I can’t remember a previous time when two webcasts of such large scale took place on the same day. I’m watching the Operation MySpace webcast now and the video looks great. I have the high stream going at 1.5 Mbps 1.3 Mbps and am not getting any distortion. Full screen looks pretty good but has some pixelation on a 15" monitor, which is to be expected. KulaByte is encoding the stream at low, medium and high bitrates and Akamai is delivering the video, being played back with Flash 9. Will be interesting to hear what the simultaneous stream count is for this when it is over, what the average bitrate was and how many could get the HD stream.

And later tonight, Oprah will be doing another class on Oprah.com
and says that all previous technical issues have been worked out and
that they expect an even larger audience than the 500,000 simultaneous
they had last time. The Oprah site says that so far they have over
800,000 people pre-registered. Limelight Networks will be delivering
that webcast and it will require Move Networks client.

Update 4:41PM EST: For the past 10 minutes, the My Space video is really stuttering and the
audio is a few seconds behind the video. The video has dropped to about 12
frames per second from the 30+ I was getting before. Moving down from the high to the medium stream is not solving the quality issues. Lots of stuttering and the low stream is doing 8.2 frames per second for me.

Update: Akamai has informed me they will not be giving out traffic stats from the MySpace webcast. For more technical details surrounding the encoding of the event you can read this article on StreamingMedia.com

Entriq, a provider of digital rights management based solutions announced today that it has acquired video workflow company DayPort. While terms of the deal were not disclosed, various sources say Entriq valued DayPort at around $45 million, which seems about right.

This is one of those deals where the synergy between the two companies seems dead on. Entriq provides content owners with the ability to add digital rights management and commerce solutions for video and DayPort provides much of the content workflow including transcoding, publishing and syndication. By combining both company’s platforms, Entriq says they will enable customers to "publish, approve, control, syndicate, monetize and analyze their digital media business reaching mobile, broadband, streaming, podcasting and IPTV environments."

More deals like this should be coming in the industry. Right now, there are a lot of small players in the space, in many product verticals, who would benefit from combing products and services and operations to better compete in the market.

I’ve blogged before about how most CDNs don’t give out data points in the market or to customers for them to try and fairly compare one CDN to another. It’s impossible to measure performance, capacity and many other aspects of a content delivery service offering from one provider to another. I got an e-mail this morning from a content owner who summed up what I hear all the time from customers:

"How do you think we should proceed looking for a new CDN and how do we get any data that will help us determine who we choose? All the CDN sales reps are blaming the other one in terms of network size, service quality, etc. and we can’t see the difference between many CDNs. Do you have research in terms of how much bandwidth, capacity, scalability, performance, etc?"

I know many of the CDNs hate these questions and say it is not fair for them to have to answer them since their capacity constantly changes and they are all making upgrades to their network footprint all the time. But why can’t CDNs give some sort of metrics on capacity per format in each region of the world? Look how many CDNs say they are global when they truly aren’t. Many CDNs that are in the Adobe partner program and listed on the Adobe site as supporting live Flash video don’t support live. And how is it that every CDN, large and small, global and regional, has gotten an A+ ranking from Keynote on their network quality?

I am not the only one who notices this stuff. If any content delivery network thinks I am pointing out things customers don’t already know, I’m not. I hear these kinds of points from customers all the time. And with more CDNs in the industry and more competition it is harder than ever for content owners to try and figure out who really does what in the space and what any one company’s limitations are.

While I would propose some suggestions to the CDNs of the type of data they should talk about to fix this, it’s pointless as it would then clearly show the differences between the networks. And too many of the CDNs want to be compared to all the CDNs as being on the same level playing field when in fact, they know that many times they aren’t. I don’t think there is anything wrong with not being as big as someone else or having as much capacity as someone else. Why would you want to tell a customer you are global, sign them up, and then have them find out the hard way that you really aren’t? Why start off the relationship on the wrong foot? This happens much_too_often with customers.

CDNs should highlight what they do well, what their core strength is and what type of customers they should and more importantly should not be going after. If MLB.com were to put out an RFP tomorrow for all of their video delivery needs, I bet nearly every CDN would want to bid on that business, even though those of us in the industry know there are realistically probably only 2-3 CDNs today that could handle that level of traffic all at once.

