Thanks to the generous folks over at Microsoft, they have provided me with nine copies of Expression Studio that I can give away on the blog. The Expression Studio bundle includes Expression Web, Expression Blend, Expression Media and Expression Design and retails for $599. Expression Studio also includes a license for Expression Encoder and anyone can currently download a 180 day trail of the encoder here.

This drawing is now over. Dustin Reyes, Brett Stime and Jeff Parr won the drawing.

I will be giving these away in batches of three at a time and would like to give them away to those who will really use them as part of their daily job. To qualify to win a copy you must leave one comment in this post with a suggestion for Microsoft on how they can improve any aspect of Expression, Silverlight or Windows Media. Have you seen a feature you’d like included? Is there something missing that you think should be in the next version? Leave a comment with a working
e-mail address. I will pick three users a week from today using a random number picker website and
ship them out to the winners at no cost.

If any company is interested in getting exposure for their video
related product on my blog and is willing to give away the product, contact me.
I will post pictures of the product, link to the company website and potentially write a product review or link to other reviews on the web. It’s
great exposure on a blog that does over 300,000 page views a month.

Considering I am in the online video industry, some may say I am crazy for not wanting to follow the bandwagon that wants to shout from the top of their lungs that TV is all but dead. Yes, I get the impact online video is having on traditional broadcasters on many fronts, but when folks like the NY Times publish articles proclaiming that "TV is becoming obsolete", then the industry is setting everyone’s expectations incorrectly. TV is anything but obsolete.

Online video is having a huge impact on the way content is created, marketed and consumed, but distributing video online is not replacing traditional broadcast programming. I know some are under the impression that one day your computer will become your TV, but that’s not going to happen and we all know the Internet can’t even support those kind of numbers when it comes to viewers all watching a show at the same time. For all the talk of the writers strike and some of the data that has been put out saying that more people have gone online for videos, that does not change the fact that most of the content on TV is not available on the Internet.

I have over 60 season passes in TiVo. Going through all of them yesterday, more than 90% of the shows I watch are not available online anywhere. And the ones that are, like content from CBS and NBC, do not show up right after they are broadcast and typically take days if not longer to appear on the web. And in the case of something like 60 Minutes, one story alone is chopped up into 10 different video segments on their website and encoded at a pretty low bitrate. And sports, well forget that. No NFL games are available on-demand the next day online and while the MLB games are, it requires a subscription.

The demise of the TV is overrated and many in the industry keep saying the same thing as if they have to say it just to be cool. I keep hearing people in our space says things like "I don’t even need a TV anymore, I’ll just watch all my video online". Or, "there was nothing on TV last night so I went online to watch video". Nothing on TV? I don’t know about you but I have hundreds of channels and can always find something to watch. I don’t have hundreds of channels on the web of professionally produced content. It reminds me of the time when people in the industry had to use the word "convergence" or "broadband" in every single sentence they used as they were convinced that others would think that since they used those words they must "get it".

No one is throwing out their TV. And those who don’t watch TV, probably never really did to begin with, as opposed to people who want to use them as an example and say that online video is the reason. The TV is not going anywhere and way too often in our society people want to talk about one thing replacing another, instead of being a compliment to it. The TV did not replace the radio. Internet video is not going to replace the TV. P2P delivery is not going to replace all CDN delivery. These things are all complements to one another. We should see the TV for what it is, just another way to get different kinds of content for various viewing experiences.

As expected, CacheLogic has officially closed a fourth round of funding totaling $25 million and has now raised just over $50 million to date. The company will be making some announcements shortly about some new large customer wins and will be focusing on a new marketing effort designed to showcase their P2P offering in a new light. They have also recently won a contract to work with the BBC to help with the expected traffic surge when the BBC’s iPlayer comes out of beta.

It looks like P2P technology still has the most traction outside of the U.S. for now.

I’ve been a little slow in blogging as of late as I’m hard at work on finalizing the advance program for the Streaming Media East show taking place in May. We will have 36 sessions at the show and the first third are now confirmed with moderators.

This year I have decided to use the blog to post the conference agenda before the advance program is even printed so everyone can see the kinds of topics and subjects that are going to be discussed and the kind of demos that will be shown. Please keep in mind, this is just the first 1/3 of the program, there is a lot more to come.

If you see a session in particular you are interested in possibly speaking on you can send in a speaking request, but since the deadline passed more than two weeks ago, those who sent in speaking requests on time get first priority.

Effective Business Models For Short-form Video Marketing
Some advertisers see user-generated video sites as a free way to distribute their message, however this has rapidly evolved into a significant paid business, where sites charge based on video placement and search keywords. Learn the relative ROI of going to a major site (i.e. YouTube) vs. a smaller site (i.e. Metacafe) vs. a plethora of tiny sites. Learn what methods are successful for getting viewers and the importance of content vs. placement. This panel will discuss and show video examples of effective business models for both advertisers and publishers.

