Limelight has historically been known as a CDN. A bit pump, capable of delivering content around the world on its high-speed network but not much else. Over the past couple of years, though, Limelight has busily acquired, integrated, and built a number of value-added services with a single-minded purpose: help our customers offload the complexities and challenges associated with publishing content to the cloud. To that end, Limelight has announced Orchestrate.

Orchestrate represents years of work, thousands of man hours, and a collective vision which perceives that content delivery is not the end-all-be-all of content publishing but merely one element of the content publishing workflow. Orchestrate is meant as a “framework” for vertically-focused solutions leveraging the physical reach of the network, the CDN software, and the SaaS applications that exist in a flexible application platform. Although we are only in the first iterations of Orchestrate, the vision is obvious: a single, integrated cloud-based workflow solution powered by an unparalleled delivery network. With Orchestrate, customers can focus on publishing content…not all the challenges involved in the systems and technologies used to publish it.

Below is the press release that was released today.

Limelight Networks Introduces Orchestrate – Industry-Focused Solution Framework to Streamline and Simplify Digital Media Publishing

Leveraging the Limelight Global Compute and Delivery Network, Orchestrate Integrates Multiple Cloud-Based Services to Solve Workflow Issues

NEW YORK, May 15, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Limelight Networks, Inc. (Nasdaq:LLNW) today introduced a new solution framework designed to address the specific digital media workflow needs of vertical markets—Limelight Orchestrate. This suite of industry-specific content publishing workflow solutions leverages a flexible application platform for hosting cloud-based Software as a Service (SaaS) services, marketing automation technologies, and powerful analytics. Combined, the Orchestrate technologies and services help to manage the growing complexity inherent in publishing digital content to large International audiences that are accessing content from a myriad of connected devices. Limelight will showcase Orchestrate, at Streaming Media East, May 15-16, at the Hilton New York (booth 001).

Featuring video publishing and management, web content management, cloud storage, site acceleration, and Content Delivery Network (CDN) services, customers can use Orchestrate to elevate their Internet activity from just managing and publishing content to driving revenue by delivering an enhanced online end-user experience. Limelight Orchestrate is made even more powerful by Limelight’s scalable global network.

“The opportunity to employ integrated online video publishing, web content management, and CDN services was a key factor in our decision to turn to Limelight,” commented Dean Horowitz, Vice President of eMedia & Market Intelligence at Vance Publishing Corporation, a media company that produces 15 magazines, more than 50 newsletters, and over 30 websites. “Workflow is such a central component of our publishing capability, and being able to post a new story or upload a video — with everything managed from an integrated dashboard and stored in a single repository — empowers us to drive engagement, increase publishing frequency, and improve opportunities for both advertising and sponsorship.”

Recognizing that delivery and management don’t represent the lifecycle of the content publishing workflow, Limelight Orchestrate also incorporates powerful social media and reporting tools integrated directly into the SaaS-based components to help customers engage with users and optimize their online experience.

Limelight Orchestrate for Video Publishing

Limelight Orchestrate for Video Publishing is one of a family of Orchestrate Solutions designed specifically for companies that publish video content. This solution features four cloud-based services: CDN; Video Management & Publishing; Web Management & Publishing; and Intelligent Storage. Its robust analytics and reporting, and marketing automation, enables video publishers to create a compelling and exciting digital content experience around their videos without the burden of managing the required infrastructure and software.

Limelight Orchestrate for Video Publishing is modular, allowing companies to replace individual pieces of a workflow or to implement a comprehensive, cloud-based workflow solution from a single vendor. The solution’s flexibility extends into access as well, with services made available via web-based interfaces or programmatically via API.

Among the problems in video content delivery spurred by the explosive growth of mobile technology is the workflow complexity associated with making video content available on any device. New formats, devices, and bandwidth challenges presented by mobile consumption have caused critical delays in getting content to market and, in some cases, degradation of the content experience. This has also resulted in an increase of capital expenses for transcoding, storage, and specialized resources.

Limelight Orchestrate for Video Publishing takes advantage of advanced delivery technologies within the CDN component of the Orchestrate Application Platform to address some of these new complexities and challenges like delivering content across all devices. Customers employing this solution need not worry if their content is available on the latest mobile devices. Limelight Stream Anywhere, a service in the CDN component of the Orchestrate Application Platform, automatically converts video content from recognized formats (like RTMP) into today’s popular chunked formats like HDS and HLS upon request, leveraging Adobe’s powerful Adobe Media Server 4.5. The result? Customers can focus on their content, not on the complexities of delivering it to multiple devices.

