For content owners, it used to be that the answer to most website performance problems was either to add more hardware, use a CDN, or reengineer their backend application code. But for a number of reasons detailed below, investing in backend optimization is now providing diminishing returns. Google’s research shows that for many popular sites it’s the frontend that accounts for over 90% of a users wait time. Content delivery networks (CDNs) help to address part of this problem by reducing network latency, but even larger performance gains can be achieved through what’s referred to as Frontend Optimization (FEO) techniques that streamline the Web page HTML code and resources.

Before diving into the details of FEO it’s important to define the difference between frontend and backend performance. Backend wait time refers to the time required for the server to respond to requests and generate the content requested. The frontend wait time refers to the time required to download the content and render it in the browser.

There are three trends shifting the performance bottleneck from the backend to the frontend. First, is the growth in the size of Web pages. Since 1995, the average size of a page has grown over 35x, and the number of objects per page has grown 28x. Second, the growth of JavaScript and AJAX usage means that more and more code is being executed on the browser vs. on the server alone. This trend will intensify as content owners move to replace more of their desktop applications with browser based, SaaS services. Lastly, the growth in mobile browsing means that Web pages are increasingly being viewed on less powerful devices with slower connections.

There are proven techniques in the market for addressing frontend performance, and it’s a subject that I’ve heard being discussed more often in the market over the past few months. Content owners and vendors who offer solutions in the market say these best practices include methods such as resource consolidation, versioning, domain sharding, minification and use of compression amongst others. There are even tools like Yslow and Webpage test that will analyze your site and make recommendations on which optimizations you should implement.

FEO might sound similar to another subject I have written about lately, dynamic site acceleration (DSA), but it’s very different. DSA’s focus is to bring network resources closer to the user by prefetching or caching files. FEO makes the content itself faster. DSA makes page resources download faster. FEO reduces the number of page resources required to download a given page and makes the browser process the page faster. For example, analysis shows that popular sites like CNN, who already use a CDN, can double current performance by implementing FEO.

In addition to improving performance, FEO can also dramatically cut operating costs and improve conversions. Shopzilla’s redesign project took their page loads from 6-8s down to less than 2s. The result was a 7-12% improvement in customer conversion and a 50% reduction in their hosting infrastructure costs of hardware and bandwidth.

Despite the potential for large performance gains, not many content owners I have spoken to have invested in frontend optimization. This is sometimes due to lack of knowledge but more often due to the high cost of implementation. FEO projects compete for the same scarce engineering resources that are focused on adding more functionality. Also, implementing FEO requires an upfront investment to retrofit sites and an on going investment to keep it optimized. Ongoing maintenance costs can escalate due to the constant stream of new desktop and mobile browser releases and each browser has it’s own performance nuances. Keeping up to date with these changes can be resource intensive.

In order to reduce FEO time and cost concerns, new technologies are now available that will automatically optimize pages. These technologies dynamically transform HTML and page resources to apply FEO best practices as users browse the site. Automated page transformation negates the need for manual investment and allows the site owner to continue to benefit from FEO while still maintaining existing designs. There are three different types of FEO players in the market; software (Aptimize), appliance (Strangeloop) and hosted services (Blaze).

Performance is a complex science and no single optimization approach works for all sites. Continued movement to more complex web applications and mobile browsing will only accelerate the need for investment in FEO. Going forward, automated FEO solutions will play an increasingly important role in helping to reduce the time and cost required to implement and maintain frontend optimization. The Web frontend is clearly an under optimized area that will offer significant performance gains for many sites and is a topic I think we’ll hear more about in 2011.

Related Posts:

– How Dynamic Site Acceleration Works, What Akamai and Cotendo Offer

– An Overview Of Transparent Caching and Its Role In The CDN Market

The call for speakers for the 2011 Streaming Media East show, May 10th-11th in NYC and the Content Delivery Summit, taking place the day before on May 9th, 2011 closes on January 10th next week. I know many folks are at CES this week, so if it takes you a few days past the 10th, no worries, but get it in soon after as I already have hundreds of submissions. If you are interested in being considered as a speaker or presenter, please submit a request via the show website. Getting a submission in on-time is crucial if you want to be involved.

