makes a request for a stored video, the Blackwave System feeds CDNetworks HTTP and Flash Media streaming servers with the file within milliseconds.

CDNetworks has integrated the Blackwave system into its infrastructure to support the stable delivery of high-resolution media files to a large simultaneous audience. “As CDNetworks expands their Blackwave back-end infrastructure, they will have the ability to deliver video using multiple protocols, at reduced latency and a lower cost, than alternative systems,” noted Rizika.

DALLAS, June 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Fans looking for a “Music City” experience out in the country are packing their bags and heading to Manchester, Tennessee for the 2009 Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival. There, they will experience four days of some of the best performers in rock and roll, along with dozens of artists in complementary styles such as jazz, Americana, hip-hop, electronica, and more.

Can’t make it? From June 12-14, AT&T Music will deliver an exclusive webcast of Bonnaroo 2009 featuring performances from select festival artists, including: Snoop Dogg, Ben Harper and Relentless7, Paul Oakenfold, The Decemberists, Animal Collective and St. Vincent. In addition, select performances will also be available on AT&T Music following the festival. The full webcast schedule will soon be available at music.att.net. Fans can follow @ATTMusic on Twitter to get reminders and updates on the live webcast and more.

“Our goal is to keep music fans connected to their favorite artists even if they can’t make the trip to Bonnaroo,” said Dan York, executive vice president of content and programming, AT&T Converged Services. “With AT&T Music, every fan can enjoy the music and atmosphere of this unique festival live via the web.”

The Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival is a four-day, multi-stage camping festival held on a beautiful 700-acre farm in Manchester, Tennessee every June. In addition to dozens of epic performances, the 100 acres of Bonnaroo also provides entertainment around the clock with attractions and activities including an arcade & discotheque, on-site cinema, silent disco, comedy club, theater performers, art installations, a beer festival, and a variety of cafes and restaurants.

The live broadband video stream of Bonnaroo 2009 utilizes AT&T Intelligent Content Distribution(SM) – a network-based Content Delivery Network (CDN) service that replicates information across the Internet. For more information, visit www.att.com/icds.

AT&T Music was launched in December 2008 to help deliver a more integrated consumer experience and expose music content to the approximately 11 million users of the ATT.net Internet portal. The portal offers exclusive access to the latest news, weather, Yahoo! search capabilities, sports and entertainment content. For the complete array of AT&T offerings, visit www.att.com.

*AT&T products and services are provided or offered by subsidiaries and affiliates of AT&T Inc. under the AT&T brand and not by AT&T Inc.

An acquisition, in this economic climate?! Why now? “This is the time all our customers starting to make decisions about mobility,” explained Paul Alfieri, Limelight’s senior director of corporate communications.

Kiptronic, which had raised $9 million in funding, only recently got into mobile video publishing, launching earlier this month with its first customer, NBC. Kiptronic allows NBC to publish a single universal URL that adapts videos to whatever device they’re trying to be accessed on. (And ads are served dynamically using Kiptronic’s integration with DART.)

“The name of the game is changed from just having massive scalability to adding device optimization,” said Alfieri. He added Limelight would build Kiptronic’s “device detection intelligence” into its network.

As for monetization of media as it travels across the web and to different devices both online and offline — Kiptronic’s specialty — Alfieri admitted that it’s an entirely different business than being a CDN. He said Kiptronic will continue to work with other CDNs and customers who use other CDNs. “From the Limelight side, that’s a way for us to have a relationship with a large publisher even if they don’t select us for bit delivery.” CDN analyst Dan Rayburn says to expect more such “value-add” acquisitions from CDNs trying to diversify their revenues.

Kiptronic’s entire 15-employee team, including CEO Bill Loewenthal and founder and CTO Jonathan Cobb, will join Limelight and will remain at their own office in San Francisco at least through the end of the year. In addition to NBC, Kiptronic customers include NPR, FOX, The Guardian, Conde Nast and The Economist.

Tim Beyers and myself have been disagreeing a lot lately. We’re Dueling Fools, taking opposing arguments on stocks and investing themes. This week, we’re sitting on different sides of the debate between Amazon and Akamai.

Which online company is the better fit for your portfolio? More to the point, how can you not favor Amazon?

A la moat
At first glance, Akamai would seem to be the more formidable fortress. It created the content-delivery network niche that it continues to dominate. Amazon, on the other hand, is a store. Just another online retailer, with all its rivals only a click away.