“The exponential growth of mobile technologies is posing a number of challenges to digital content publishing — challenges that directly impact an organization’s ability to focus resources on core business functions,” said David Hatfield, Senior Vice President, Limelight Networks. “Limelight is uniquely positioned to help publishers save untold hours and ensure true ‘publish once, deliver anywhere’ functionality.”

The technologies that power Limelight Stream Anywhere are part of Limelight’s focus to provide customers an end-to-end, cloud-based workflow solution to build high-quality content experiences that span devices. Leveraging four core components—Dynamic Site Platform, Limelight Video Platform, Content Delivery Network, and Agile Storage—customers can work with Limelight’s Global Services to build targeted workflow solutions to tackle their critical digital content publishing challenges.

- Jason Thibeault, Sr. Director of Solutions Marketing for Digital Media. You can connect with Jason on Twitter @jnthibeault.

I get to work with a lot of great technology companies in my role(s) with Limelight Networks. Whether that’s managing our Streaming products (and launching services like Limelight Stream Anywhere) or building solutions such as our new Limelight Orchestrate (more to come on that shortly), I work with some of the best technology partners on the planet. And it’s great to see them launch innovative new services such as Imavex did with their Streamotor Plugin for WordPress.

I wrote a hands-on review on my own blog but, in short, this plug-in provides video-management capabilities and video content insertion directly in the WordPress publishing interface. So instead of having to paste HTML embed code in a WordPress post (from YouTube for example), you can click and insert directly from a Streamotor video management plug-in right on the post page. Great stuff. And instead of having to open a new browser window and login to the Streamotor interface, you can manage your entire video library directly from within WordPress (through a Media > Streamotor menu). As we have seen with company’s like cesarsway.com, integrating video directly into written content is much more impactful than just having video in a separate “library” as part of your site. Video within content increases engagement and page-view time and just makes the content consumption experience more interesting. And if our DSP-to-LVP integration demonstrates anything, customers are eager for simplified workflows: single vendor, single interface, etc.

What makes this more interesting, from our perspective, is that all the video delivered through the Streamotor system is through the Limelight CDN. This integration is an example of how our technology partners can employ elements of our overall “stack” (Web Content Management, Video Content Management, CDN Services (including Accelerate), and Cloud storage; more on this coming soon) to power their services in a global, scalable, and robust manner.

If you are a WordPress user and want an easy way to manage your video and incorporate it into your WordPress posts from a single interface, Streamotor might be for you.

Note: Limelight Video Platform users also have a WordPress plugin that easily enables them to integrate video content into pages and posts through a unified interface.

- Jason Thibeault, Sr. Director of Solutions Marketing for Digital Media. You can connect with Jason on Twitter @jnthibeault.

Limelight Networks Introduces “Publish Once, Deliver Anywhere” Technologies to Simplify and Streamline Digital Content Publishing

Technologies and processes designed to address workflow complexities presented by explosive growth of mobile platforms

Tempe, AZ –May 15, 2012 – Limelight Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ:LLNW) is proud to announce a new suite of technologies and processes designed to handle the growing complexity inherent in publishing digital content to multiple endpoints. Limelight Stream Anywhere, now in select availability, enables companies to reach a variety of endpoint devices with a single stream of content.

Among the problems spurred by the explosive growth of mobile technology is the growing workflow complexity for publishing digital content – particularly video. New formats, devices, and bandwidth challenges presented by mobile create complexity that results in critical delays in getting content to market, increase operational expenditures (transcoding, storage, specialized resources) – all of which interfere with focus on core business activities.

As part of its focus on solving customer workflow problems, Limelight has upgraded its core streaming platform to include technologies that hide that complexity of delivering to multi-screen and enable customers to get digital content to market quicker. Through Limelight Stream Anywhere, a customer can provide Limelight with a single source of content and know that it will be converted and delivered to the appropriate device – in the proper format—without any additional work on the customer’s part. During this select availability phase of the service, Limelight Stream Anywhere supports RTMP stream input that will be automatically converted to HLS or HDS when requested by an appropriate device. There is no pre-converting required. Additional features in this initial version include DVR, self-provisioning, and detailed HTTP streaming reports. Future features, launching throughout 2012, include support for RTSP and Smooth Streaming output, generating multiple streams (in different bitrates) from a single high bitrate input, and Live DRV to VOD.