Everyone always wants a speaking spot but I simply don’t have enough to go around. The key is to get a submission in on-time and for vendors, introduce us to customers. 75% of the speaking spots go to content owners and end-users, the companies who buy and use online video services. I always need introductions to new customers.

If you have any questions about a submission, ideas you want to run by me, thoughts on what you can do to help the show, call me at anytime at 917-523-4562. I pick up my phone 24 hours a day 7 days a week. I am always reachable. If you want to be involved in the show in some way, now is the time to pitch me ideas and suggestions as I will have locked down the advance program by the end of January.

[Updated Jan. 11th: The deal is now official.] Tata Communications, which in 2008 invested $11.5M in BitGravity and licensed their technology for Tata's own CDN service, is looking to acquire the rest of the company. Tata already owns about 15% of the company due to their initial investment in BitGravity and is now looking to acquire all the remaining shares in the privately held CDN. I've heard that the terms of the acquisition been agreed upon but that the deal is not yet official. When reached for comment, BitGravity said Tata had not closed a deal for the company but I'm hearing some BitGravity employees who are already telling others that they now work for Tata. When reached for comment over the holiday weekend Tata didn't deny or confirm the deal saying, "we do not have any information to share at this time."

For those that follow the CDN space, this deal probably comes as no surprise as BitGravity was pretty much out of options with regards to their business. BitGravity has been in the industry for a couple of years but simply wasn't able to grow revenue fast enough to seriously compete in today's crowded CDN landscape. The company also offered some of the lowest pricing in the market, without commits, and really focused their pitch on being the low cost leader in the market, which is simply not sustainable for any CDN. Even last month, the company was marketing their services via emails pointing out that their live event pricing started "at $1,000 per event in North America or Europe."

For BitGravity, the company made some of the same classic mistakes as many of the other CDNs have made over the years. The company spent so much time talking about their technology and trying to convince everyone about how much better it was than competitors that they never focused on how to turn it into a product. Technology is great, but it does not matter how good the technology is if you can't make it into a product or service and explain to the market and customers what the value is and why they should buy it.

The company also stayed in stealth mode for a really long time before they truly launched and when they did, they never really focused too heavily on marketing and sales and focused a lot of their product efforts on live streaming. BitGravity never really provided much in the way of technical details on their service and really focused on a lot of marketing words like "next-generation" without defining what that meant for customers. The company also took a big hit when their co-founder and CTO Barret Lyon left in mid 2009.

BitGravity's only real option at this stage of their business is to sell to Tata Communications, which would enable Tata to own 100% of the technology that runs their CDN. For Tata, it's a good move as long as the price is right and in this case, even though we don't yet know the terms of the final deal, Tata clearly has the upper hand in the negotiations.

Related Posts:

– Tata Communications Launches CDN, Invests $11.5 Million In BitGravity

– BitGravity Announces Live HD Streaming, But Traction Will Be Hard To Come By

On Monday J.P. Morgan released data from a recently completed survey of cable subscribers and Netflix customers implying that cord cutting is accelerating. Of course, there is no real data to show consumers are actually going through with the idea of cord cutting in any volume, but that has not stopped some folks from using the data to imply a trend is taking place, or is about to, when in fact it isn't.

Not everyone is falling for the hype and Peter Kafka does his usual fine work of questing whether or not the data makes sense. But others like NewTeeVee.com want to use the survey to imply that Netflix is already turning consumers into cord cutters and that this is a trend. The fact is, the J.P. Morgan Consumer survey is really pretty useless, as are most of the surveys on this subject. The only numbers that matter when it comes to cord cutting are the actual number of consumers who cut the cord and go through with it, not the number that would like to, are "tempted" or are "considering" it. Because for the vast majority of them, they can't cut the cord easily and get the content they want.

