DiViNetworks, a provider of IP bandwidth expansion for network operators and service providers, holds a unique point of view – global PoPs positioned at strategic Internet junctions, combined with intelligent software overseeing masses of international traffic. This position enables them to study global data flow characteristics and trends, which they recently shared.

Close to 100 ISPs are served by the DiViCloud network and 100% of the international downstream traffic to the served ISPs passes through these PoPs and as traffic passes through the PoPs, the software in the PoPs collects traffic statistics. These statistics serve as the raw data for the their report named “Global Data Flow Report“. Based on the data, global CDNs play a primary role in traffic flowing into ISP networks, comprising around 40% of the overall traffic volume.

Some speaking spots still remain for the Enterprise Video Conference, taking place in conjunction with our Streaming Media West show October 30-31st in LA. We already have confirmed speakers from Wells Fargo, Stanford University, Accenture, Wellpoint, Lockheed Martin, Oracle, Harvard University, GE Capital, Microsoft, Northwestern University, Polycom, University of California at Berkeley, Cisco, Brigham Young University and others.

Speaking spots are still open and I welcome all submissions from vendors and end-user corporations and universities. I am filling up spots each day, so if you are interested in any of the sessions below, please contact me ASAP.

Tuesday, October 30th, 2012
Panel: Lecture Capture, Presentation Recording & Meeting Webcasts: How To Select a Solution
Systems for recording presentations – including audio, video, and presentation materials such as slides or desktop capture – continue to be crucial tools in both higher education and the enterprise. In this session, we’ll cover a range of options for recording or live streaming your presentations and lectures. You’ll learn about the variety of technologies available in this rapidly changing space. We’ll look at several implementation examples, including the trade-offs and benefits. Finally, you’ll learn how you can choose the best one to fit your needs.

Tuesday, October 30th, 2012
Panel: Student-Generated Video on Campus
Students no longer are passive consumers of video. The proliferation of video-shooting smartphones and social media has made them producers. Video is a tool for creative expression, but it is also an excellent tool for evaluating performance and progress, and for sharing ideas, solutions and innovations. In this session we’ll cover ways that student-generated video can be used in education, and methods for effectively and securely managing that video.

Tuesday, October 30th, 2012
Panel: Integrating Streaming, Video Conferencing, and Unified Communications Solutions
Learn how organizations leverage existing video conferencing infrastructure as production studios when integrated with a video streaming system. And learn how video conferencing allows presenters in multiple locations to participate jointly in webcasts. Finally, learn how this is all good news to those implementing streaming solutions because now they can be budgeted as part of a larger video communications budget.

Tuesday, October 30th, 2012
Panel: Unique Deployment Challenges for mobile video in the Enterprise
Deploying mobile video presents many challenges that are unique to enterprise environments. Enabling the bring-your-own-device trend complicates matters further. This session will address the major considerations for deploying mobile video in the enterprise, including encoding video for mobile devices, choosing the correct servers, and delivering to multiple devices and players, including HTML5. The final challenge discussed is networking, as enterprises need to determine if users are going to access the video over the enterprise Wi-Fi network or the public cellular network.

Tuesday, October 30th, 2012
Panel: Developing a Management System Strategy
It is becoming increasingly common for organizations to deploy multiple types of content management systems, from traditional content management systems like SharePoint, to Learning Management systems, to Media Management systems. Hear how leading organizations developed their management system strategy, how they use their systems independently or as an integrated hybrid model, and what best practices they’d suggest for organizations considering similar investments or integrations.

Tuesday, October 30th, 2012
Panel: Enterprise Live Video Production, Tips and Tricks
This session will focus on best practices for dealing with the “ever changing” nature of live video production. Each panel member will bring their “bag of tricks” for their top five items that all producers should be doing for live production in the enterprise. Live video production can be full of pit falls and unexpected changes and this session will give you the chance to learn from the folks who deal with all levels of live video production on a daily basis.

Wednesday, October 31st, 2012
Panel: Media Asset Management 101
Learn the basics of media asset management and metadata from a panel of content management experts.  We’ll look at best practices for creating, managing and applying metadata to media assets to maximize search and storage capabilities, and strategies for getting started.

Wednesday, October 31st, 2012
Panel: Creating an Internal CDN to Support Video Deployments
Video has gotten much easier—standards and simple interfaces have come a long way in recent years. But coping with video across the network can still be a headache. Learn how other organizations have successfully tackled this thorny issue and sort through the options to find the right one for your applications and organization.