“The exponential growth of mobile technologies is posing a number of challenges to digital content publishing – challenges that directly impact an organization’s ability to focus resources on core business functions,” said Jason Thibeault, Sr. Director of Solutions Marketing and Product Manager for Limelight STREAM, Limelight Networks. “Limelight is uniquely positioned to help publishers save untold hours and ensure true ‘publish once, deliver anywhere’ functionality.”

The launch of Limelight Stream Anywhere reflect Limelight’s focus to provide customers with an end-to-end, cloud-based workflow solution for publishing their digital content. Leveraging four core components – Limelight Dynamic Site Platform, Limelight Video Platform, Content Delivery Network, Agile Storage – customers can work with the Limelight Global Services team to build targeted workflow solutions to tackle their critical digital content publishing challenges. Through these new streaming services, Limelight customers can rest assured that their content is reaching any audience, anywhere in the world on a proven global compute network without any extra effort.

Customers have considerable choice in today’s market for helping them prepare content to reach multiple screens. But many of these hardware and software solutions only prepare the content. They don’t actually deliver it with scale to a global audience. These solutions must integrate with delivery networks (like Limelight) and that introduces delays and latency. Limelight Stream Anywhere service provides “transformation at the speed of delivery” ensuring that content is transformed and delivered all in the same process saving valuable time in getting content to end-user screens.

“Whether a business is built on video or have recently incorporated video delivery into a digital content experience,” says Jason Thibeault, “these new technologies, being integrated into many of our SaaS products, enable businesses to extend brand and content experience to new audiences. Imagine being able to reach iPad and iPhone users with an existing RTMP stream without any extra publishing steps!”

If you currently deliver RTMP traffic through Limelight Networks today, reach out to one of our knowledgeable representatives today to see if you can get turned up for Limelight Stream Anywhere. Enable your content to get to devices you hadn’t planned, like the iPad and Android tablets, without any extra work! Expand your market, reach, and brand with an entirely new content channel.

- Jason Thibeault, Sr. Director of Solutions Marketing for Digital Media. You can connect with Jason on Twitter @jnthibeault.

It seemed that everywhere I turned at NAB 2012 I saw the same message: we can deliver your video to mobile. Whether it was with proprietary software or special transcoding equipment or, it sometimes appeared, bubble gum and popsicle sticks, lots of providers, big and small, had a solution for mobile video delivery.

And, of course, it’s no wonder. Mobile is on everyone’s mind and delivering to mobile can be a very complicated proposition. With a variety of devices (increasing every day) and format fragmentation, businesses can get overwhelmed quickly with the prospect of packaging video content for people on the go.

So if everyone can offer some sort of “mobile video transformation” what makes one different than the rest? From what I saw at NAB 2012, there were three different types of solutions to help get video to mobile devices:

1. Hardware. These solutions (like Elemental Technologies) required customers to rack-and-stack gear to provide for single input in, multi-output mobile delivery. These solutions are high-end and require a significant amount of expertise to manage long-term. But, they are purpose-built. Elemental, for example, utilizes GPU acceleration to provide better performance. At thousands of dollars each, they had better.
2. Software. These solutions (like Wowza) could be deployed on a variety of off-the-shelf hardware but still require a significant amount of expertise to setup, configure, and utilize. Long-term, though, they are far easier to maintain and more cost-effective (and can even be deployed in cloud networks like Amazon EC2). But, they are ultimately less powerful than the purpose-built hardware.
3. Service Provider. These solutions (like Encoding.com’s Vidly and Limelight Networks) provide all the service without any of the complexity. Content owners just hand-off their content and it gets converted.

- Jason Thibeault, Sr. Director of Solutions Marketing for Digital Media. You can connect with Jason on Twitter @jnthibeault.

I recently read an article on StreamingMedia.com titled “Streaming to All Devices: Is it Worth the Expense?” And although it was a good article, bringing in lots of information from people in the industry, it left me asking what I think is a more important question: “Streaming to All Devices: Can You Afford Not To?”