Of course when you ask people if they would like to cut the cord or want to do away with spending money on something, the percentage of people that will agree with the idea is going to be high. Who doesn't like the idea of saving money? Is anyone surprised by data that shows consumers like this idea? How is that considered data that's meaningful to the industry? If so many consumers are interested in the idea, then why aren't they doing it? Because for most, there simply is not a viable alternative to cable TV in the market today. Of course there could be in the future, but not today and not anytime soon.

In addition, the report data is flawed because the results combine the number of people who would considering dropping pay TV or have already done so. You can't put those numbers together. If the number of consumers who have cut the cord is so high, where's the numbers to prove it? Outside of the gaming consoles, most of the devices that would allow someone to get over-the-top content haven't even sold 1M units yet. If consumers have tried an alternative to cable and liked it enough to consider cutting the cord as the report states, then why haven't they actually followed through on it? Because as we all know, considering something and actually doing it are two different things, especially when it's not easy.

We should care about the real numbers of how many people actually adopt something, actually use a service, actually buy a device and actually consume content in a different way and NOT the number of people who are simply interested in the idea. Just look back over the last ten years at how many services and products have come to the market because flawed data said consumers were interested in the offering, yet those products then failed because customers didn't actually go through with buying them or they didn't work as well as imagined.

Remember for how many years everyone in this industry talked about the convergence of the TV and the Internet? All the data in the market we were given said consumers wanted it, but how many products and services actually succeeded in the market that followed through on the offering? I would argue none. We're really only just starting to see the beginning of convergence today, ten years after the industry first started making an issue of it.

Does anyone care about real numbers anymore? All day long we keep getting numbers on all aspects of this industry on what will happen, should happen, could happen or is suppose to happen. How about we spend our time and efforts on studying the numbers of what's actually happening? There is nothing wrong with putting out projections, but base it on real data, not speculation from surveying a bunch of consumers who haven't even done the thing you are surveying them about.

One of the definitions of a trend is, "the change in a series of data over a period of years that remains after the data have been adjusted to remove seasonal and cyclical fluctuations". A second definition is, "a pattern that is evident from past events. Sufficient data is required to see if there is a relationship of one or more variables over time". Based on these definitions, we don't have enough data in the market to show cord cutting is a trend. In fact, many were quick to say it was starting to become a trend simply based on only one quarter of data from the cable companies.

Why am I so adamant about this? Because if we portray and hype any aspect of this industry when it's not actually taking place, wrong expectations get set. And when that happens, VCs invest money into companies who won't survive, companies change the focus of their business based on misguided data and the value of the products and services in the industry get inflated beyond reality. We've had this problem as an industry in the past. And when you set wrong expectations with consumers, the end result is even worse.

[Updated: The Alphaline Entertainment service is no longer available effective 12:01 PM CST, 9/19/11.] At the end of last week, while most folks were preparing for the holidays, Sears Holdings quietly launched their new movie download service, originally announced in June, called Alphaline Entertainment. Powered by Sonic Solutions RoxioNow platform, the service is a nearly identical clone to BestBuy’s CinemaNow offering, but with pricing that’s even more expensive.

To purchase many movies on the Sears platform, which has both a rental and purchase option, it costs $5 more than BestBuy’s online platform. And since it’s powered by Sonic Solutions, that also means that like BestBuy’s offering, Sears platform won’t work on the Mac and also doesn’t work today using a Chrome browser.

If there is one thing we don’t need in the market, it’s another poorly priced movie download service offering absolutely nothing of value to what’s already available today. It’s like Movielink all over again. Does Sears really think their offering has any shot at competing in the market when BestBuy, who’s been offering movies online for almost three years now, has almost no traction? The execs at Sears making these decisions must be living in a bubble.