However, take a closer look, and you’ll realize that Amazon actually has the thicker moat. After all, every time an upstart content delivery network (CDN) launches a price war to gain ground, Akamai takes a hit. And when a tech bellwether — like Amazon — begins to build out its server farm, leading speculators to wonder whether of the big boys will start serving up third-party sites and media files … yep. Akamai takes a hit.

My fear — one I’m hoping my friend Tim will help me conquer — is that content delivery will become a commodity with razor-thin margins in a couple of years. Once everybody is on board, how can it not be?

On the other hand, Amazon has been successfully fending off the competition for more than a decade. There was a time when Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) seemed like the heir apparent to e-tail. The world’s largest chain had the inventory-turn mastery and mad data-crunching skills that would eat online retailers alive. Well, walmart.com is no dot-com slouch, but it’s clearly no Amazon. Despite its ad in this year’s Super Bowl, neither is bargain-hunting Overstock.com (Nasdaq: OSTK).

The secret sauce
How did Amazon manage to grow its sales by 18% during the same holiday quarter that found most online and offline concepts leaving lumps of coal in their shareholders’ stockings?

Simple. Beyond aggressively broadening its storefront categories to cover nearly everything that you could possibly need, Amazon also made its site sticky with its Prime membership program. Shoppers pay $79 a year in exchange for free two-day shipping of all Amazon-stocked wares, or just $3.99 an item for overnight shipments.

That’s perfect, since it makes the site even stickier. Can smaller sites clone the concept? Sure, but Amazon’s network effect is already in place. As big as Amazon may seem to be, there’s a reason why it continues to grow faster than the industry. The leader widens the gap between itself and the competition until that gap’s nearly impossible to overcome.

Have e-tail margins been lean over the years? Sure. In the online realm of physical goods, they likely always will be. But who said that Amazon was limited by tangible merchandise?

Right now, the company’s making inroads in the digital delivery of books, music, movies, and computer games. It can serve up a hot Hollywood release right into your TiVo (Nasdaq: TIVO), or load up your portable media player with your favorite music. That’s a twofold win for Amazon; it can sell you both the media gadget and the media content.

Professor Plum with the Kindle-stick in the library
Digital books are a special passion for Amazon, especially since its e-tail roots are as an online rival to booksellers such as Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS). That matchup seems pretty laughable now, doesn’t it?

Oprah Winfrey’s not the only one wowed by the Kindle The company has put out three Kindle versions in less than two years, and it’s established a juicy Kindle Store ecosystem. If perpetual gadget updates and a proprietary store sound familiar, you probably have Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) on the brain. The Kindle stands an excellent shot at becoming the iPod for book lovers — which could make the Kindle Store the literary equivalent of the highly lucrative iTunes Store.

Unearthing the real value
Is Amazon trading at a higher earnings multiple than Akamai? Yes. Is it worth it? Definitely.

Just check out the growth. Analysts see Akamai’s profits inching 2% higher this year and 5% next year. Amazon’s earnings are expected to climb 9% this year, before catapulting 26% come 2010.

Along the way, Amazon shareholders can take comfort in knowing that their recession-tested company has proven its all-weather appeal. Akamai’s version of “all weather” appeal is “whether” or not “all” of its rivals turn up at once, or gradually eat into the company’s future prospects.

The choice is simple this week. Akamai is a quality company, but you probably want a little more Amazon in your life.

CU CDN is a vast network capable of supporting millions of concurrent users. It was developed in cooperation with Highwinds Network Group, a leader in CDN technology since 2002. A user-friendly control panel offers point-and-click access to reporting and analytics, content management, self-service provisioning of live streaming events, and sub-account and user management. CU CDN services are priced very attractively, with no long-term commitments and no setup fees or extra charges for features like reporting and security.

“Our goal is to make world-class content delivery accessible to companies of all sizes,” said Mark Bailey, CEO of CU CDN. “It is no longer necessary to make a huge investment or commitment to benefit from CDN.”

CU CDN is located in Atlanta, with 30 data centers in cities including Amsterdam, Ashburn, Atlanta, Brussels, Chicago, Dallas, Frankfurt, London, Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Phoenix and Sunnyvale.

The company offers a variety of plans starting at just $15 per month.
The entire control panel feature set is included with all packages.

Additional information is available at http://www.cucdn.com