In today’s hyper-connected world, consumers are increasingly online and staying online. Through phones and tablets and laptops and TVs, users are accessing a surprising amount of content from everywhere. And that trend shows no sign of slowing down. In fact, in Cisco’s recent mobile data projections, by 2016 mobile devices will consume 140 exabytes annually of which over 70% will be video.

But let’s face it, and the article makes a good point of this, delivering to all the mobile devices creates a significant amount of complexity in a video publishing workflow. When you think of it from that angle, “expense” becomes a critical concern because you are responsible for your workflow. Your gear. Your software. Your problem. And when the device market continues to fragment (embroiled in what seems like a brewing conflict over video encoding standards) it makes the problem even more daunting.

In that case, the title of the Streaming Media article makes total sense. There is only so much time in the day to read about new formats, optimize conversion based on best practices, deal with troublesome content encoding, keep your hardware or software up-to-date, etc. You have to remain focused. Get the most “bang for your buck” as they say. And so it makes sense to focus on the devices with the most impact (i.e., iPads and iPhones).

Still, every device on which your content is not available is a ding against your brand. Users don’t care about your problems with encoding. Like children demanding a favorite toy, “they want to watch whatever they want, whenever they want, wherever they want.” This is further compounded by content monetization. If you aren’t available on every device, your opportunities for generating revenue from your content are consequently limited. Not being available on every device, then, has a negative impact on your business.

So what can you do? It’s just not feasible to tackle this problem yourself and focus on your core business. I’ve talked to countless customers who have expressed that exact concern. They know they can’t afford not to be on all devices but they can’t afford (either in capex or opex) to take on the responsibility of getting the content there.

That’s where service providers step in.

We are at an inflection point in the technology of video delivery. For the first time, we have enough cloud-based resources and software to enable “publish once, deliver anywhere” functionality. With adequate geographic distribution of those resources, content publishers should be able to get their content to any device without batting an eye. In fact, the onus for transforming content and ensuring it’s delivered falls completely on the service provider.

We have seen the beginnings of this through companies like Encoding.com and brightcove. But part of the equation of getting content to every device is having the resources to deliver it. Both Encoding.com and Brightcove partner for delivery. Their “publish once, deliver anywhere service” is, for the most part, an “add on.” If the trend for video consumption is truly any device, anywhere then the technologies to transform that content should be intrinsic to the very nature of delivering it.

Limelight is getting ready to announce publish once, deliver anywhere functionality. But it’s not something that customers sign-up for. It’s an aspect of the core streaming and delivery service that Limelight already offers. Customers publish content to our network for delivery around the globe. Why shouldn’t that content be transformed to the right format when users request it? In that sense, the functionality of “publish once, delivery anywhere” is integrated with the very technology that is used to deliver. No other hardware or software provider can stake this claim. It’s unique to service providers like Limelight.

So can you afford not to deliver to every device? The simple answer is, no. But should you have to assume the burden of ensuring your content can reach all those devices? As we pass this inflection point, the simple answer is again, no. Limelight is putting its global compute resources, delivery network, and software to work around the globe so that you content can be automatically available for delivery to any device. This will truly enable ubiquitous content consumption…and your business to take advantage of it.

- Jason Thibeault, Sr. Director of Solutions Marketing for Digital Media. You can connect with Jason on Twitter @jnthibeault.

Perhaps you are only just incorporating video delivery into your online presence. Perhaps you are an old-hand with a business built on delivering video. Regardless, video is increasingly becoming a way to interact with and create more meaningful online experiences around content. And as Cisco’s five-year forecast projected, mobile will become a primary driver in that video consumption.

According to Cisco, by 2016 mobile data will amount to 130 exabytes annually, 18 times current levels. A figure which is roughly the amount of data on 33 billion DVDs, or 813 quadrillion text messages.

Wow.

And, what’s more, “Seventy-one percent of mobile traffic will be video by 2016,” says Suraj Shetty, vice president for product marketing at Cisco, who conducted the study. “Just Netflix on demand has had a huge impact on the network since 2009.” Throw in Google’s YouTube and a couple of other players, plus whatever new players, and you’ve got about three-quarters of Internet traffic in the form of video.

All being consumed on a variety of mobile devices including smartphones, tablets, laptops, and devices yet to be imagined.