The CDN facet of this industry has to get smarter and providers have to start evolving much faster in terms of the message they are delivering to customers. The service is already starting to be seen by many as a commodity. Now is the time to make it clear to the market and content owners what your real strength is. Looking at almost all of the CDNs websites, it is nearly impossible to find out what verticals they specialize in, what format(s) they support, what regions of the world they have delivery in (network maps don’t count), what type of reporting they have, (put up a demo account on your home page), what your message is to the market, (speed, reliability and global reach don’t cut it anymore), who your customers are, (case studies please) what your products are in detail (where are your product sheets?!) and for those that say they help content owners "monetize" their content, show examples of exactly what that means.

A CDN that delivers bits and who sells content delivery only with no tools or applications, that delivery service is not a monetization service. Pushing bits is not enabling content owners to monetize their content. Giving them tools or providing services to do targeted delivery, advertising, DRM and very granular reporting – those are monetization services. Simply shipping bits is not.

Too many of the CDNs are so focused on only using networking language
right now that they are not delivering any real marketing message to
customers. Go to the websites of the CDNs and look at the message on
their home page. The majority of them, but not all, are not delivering any
clear concise message with any real identity.

In my eyes, the content delivery market is going into the next big stage as we will see more growth in the next 2-3 years than we have seen in the past five years. Now is the time for CDN vendors to deliver a very clear and concise message to the industry and to customers of exactly what it is they offer and what the differences are between their company and others.

Last night, Oprah did a special 90 minute webcast live on the Oprah.com website and just released details on the traffic numbers. They had more than 500,000 simultaneous users viewing the stream and peaked at 242Gbps of traffic. The stream was encoded into the Move Networks platform and viewers could have gotten a stream at 150Kbps or as high as 750Kbps all depending on their connection.

The announcement on the Oprah site today which is on behalf of Harpo, Move Networks and Limelight Networks also says that, "Unfortunately, some of our users experienced delays in viewing the webcast." That comes as no surprise there considering the number of people trying to view the webcast, let alone at a high bitrate. But I give the Oprah site credit for setting expectations before the webcast started.

When you went to the site last night, the webcast page said something to the effect that the webcast would have a huge demand and that potentially some people just would not be able to log on to see it. They made that very clear and also said where and when the archives would be made available.

Half a million simultaneous streams at a high bitrate easily puts this at the top of the list when it comes to large webcast numbers. Is it larger than the MSN webcast last year of LiveEarth? No one knows as MSN only said their event had the "Most Simultaneous Viewers of Any Online Concert Ever" but didn’t say what that number was.

In all, it really does not matter which was the biggest. The big take away from this webcast is that it shows proof that the Internet is not built to handle TV like distribution and those who think that live TV shows will be broadcast on the Internet with millions and millions of people watching, it’s just not going to happen.

Oprah will be doing more of these webcasts over the coming weeks and it will be interesting to compare all the numbers.

The StreamingMedia.com survey on CDN pricing is nearing its end and to date we’ve had 1,041 respondents. We’re starting to compile all the raw data for the final report and will be giving away the iPhone this week.

When it comes to the factors that are most important to customers when selecting a CDN vendor, price and customer service came in number one and two. We asked respondents to rank multiple factors on a scale of 1-5 with 5 being most important.

• Price: was given a number five by 55%
• Customer Service: was given a number five by 52.7%
• Geographic Reach of Network: was given a number five by 44.7%
• Flexibility of Contract Terms: was given a number five by 33.4%
• Number of Formats Supported: was given a number five by 28.7%
• Technology and Product Road Map: was given a number five by 28.1%
• Value Added Services: was given a number five by 20.2%

While CDN customers are not buying on price alone, it comes as no surprise that pricing and customer service, followed closely by geographic reach of the network are the most important factors overall.

Exactly 50% of the respondents came from the media, entertainment and broadcast verticals. Enterprise and education made up another 30% and pharma and government made up the remaining 20%.

One point I think many are missing with regards to the 703 patent is that it only applies to part of Limelight’s service offering. While the patent is very broad and potentially could mean more than just CDNs are infringing, think ad networks, web hosting companies etc… the patent only has to do with cached content that is delivered to a browser, which is the key point.

Live streaming, software downloads, application acceleration, delivery to a device etc… are not infringing as they are either not cached or not delivered to a browser. So not everything on Limelight’s network is in violation of the 703 patent. I don’t know what percentage of Limelight’s traffic or revenue is outside of the 703 patent but that would be interesting to know.

As for Microsoft, many are thinking that Microsoft may now be worried since they licensed Limelight’s technology. But what exactly did they license? Neither company has ever said. And since the 703 patent is very specific in what it covers, is Microsoft really worried that Akamai is going to come after them for licensing Limelight’s technology? Of course not. And based on what exactly Microsoft licensed, it is very possible that it has nothing to do with anything pertaining to the Akamai and Limelight suit. It’s all speculation at this point until someone says exactly what Microsoft licensed.

