While there have been a lot of reports put out on the total size of CDN market, they don't detail what percentage of the revenue comes from the delivery of video. As everyone knows, video is one of the fastest growing segments of the overall CDN industry, yet is also the most volatile when it comes to pricing and volume trends. In addition to my role at StreamingMedia.com, I'm also a Principal Analyst at Frost & Sullivan in their Digital Media Group and in 2008, we started breaking out the size of the market, specific to video.

I'm currently working on a follow up to our 2010 Frost & Sullivan CDN report which details the market drivers, restraints, market share, competitive analysis, and industry challenges specific to the video delivery industry. (contact me if you want to learn about how to get a copy of the report) Based on everything we have seen, we expect the market for video delivery services to generate over $1B of revenue by the end of 2013. (For a complete list of all the CDNs in the market, see www.cdnlist.com)

Video CDN market revenues equaled $545.5 million in 2010, reflecting a base year growth rate of 21.3%. 2009-2010 was a challenging period for the total CDN market. The global recession, especially the market slowdown in the United States, had a diminishing impact on several industries. However, Internet content consumption, especially that of video continued to grow, and therefore, the CDN market did not experience any negative impact, even though the growth rates were tempered as compared to historical trends between 2005 and 2008. The video CDN market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 28% from 2010 to 2015 to over $1.8 billion. The market saw about seven companies enter the market between 2008 and 2010, either through consolidation or independently, or as resellers, and increasingly with a focus on video.

With all the talk about over-the-top video and cord cutting, very few seem to mention just how many, or in this case how few, streaming enabled devices have actually been sold in the market. The good news is that we are starting to see some growth in the number of devices sold, but overall, the numbers of users are still small. The real catalyst to the growth of the CDN industry is not a broadband-enabled device, high-quality video or broadcast quality content, but rather the acceleration of all three. By themselves, any one of those trends is not enough to help the CDN market grow quickly, but combined, it will propel the size of the market much faster in 2013 and beyond.

While the unstoppable demand for online video has industry participants predicting explosive growth for the CDN market, Frost & Sullivan believes that it will largely be dependent on several factors such as market consolidation, technology trends, and the increasing role of telco companies in this market. Our 2010 report discusses this in detail and our 2011 CDN report should be out in Q1 of next year.

On Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, we will be broadcasting the keynotes live from the Streaming Media West show in LA. Tuesday's keynote by Susan Panico, Senior Director of the PlayStation Network and Wednesday's keynote by Matt Strauss, SVP and GM of Comcast Interactive Media will kick off at 12pm ET on the home page of StreamingMedia.com.

And if you want to see their keynotes in-person, you can still attend for free. Simply register on-site at the venue and use the discount code of DRF1 and you can get a free pass for the keynotes, receptions and the exhibit hall.

As the number of broadband-enabled devices and platforms invading the living room continues to grow, lots of questions remain about their capabilities. At the Streaming Media West show in LA next week, company executives from Sling Media and Western Digital will demo their latest platforms and devices. Attendees will see Western Digital's new WD TV Live device in action and Sling Media will demo their platform on Android and iPhone devices as well as their Sling Player for Boxee and Google TV applications.

This is your chance to see these devices and platforms in action, get hands-on with them get your questions answered in a Q&A session. Today is the last day to register online, but you can also register next week on-site at the event. Readers of my blog can still register using my own personal discount code of DRF1, which gets you a two-day ticket to the show for only $595.

With no up-front expenses and no long-term commitment, both Amazon's CloudFront platform and Microsoft's Windows Azure platform enable you to pay only for the resources you use, and it's simple to configure both of them within minutes to store and deliver your content and applications. At the Streaming Media West show next week, representatives from both Amazon and Microsoft will give an overview of how their platforms work, show attendees how to use them and answer questions specific to their platforms.

Today is the last day to register online, but you can also register next week on-site at the event. Readers of my blog can still register using my own personal discount code of DRF1, which gets you a two-day ticket to the show for only $595.

If you need to create live broadcasts with the Microsoft Media Platform, we've got a great workshop taking place in LA next week, on Monday November 7th, at the Streaming Media West show. Instructors from Microsoft will walk through how-to demonstrations for multiple live video scenarios, including live camera feeds, screen captures, multiple sources, on-site encoding, interstitial advertising, rough cut video editing, and more.

They will also cover cloud-based encoding/transcoding, CDN delivery, intranet caching, SharePoint portals, live DVR playback, several flavors of dynamic adaptive streaming over HTTP, and delivering to Apple iOS and Android devices. This is a great chance to see the Microsoft Media Platform in-person and get your questions answered. Online registration is still open and tickets for the workshop are only $265.

Over the past 24 hours, some Wall Street money managers have been calling me saying they are hearing that Level 3 and Limelight will soon make a joint announcement regarding both company's CDN business. I have been hearing the same thing and expect the news will come out shortly, maybe even tomorrow. Back in August I reported that Limelight was in discussions to work with Level 3 to potentially merge their CDNs businesses and work with one another to sell CDN and value add services. The companies have been speaking since the summer and while various options were looked at, it appears that both companies have now settled on a deal, which I originally heard was suppose to come out today. Maybe it will be after the market closes or will come out tomorrow, but an announcement is imminent and it will not be an acquisition, but rather some kind of partnership.

Since I don't know all of the exact details on how the deal will be structured, I'm not going to release only partial info on what I have heard and will let both companies share the full details themselves. But with the news expected to hit shortly and Limelight reporting earnings on Monday, I expect we'll hear a lot more about this very soon. I've already outlined how a deal like this could help both companies, but until a deal is officially announced and we know exactly what the structure of the deal looks like, it's still too early know how this will impact the CDN market in the near-term.

At the Streaming Media West show next week, we have a full day of pre-conference workshops, with 4 three hour sessions. One of the sessions, being taught by Kevin Towes from Adobe is entitled "Using Adobe Flash Media Server To Deliver Live And On-Demand Video."

Attendees will learn about HD-quality video, integrated live video streams, delivery to mobile devices (including iOS), and deeper interactivity through an extensible plug-in architecture. This session will also cover new features that include enhanced content protection with encrypted streaming, increased performance, and new logging/measurement tools to maximize the return on content investment.

This is your chance to come learn all about Adobe's Flash Media Server and get your questions answered by Adobe. Online registration is still open and tickets for the workshop are only $265.