But delivering video to mobile devices is no easy task. Unlike the PC world where Flash reigned supreme, the mobile market is fragmented by a variety of formats. Combined with making sure mobile video is secure and how to insert ads into the stream, and the complexity of delivering video (to PC, mobile, and other connected devices) increases immensely. Defining your mobile strategy (as a part of an overall video strategy) can help to reduce some complexity and ensure that you are taking advantage of the opportunity that Cisco projects in the coming years. Below are a few things to consider about mobile delivery:

1. Define your target devices. If your approach is a shotgun, you may end up spending valuable time and energy on devices that account for very little of your overall traffic. Rather, be specific. Of course, a service provider like Limelight may be able to help with automatically rendering content for all devices, you could still end up spending money on content conversion for devices you’ll never reach. The best way to prioritize is to look at your web logs. From what devices are requests originating?
2. Build for mobile. Many companies (including some of the largest media companies in the world) build websites for high-bandwidth desktop users and then come to realize, after analyzing their data, that the majority of requests are coming from mobile (case in point for Cisco’s projections). Video consumption is no longer just about the video. It’s about the experience and that includes the website (or player or application) through which the user accesses the video in the first place. This needs to be optimized for mobile viewers. There are a variety of services (like Limelight Accelerate and Dynamic Site Platform for Mobile) that can help ensure your mobile site is operating at peak performance and delivering the experience users expect.
3. Consolidate workflow. As mentioned previously, mobility can throw a significant amount of complexity into your video publishing workflow. Whether it’s the knowledge required to convert formats appropriately for different devices, or expertise around how to leverage adaptive bitrate to accommodate users on bad mobile connections, mobility can add steps into your workflow that increase the time to market. And the longer it takes for you to get content to market, the longer it takes to earn revenue. Part of your mobile strategy should be about looking at your workflow and identifying ways to consolidate steps. For example, utilizing Limelight’s Video Platform, you can manage content and, at the same time, ensure that it gets delivered to HLS-compliant devices (i.e., iPhones, iPads, iTouches, 3.0 Android devices, and even Xbox). A solution like this cuts out the need for mobile-specific transcoding or an existing asset manager.

When we talk about the “video experience,” we tend to focus on the actual video itself and the obvious metrics to measure success—delivery speed, buffering, quality of the video, etc. And although these metrics are still important, they are not the only measurement of a positive “video experience.” Before I jump into those other metrics, let me first touch on why these other metrics are there in the first place.

I’ll put it bluntly—the world of video is changing (in case you didn’t know that already). What used to be contained in proprietary players and protocols like RTMP and RTSP is rapidly breaking free thanks to open web-based standards like HTTP and HTML. This is enabling content publishers and website owners to increasingly add video into their websites without having to utilize anything proprietary that may not render correctly in the myriad of browsers.

So what does that mean in terms of the “video experience?” Quite simply, it creates a connection between the website in which the video was accessed, and the metrics used to measure a positive experience, and the video itself. In terms of measuring the “video experience” then, just as important as the delivery of the video is the method in which it’s delivered—the portal, the player, and everything around it. If that’s the case, just what is the impact of website performance on the video experience? According to a recent New York Times article, slow-loading webpages can actually make visitors leave:

People will visit a Web site less often if it is slower than a close competitor by more than 250 milliseconds (a millisecond is a thousandth of a second).

“Two hundred fifty milliseconds, either slower or faster, is close to the magic number now for competitive advantage on the Web,” said Harry Shum, a computer scientist and speed specialist at Microsoft.

The graph below puts that 250ms into perspective.

(the above graph is reprinted from a New York Times article: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/02/29/business/The-Blink-of-an-Eye-Oh-Please.html)

The message here is simple: if your website underperforms, users probably won’t hang around to watch the videos…especially when they have to wait for everything else to load which may include the HTML-based player interface as well.

But this message isn’t just for companies whose business models are predicated on publishing video. Video is increasingly becoming a way for website owners to create stickiness and additional value for their content.

As entertainment and news sites, like The New York Times Web site, offer more video clips and interactive graphics, that can slow things down.

But speed matters in every context, research shows. Four out of five online users will click away if a video stalls while loading.

If a website owner has a poorly performing site and looks at video as a way to increase user stickiness, the video itself may do nothing to alleviate the underlying problem—a website that is performing poorly.