As Engadget pointed out, many times you can get the Blu-ray version of these movies for cheaper than $20, yet Sears seems to think consumers will be wiling to pay that just for a digital copy. And as far as the branding of this new service goes, where was the marketing person when they came up with the name? Alphaline Entertainment? That’s not a name consumers will remember, let alone be able to spell. It’s as if Sears is trying to fail in the market right from the start. A local Redbox and Netflix makes this service virtually useless. I’m sure someone will comment and say that with Redbox you’d have to wait 28 days for some movies and with Sears you can get it online faster, but so far, that 28 day wait has not stopped Netflix from growing.

I can’t remember ever running into anyone who thought that the Sears or Kmart brand meant digital distribution or disruption. And this new service isn’t going to change that. But to me, the real question is why does Sears even want to get into this business in the first place? There is not much money to be made re-labeling video services and it’s not like BestBuy, Blockbuster and Walmart are falling over themselves with cash from their online offerings. In fact, neither BestBuy, Walmart, Blockbuster, Sony, Microsoft, or any of the other movie download services outside of Apple will even say how many movies or TV shows they have rented or sold.

I’m sure someone will say Sears does not care as it costs them almost nothing to operate the service since they don’t have to license content and they simply split any revenue they receive. But then why bother with such a service when you know it’s not going to disrupt the market in any way or even generate much in the way of revenue? I think the fact Sears has entered the online movie distribution business shows just how much hype exists around this segment of the market. It’s as if all big box stores now feel like they need to get into the business just to make it appear as if they are hip or so they can tell their shareholders they have a strategy for digital. As least Walmart actually went out and spent money to acquire their own platform when they bought VUDU last year and offers a service that has some uniqueness to it.

Sears online model and pricing is the same one that Blockbuster uses unsuccessfully to try and compete in the market yet there is no differentiator with this Sears offer and absolutely no reason for any consumers to switch to it.

Similar Posts:

– No Online Movie Service Stands Apart: All Showcasing Same Content

– Blockbuster Says It Has “28-Day Advantage”, Only Has 13 Movies Streaming In HD

– Movie Studios Just Don’t Get It, Part IV: Pay More For Movies On USB Drives

– Sony’s Day-And-Date Strategy: Stream Movies For $24.95, For 24 Hour Rental

Talk about a crowded industry. In addition to BestBuy, Sears, Walmart, Apple, Sony, Microsoft, Netflix, and others offering online movies for rental and purchase, Intel just announced their plans to launch their own movie and video service, dubbed Intel Insider, by the end of March. But unlike other services in the market today, Intel's movie and video platform will be tied directly to their new second generation Core processors also just announced at CES.

It's an interesting approach and one that's quite different from all of the others offerings in the market as it offers the studios hardware protection for their movies, as opposed to software protection of the content. Pricing for movies has not yet been disclosed, but the release does say that movies will be offered in 1080p quality and will be available the same day as DVD/Blu-ray releases. Intel also mentions a couple of content partners in the release including Warner Bros. Digital Distribution and Cinema Now. In addition, Intel also plan to allow consumers to stream movies wirelessly to their TVs using what Intel calls WiDi 2.0.

We're going to see a lot of news like this coming out of CES this week and it's amazing to think of how quickly the landscape is going to change for the way consumers find, purchase and shift the consumption of video from one device to another.

A big day of news for Vizio. After already announcing that Vizio would launch Android based tablets and cell phones later this summer and a new video download service, Google has now confirmed via their blog, that Vizio will incorporate the Google TV platform in TVs and Blu-ray players slated for sale later this year.

I'm not a big fan of the Google TV platform as to date, it simply does not work the way it should. But Google is in this for the long-term and Google TV is not something Google needs to win at overnight. Partnering with Vizio is really interesting because Vizio is all about getting good TV technology into the hands of as many people as possible, at a cheap price. And with Sony's Internet TV, powered by Google TV being expensive, there is a good chance that Vizio will simply bring the Google TV platform to the masses, at no additional cost.