While many seem to think I am crazy for thinking anyone would acquire Limelight, it would make sense for a company like Level 3. Yes, we all know Level 3 has had some problems with the integration of all the acquisitions it has made as of late. But putting that one hurdle aside, there are many reasons why this would make sense in particular for Level 3.

For starters, everyone seems to think that anyone acquiring Limelight would continue to operate their network. But for someone like Level 3 they don’t need the Limelight network in operation. They need their sales reps, their customers, their revenue and their hardware. Transition as many customers as possible over to the Level 3 network and shut down the Limelight network. When Akamai acquired Speedera and Nine Systems they didn’t keep those networks functioning. They took the customers and terminated the networks. Same thing happened when Internap bought VitalStream.

I don’t think anyone would argue that you could do all of that overnight. It does take time and requires a great deal of work, but it’s not difficult considering the product Limelight is selling to customers is very straight forward without a lot of customization. And any company that acquires Limelight would probably lose 20-25% of the customer base anyway so you’d be talking about having to migrate roughly 750 customers. That’s not rocket science.

Would a company that buys Limelight have to pay some sort of royalty to Akamai while they transition the customers over and shut down the Limelight network? Maybe. But they might also use the appeal process to do all of that by the time the appeal goes to court and then show that they have terminated the product that was in question.  If that were to happen, I would expect Akamai would then file suit against Level 3 for the same 703 patent, which in my eyes they have not done to date as Level 3 has not been a serious threat to Akamai yet.

Some also say that Level 3 could not do this as they are not a real player in the CDN space and don’t have the network to transition the customers to. That’s incorrect. They have more customers for CDN than most realize, are continuing to add capacity each quarter and will become the number three CDN this year based on CDN revenue in the U.S. They are very quickly becoming a real option in the space and with the integration of the Vyvx products and the applications they acquired when they bought Servecast, they are laying the ground work for a true ecosystem offering of more than just shipping bits.

Most would say that by Level 3 buying Limelight it would make them a target for a suit by Akamai. But they are missing the bigger picture. Level 3 is already lining itself us for a patent suit by Akamai. Based on the broad interpretation of the 703 patent, every CDN is already in violation. So why hasn’t Akamai gone after Level 3 or any of the others? Simple. Even for Akamai a lawsuit is a lot of work and costs money. They are not going to go after any CDN until the CDN is a real threat to them in the market and doing enough revenue to make it worth their time. Cable and Wireless was around for years before Akamai went after them. Speedera was too. It wasn’t until Speedera was getting traction in the market and revenue before the suit was filed.

And look at Limelight. Limelight was founded in 2001, yet Akamai didn’t file the suit until five years later, when they were doing some real revenue and had become a real competitor to Akamai. Level 3 acquiring Limelight does not make them more of a target as they are already in the cross hairs and Level 3 knows it.

When Level 3 bought the SAVVIS/Cable & Wireless CDN assets they were buying a large patent portfolio to go along with the 800+ other patents in their portfolio. Clearly Level 3 knew what they were buying, knew the outcome of the Cable & Wireless and Akamai lawsuit and they would have spent a lot of time examining what their legal exposure may be with the patents before the acquisition. Based on Level 3 buying going through with buying the assets, they clearly feel they are prepared to defend whatever comes their way.

Is it an easy deal for Level 3? No. But it’s not a crazy one and with the right pieces in place, Level 3 becomes the number two CDN overnight in terms of revenue and customers. And for all the people who still want to say how successful Akamai was in the Cable & Wireless suit, remember that Akamai sued Digital Island who was then bought by Cable & Wireless even though Digital Island was being sued. And we don’t know how "successful" Akamai was in that suit as Cable & Wireless went bankrupt in the U.S. before any of the rulings were appealed. The one time cash payment by Cable & Wireless to Akamai was made in the final days of them closing down operations in the U.S. and was a small enough amount that Akamai didn’t even need to mention it in any of their filings. (At least not that I could find)

And even with the ruling two years after the suit started, C&W said, "The injunction is a legal technicality about a legacy part of the CDN that was abandoned some time ago". So the idea that someone like Level 3 could take what they need and shut down the Limelight network is completely possible.

The biggest hurdle I see to this is the debt that Level 3 has and the problems they have had with all the integrations in the past. Those could potentially be deal breakers that keep this from happening. But if all the right pieces fall into place, Level 3 could make out nicely acquiring Limelight and propelling itself to the number two spot in the market.