The long-and-short of my analysis here is “guilty by association.” The actual performance of your website may have nothing to with the performance of your video. You may have a slowly rendering website but super fast video. Unfortunately, as the delivery of that video has become married with the website rendering, users don’t make the distinction.

If you get one thing from this blog post, it should be the transformation of the video experience. It is no longer video and website content. It’s now just content as website owners increasingly integrate video as part of the website. Hence, the video experience is a combination of playback metrics and website performance. But there are steps you can take to improve the overall performance of your content delivery:

• Distribute your video content to the edge. If a request for a video asset has to travel thousands of miles to retrieve the content, you can bet your user isn’t going to wait around for it to load. You need to get those videos as close to the end user as possible. In most cases, that’s best met through a CDN which combines edge delivery (whether via HTTP or other video streaming protocol) and caching to ensure that content is available almost immediately.
• Make your website interface load faster. The new technology on the street is Front-end Acceleration or FEA (sometimes referred to as FEO) and works with a website to render the page faster by optimizing and tailoring the rendering of the webpage (i.e., the HTML) to the specific requesting browser. This is simple and easy technology to implement that can have meaningful impact on performance of the assets around the video (i.e., player graphics, menus, etc.). Remember that sometimes perception is everything. If users perceive that the site is loading quickly…then it is loading quickly.
• Speed up the underbelly of your website. More complicated than FEA (but ultimately very complimentary), website acceleration utilizes the power of the CDN (and its edge cache) to store web objects (like javascript, images, and even server-side scripting pages like PHP) as close to the end user as possible. So all that integration you have built with ad networks, social networks, and other web services doesn’t hold back your website (by forcing requests to return to a single server where you have your website hosted).

A weekly curation of video-related news and blog postings from around the Web.

Apple, Netflix Offer New OTT Approach

www.telecompetitor.com3/8/12

I’ve always felt that one key hurdle preventing OTT video from having an impact on the subscription pay-TV service was the billing relationships. OTT subscribers have to establish multiple billing relationships with … “fix” the fundamental problem with the “all you can eat” biz model. They need new revenue streams for sure and it will be interesting to see what strategy they come up with…but I’ll give you odds the Albanian Army ain’t gonna win against the U.S. Army.

My Thoughts: This a critical concern for the growth of OTT. Remember back in the Internet days when companies tried to do unified billing via a consumer’s telephone bill. Failed. But having multiple subscriptions is frustrating. Perhaps Apple (or Amazon), with such a trusted brand, can step in and provide this? The groundwork has already been laid with HBO Go and their MSO-subscription requirement for the OTT service (that back-end authentication to MSO sub management is huge).

Telmex Considers Offering OTT Video Streaming – Telecoms Insight

www.telecomsinsight.com3/5/12

América Móvil’s Telmex is considering the launch of an OTT video service streaming TV shows and movies in its domestic market Mexico. The company would use the distribution unit DLA, which it purchased for an undisclosed …

My Thoughts: As I’ve pointed out in last week’s “news in review,” the emerging markets are seeing OTT as a greenfield opportunity. India. Mexico. Brazil.

Ad-supported VOD is pay-TV’s ‘missed opportunity’ – FierceIPTV

www.fierceiptv.com3/6/12

The report, Making Ad-Supported VOD Work, from research firm TMG, estimates that in the fourth quarter, U.S. subscribers watched 80 percent more streaming video hours than were viewed in the same period on all U.S. …

My Thoughts: A really interesting piece that, based on a research report from analyst firm TMG, hits the nail on the head. What we’ve begun to hear, most interestingly, is that ad buyers are looking for “ad parity” (the delivery of the same ads in broadcast to VOD; so the ads that show in the linear version of this week’s episode of Lost would also appear in all Lost VOD assets, rather than old ads) and the technology providers out there are trying to figure out how to do it. This is a greenfield opportunity.

Netflix VoD outstrips pay-TV | Advanced Television

advanced-television.com3/5/12

… and head off competition from OTT providers like Netflix.” Niemeyer estimates in Q4 2011, Netflix US subscribers watched 80 per cent more streaming video hours than were viewed in the same period on all U.S. PayTV VoD …

My Thoughts: Accounting for 30% of all Internet traffic during prime time, does this surprise anyone? How many people out there still utilize PPV (for VOD) when a subscription to Netflix gets you the VOD asset you want and so much more? PPV is very limiting. As the MSOs migrate away from PPV to OTT, I think PPV (for anything other than live events) will slowly die off.

