Gaming consoles are changing the way consumers get their streaming media fix and over the past year, Sony has added a lot of great content to the PlayStation network including movies from VUDU, football with the NFL SUNDAY TICKET, hockey thanks to the NHL GameCenter app, tons of new movies and TV shows in the PlayStation Store and content services from Netflix, Hulu and HBO amongst others.

So I am really excited to announce that Susan Panico, Senior Director of the PlayStation Network, will be the opening keynote speaker at this year's Streaming Media West show, taking place November 8-9 in Los Angeles. During her keynote, Susan will showcase the wide range of content available via the PlayStation Network and talk about Sony's content strategy across PSN services. After the keynote, Susan will also be giving away some custom PS3 gaming systems, so this is your chance to potentially walk away with some really cool gear.

Access to all keynotes during the show are free with an exhibits pass, so go online and register today. You can also get $200 off the conference ticket price using the promo code DRF1 and if you register for a gold pass, we'll even throw in a free Roku 2 XD streaming box while supplies last.

A variety of streaming formats-Silverlight, Flash, HLS, WebM-is generally required to serve the multitude of screens through which content is consumed. Each format can include separate workflows, storage components, strategies and with it, brings a lot of questions.

At the Streaming Media West show, on November 8-9 in LA, (#smwest) we've got Rob Roskin, Senior Manager of Video Operations and Emerging Technologies at MTV Networks doing a hands-on presentation entitled "How-To: Technical Set-Up of Live Streaming Production". This was one of our best rated sessions at our last show as Rob will provide tips and tricks, best practices, and lessons learned regarding the technical set-up of live streaming production.

Learn how to stream multiple formats from a single encoder, use social networking overlays, leverage adaptive bitrate streaming, and transition between live streams from multiple camera angles using multi-encoder synchronization. Come learn how to deliver interactive, high-quality experiences for your next live event from one of the leading content companies on the web today.

I've been a customer of Verizon's FIOS service for more than five years and I've written a lot of posts here on the blog talking about how just good their Internet and TV service is. As good as it may be, in today's fragile economy, cable TV is a luxury for many people. The economy isn't great right now and consumers are trying to save money whenever possible and cancelling cable or downgrading their service to a lower tier is one of the many options they look at to save costs.

But apparently Verizon seems to think the economy is great right now and has decided it's time to raise rates by $15 a month. For my triple play bundle, the price is jumping from $95.99 a month to $109.99 a month. Verizon isn't offering any extra bump in speed for that price and in fact, when I called the company, they suggested I could keep the price I currently pay by downgrading my Internet speed from 25Mbps to 15Mbps. What a crappy sales pitch. So Verizon is basically saying that my rates don't have to go up, but I can now only get about half the speed I use to, for the same price I have always been paying. This is Verizon's best sales pitch? This is how they value customers who have been with them for years?

When companies make really bad mistakes like this, at a time when the economy is doing so poorly, you really have to wonder how the execs who make these decisions get to keep their jobs when they are so out of touch with the market. I guarantee that plenty of Verizon customers are going to cancel their service and switch to someone cheaper or downgrade their service and pay Verizon less each month. It's one thing to raise rates by $5 a month, but to raise them by $15 a month, that's simply bad business and it's going to come back to bite Verizon you know where.

I use to tell people all the time how good Verizon is, how they should use FiOS and that cable was really no alternative. But when Verizon thinks they can raise rates by $15 a month, and only guarantee that rate for one year, not two, they can no longer be trusted.

Update: Someone suggested I try calling a supervisor, which is always a good idea. So I called back to speak to one, but after waiting on hold for 2 hours and 9 minutes, I hung up.

Update 2: I called Verizon the next day and complained about the rate increase and they gave me a $5.99 credit each month. So at least now the rate increase is only $9 a month instead of $15 a month.

Asian telcom provider KDDI has announced it will spend $167M to buy an 85.5% stake in content delivery company CDNetworks. The company said it will use the acquisition to strengthen its online content distribution services in Asia. CDNetworks did about $99M in revenue last year and said that revenue has grown 20% a year since 2007. CDNetworks had been looking for a buyer for over a year, so the deal really doesn't come as much of a surprise and it makes sense that a company based in Asia would be the likely buyer. Last year, CDNetworks changed the focus of their company from delivering video and CDN services to focusing mostly on web acceleration solutions.