Wednesday, October 31st, 2012
Panel: Developing A Device Strategy For Online Communications Video
Distinct from a focusing exclusively on mobility, this panel will discuss how organizations are developing online communications strategies for a wide array of devices, including tablets, phones, digital signs and other devices that may just be hitting the market. Hear how organizations are reacting to device trends, the risks and benefits they are experiencing, how they are budgeting and spending to support devices and whether they see the primary target device as shifting from the desktop.

Over the past few weeks, there’s been some acquisitions in the infrastructure space that I didn’t get to blog about. None of them are game-changers or dramatically change the landscape for those who offer distribution services, but they are interesting ones to watch with regards to how their technology will be integrated into the larger content delivery ecosystem.

• 21ViaNet acquires FastWeb: Last week, Chinese web hosting service provider 21ViaNet announced they had acquired FastWeb, a China based content delivery network. 21ViaNet is one of China’s largest carrier-neutral Internet data center service providers, with more than 150 POPs in the country, yet they didn’t have any kind of CDN offering. So on paper, acquiring FastWeb makes a lot of sense and the company says they plan to use FastWeb’s CDN services to “diversify” revenue and improve the quality and reliability of their services. Terms of the deal were not disclosed and I haven’t heard any rumors on the evaluation.

• Akamai acquires FastSoft: Two weeks ago, Akamai announced they had acquired FastSoft, a six year old company that was offering network optimization technology originally developed at the California Institute of Technology and funded by the National Science Foundation, DARPA and Cisco. While FastSoft didn’t get too much mention in the media, their software did  good job at accelerating web pages and web applications and customers I have spoken with always raved about how well it worked. While FastSoft offered acceleration services for video, applications, software downloads and small objects, most of the revenue didn’t come from accelerating video content, but Akamai has said that’s where they plan to use the technology within their network, at least to start. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the price that keeps been talked about in the industry is that it was a sub-$100M acquisition for Akamai. If I remember correctly, FastSoft had raised about $6M in funding. I’ll update this post if I can confirm the acquisition price from a reliable source.

• Allot Communications acquires Oversi Networks: Last month, Allot Communications announced they had acquired another Israel based company, transparent caching provider Oversi Networks for $16M in cash. The company said Oversi will add about $2M a quarter in revenue and it expects the business to reach break-even by the first quarter of 2013. Allot plans to integrate Oversi’s transparent caching technology into their deep packet inspection (DPI) offering. Oversi had raised at least $13M in funding and had been shopping themselves on the market for over a year, so the sale is pretty much a wash for investors. It’s also interesting to note that Cisco was a shareholder in Oversi, yet Cisco didn’t bid on buying the company and recently partnered with transparent caching provider PeerApp instead.

For an updated list of content delivery and transparent caching vendors in the market please visit www.cdnlist.com

I’m pleased to announce that Roku’s CEO Anthony Wood will kick off the second day of the Streaming Media West show (#smwest) with a keynote on Wednesday October 31st. Anthony will demo the latest content offerings available on the Roku platform, show off the newly announced Roku stick and talk about current video consumption habits amongst consumers. In addition, we’re going to be giving away a bunch of Roku devices after Anthony’s keynote.

Attendance to our keynotes are FREE! Just go online, register for an exhibition pass and you’re in, with a chance to win a new Roku device!

The speaker lineup for the Streaming Media West show, (#smwest) taking place October 30-31 in LA, is now complete. We’ve got nearly 100 speakers across 32 sessions with keynotes, workshops, case study presentations, how-to technical presentations and round table panels. A great mix of content owners, broadcasters, consumer electronic manufactures, publishers, content syndicators and technology providers. You can check out the full list of speakers here and I will be highlighting many of the conference sessions over the next few weeks.

Some of the confirmed content owners and consumer device speakers include:

Dijit, makes of the social TV remote app for the iPad, launched a new app last week called NextGuide. Since most people find something to watch by scrolling through their on-screen guide, the new NextGuide app allows you to see what’s on TV, what your friends are watching and what’s available from services like Netflix and iTunes, all in one place. Finding content you want to watch is the key idea, but NextGuide also plans to allow you to record shows on your DVR, directly from their app.

I got to see a demo of the app back in May when it was still being developed and with its release, the company has added additional functionality, more personalization options and a very clean and quick responding UI. The personalization functions are very powerful and allows you to filter choices based on keywords, categories, Facebook likes and the company has a ton of metadata in the backend that makes finding specific content or categories about shows and movies really easy. It also allows you to set alerts to be notified when your show comes on and will let you record shows to your DVR from within the app, if using DirecTV. More support for other MSOs will come in the future.

There are a bunch of TV guide style apps, including those by TV Guide, Fanhattan and Boxfish, but NextGuide has the nicest layout, best UI, is the easiest to use and from what I have seen, the best personalization options to date. You can check out a demo of NextGuide in the video above and download it from the iTunes store here.