Tablet TV Viewing to Reach 3 Hours Per Month in 2014: Will It …

ipcarrier.blogspot.com3/6/12

But note the conflation of traditional VOD and over the top services and apps. Some of us would not classify over-the-stop streaming as VOD, just as time-shifted viewing on a digital video recorder is not VOD, and Netflix …

My Thoughts: Coupled with the recent announcement of the iPad 3, Apple’s streaming movie service via iCloud, and iTunes support of 1080 video, there is an obvious behavioral trend here towards tablet viewing that makes total sense. A rich screen, streaming capabilities, portability. Why would you want to watch TV when the tablet provides a great experience and you can move around with it? But the article makes an interesting point: VOD in recent years has contributed about $2 billion a year worth of revenue for U.S. video entertainment providers. U.S. cable TV companies alone booked about $98 billion in 2011 revenue. That doesn’t include the sizable revenue earned by satellite and telco providers as well. VOD right now is very minimal. But what it represents behaviorally (I watch what I want to when I want to) may have impact to the way linear is delivered, especially in light of behavioral changes around mobile viewing.

Rise in OTT Video, Increased Emphasis on Quality of Consumer Experience, Top … – MarketWatch (press release)

news.google.com

Rise in OTT Video, Increased Emphasis on Quality of Consumer Experience, Top …MarketWatch (press release)Managing the Video Viewer Experience is Critical: Due to the increasing use of OTT video and adaptive streaming technologies, managing the view …

My Thoughts: According to this press release from IneoQuest, the experience will drive OTT success. From the article: Consumers are no longer satisfied with a “best effort” quality experience and will move on to a competitor to get the video they desire before the service provider even knows they are unhappy. Which is absolutely right and compliments the recent data around website latency and fall-off (milliseconds may result in loss of revenue). As content becomes more pervasive and easier to get, what will hold a consumer at one site versus another? Sure, there might be some exclusive content but is that enough to count on? And as more pipes fill with IP traffic, it will become harder and harder (especially for the MSO/Access Network Provider who is forced to deliver Internet traffic, terminating at their network, as well as their own OTT traffic) to maintain a good experience.

- Curated and commented by Jason Thibeault, Sr. Director of Solutions Marketing for Digital Media. You can connect with Jason on Twitter @jnthibeault.

A weekly curation of video-related news and blog postings from around the Web.

IneoQuest predicts rise in OTT video | Advanced Television

advanced-television.com2/27/12

Managing the Video Viewer Experience is Critical: Due to the increasing use of OTT video and adaptive streaming technologies, managing the viewer experience is now a critical business need for service providers.

My Thoughts: A very interesting article on the growth of OTT. One thing noted in the article: …the number of Americans owning tablets nearly doubled from 10 per cent in mid-December to 19 per cent in early January, according to recent research by Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project. Also, industry research shows that over half of all tablet owners are streaming video on their device. Like mobile, OTT is a valid opportunity now. Although talked about for years, the Internet technologies and global network have finally 

TiVo powers Comcast OTT video play, will supply gateway devices …

multiscreen.quickplay.com2/24/12

Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA) installers in the San Francisco Bay area will soon begin deploying TiVo (Nasdaq: TIVO) DVRs that will allow subscribers to access over-the-top video content from Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX), Hulu and other … Recapping the past week in Multiscreen news, including QuickPlay Media powering TVB’s first mobile video service, Apple’s iPad 3 announcement, Streaming viewership for the SuperBowl, and Amazon’s plans, or lack thereof, for a …

My Thoughts: The world of broadcast and Internet is colliding. This partnership brings together linear broadcast (provided by Comcast through the Tivo), OTT (via Comcast’s Xfinity), and Internet-resources like Netflix, etc. This is a big move but a natural one. If the MSO’s want to stay relevant in a world that is increasingly moving towards content on-demand, they need to create partnerships like this.

Zee unveils India’s first OTT video platform | ai:consortia

aiconsortia.com3/1/12

Zee New Media, the digital division of Indian media group Zee TV, has today launched the country’s first over the top television (OTT) distribution platform, providing live and catch-up TV across a range of devices. Originally trailed … Running on a Siemens Communication and Media Technology (CMT)-designed adaptive streaming platform, the service provides users with customised channels, so viewers can select only what content appeals to them and their wallets.

My Thoughts: This demonstrates that emerging markets see the benefit of OTT. Perhaps it’s driven by the global broadcast shift from satellite to IP (it’s happening, albeit at a slow pace) but OTT will increasingly play a larger part in the content distribution chain.

Nextreaming and Verimatrix Announce the Release of NexPlayer …

www.enterprisecommunicate.com2/29/12

The resulting combination allows service providers to securely deliver live streaming content to any Android device. “Deploying this type of solution with Nextreaming underscores the maturing of OTT video services as they …

My Thoughts: Security is a critical concern with OTT offerings. Although I’m not sure a dedicated, security-specific player is the right way to go, I think this is indicative of a larger trend around the need to secure premium content in the OTT world.

Windstream Launches Merge, A New OTT Triple Play Approach

www.telecompetitor.com3/1/12

Rather than a standalone video streaming product, Merge is a bundled offer that highlights the “merging” of broadband and video, for an. … Windstream Launches Merge, A New OTT Triple Play Approach. 3/1/12 at 10:13 AM by Bernie …

My Thoughts: Windstream describes their new offering as an “entertainment superhighway” but it is really indicative of the trend towards merging OTT (or IP-based) and Linear content delivery experiences. Why should a consumer go through one channel (i.e., Roku) for some content and another (i.e., set-top box) for the rest? That doesn’t make any sense from a user experience standpoint. Smartly, Windstream uses a Roku box (something easy to install and provision). What the service lacks, perhaps, is security (i.e., Verimatrix and Nextreaming). But this is a great example of a future in which there will no cords to cut.

What do people watch on HBO Go? Mostly HBO shows | Multiscreen …

multiscreen.quickplay.com2/29/12

Before a press screening of the network’s newest original movie, Game Change, HBO Co-President Eric Kessler gave some details about viewership on the company’s streaming service. According to Kessler, original programming makes up about 75 percent of … “TiVo powers Comcast OTT video play, will supply gateway devices to cable ops http://t.co/az8PzSrD #multiscreen #OTT #Comcast #TiVo”. 2 days ago. “What If Your Next TV Is a Tablet? http://t.co/Rl0n2RiC …

My Thoughts: Just some interesting stats: according to Kessler, original programming makes up about 75 percent of all viewing on the platform, with movies contributing another 20 percent and sports programming taking the final 5 percent. So if original programming is drawing people to HBO Go, perhaps TV Time really is dead and people want a traditional “linear” experience on their own schedule? I’d like to understand how many people go to Netflix for their original programming vs the pre-packaged/canned stuff. 

- Curated by Jason Thibeault, Sr. Director of Solutions Marketing for Digital Media. You can connect with Jason on Twitter @jnthibeault.

We had a busy and productive week at the eTail West Conference this past week. Some 1600 attendees gathered to hear discussions on all aspects of online retailing including the use of videos, improving site performance, social media marketing, and making powerful connections with customers. Guy Kawasaki was the concluding keynote speaker on Thursday and spoke about how to utilize social media to establish a strong brand and community of customers.

Limelight hosted a 10’X20’ booth to showcase our Accelerate and Limelight Video Platform. We provided “on the fly” site optimizations and visitors came by to have their sites optimized. The results shown were dramatic. Some retailers could not believe how much the performance of their site was improved, all without any software installation or changes to their web servers! We also demonstrated the Limelight Video Platform , showing customers how they can easily host, manage,publish, and monetize video for their sites.

Some of the key takeaways of this conference were that most retailers are still struggling with how to optimize their sites and improve their conversion rates. Attendees know that their web sites need performance improvements, but they’re not quite sure where to make improvements. Attendees also view mobile as very important aspect of their e-commerce strategy and are looking for ways to deliver content to multiple devices more quickly. In order to have an effective user experience, store front operators need to ensure that their mobile site is as good as their desktop version since mobile is increasingly becoming the way users access content.

Social media also was center stage at the show as many companies are looking for ways to incorporate a social media strategy into their marketing and lead gen efforts. They are also looking for tools to manage the entire process of creating content and distributing content to their social media followers. All in all, the eTail West event proved to be very worthwhile gathering of some of the nation’s top retailers and we look forward to attending again next year.