LifeCasting: How Fast and How Real Can We Get?
How did lifecasting videos get so hot? In the early days of television, live was the second choice, because of potential pitfalls, cost of production and a host of other problems. And yet, in the world of Internet video, lifecasting – using Internet video to share moments of our lives or to broadcast events and happenings – is the new hot thing. With platforms like Kyte.tv, Zannel, Mogulus, Stickcam and many others now available on the market, lots of new options and opportunities exist. Come see some of the hot and upcoming mobile lifecasting options in action and discuss is lifecasting will be become just a fad or the next big thing.

Best Practices in Enterprise Streaming for Communications and Learning
Use of online video in the enterprise has evolved well beyond the special occasion of rudimentary talking head videos that characterized early adoption. Today, innovative organizations take a holistic view of all their online communications, seeking to extract as much value as possible from any infrastructure that involves video. Whether webcasting executive briefings across the globe, or capturing and archiving rich media presentations for training, marketing, sales, and compliance, a growing number of organizations are capitalizing on the ability of Web 2.0 technologies. This session will show firsthand examples from Fortune 500 organizations of best practices in integrated online video for communications and learning.

CDN Pricing: The Going Rate For Video Delivery
With more CDN players in the market than ever before, trying to figure out what you should pay for delivering video can still be quite complex. This presentation will offer real pricing numbers from large, globally focused content delivery networks and show you the average going rate when you outsource delivery to a third party. The session will also cover some of the variables that determine the final price, how you should accurately compare the delivery services of one CDN to another and gives you a list of providers in the market today.

Monetizing And Aggregating Niche Video Content
This panel will discuss the new ways content owners and site developers are aggregating content and distributing it on the 2.0 web. We will give examples of ways to develop niche vertical sites without having to hire tons of new personnel and discuss how to reach audiences on social networking sites like Facebook. Learn about some of the new emerging platforms for niche video distribution and learn best practices of ways to increase your changes of making money with your content.

Focus Group: Young People’s Attitudes Towards Online Video
This special session, a panel of high school and college students will discuss their online video consumption habits. Learn what types of online video content they like, what sites they get their content from, the devices they are playing it back on and how they interact with video advertising. Find out what their perspective is on pay media, portable content and what they think the future holds for the next generation of viewers on the web. Bring your own questions for a lively Q&A session with the students at the end of the session.

Live Broadcasting Over Mobile And WiFi Networks
While big media tests the waters of mobile broadcasting, many web video producers are already out there doing it live from the street, with a cell phone. Others are joining in and experimenting with two-way broadcasts via streaming video over cellphone networks and via WiFi, wherever they are. Viewers can chat while the broadcast is going on and affect and sometimes even direct the coverage of the content being produced. Come to this session to hear Steve Garfield talk with other pioneers in the live broadcasting space about their experiences on the forefront of this new technology for sharing their stories over the web.

The H.264 Convergence
Over the past year, more and more streaming media players are utilizing H.264 and providing support for the technology. Adobe’s recent support for H.264 in their Flash player has sparked industry discussions amongst major broadcasters and online video producers about the role H.264 will play. This session will explain why H.264 is getting so much exposure, what recent announcements have put it into the spotlight and whether it can really be the one codec that the industry can all converge on. Attendees will also see real-world examples of sites and services that are utilizing H.264 today.

User-Generated Video in Education
The online video revolution has been embraced by students, teachers, instructors and researchers, many of whom are producing video for class assignments, teaching purposes and other uses. Learn what kind of content is being produced, where is it being posted and how user-generated content fits into the overall strategy of educational institutions. This panel of experienced educational media professionals will discuss the many ways your school, college or university can maximize the value of your user-generated video, and how you can assist faculty and students in making it better.

How Old Media Is Embracing Online Video and New Media
Led by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, this session will discuss how converging media technologies are redefining traditional distribution methods; how interactive and on-demand services are changing and how entertainment and news video is being consumed. Come hear from some of the leading publishers, broadcasters and advertisers about the impact that video and new media is having upon their business models.

Codec Comparison: VP6, H.264 and Windows Media
Choosing the right codec involves lots of factors, including quality, player install base, costs, and server related features. This session will compare the video quality of the big three codecs; VP6, H.264 and Windows Media. It will also include a comparison of the primary H.264 codecs including Apple, Sorenson, Main Concept and Dicas. The session will present attendees with the latest published penetration figures for the H.264 compatible Flash 9 player and Microsoft’s Silverlight player and provide usage statistics among major broadcasters and corporations. Attendees will also learn how to compare relevant server and player related features, and costs associated with adapting and using each platform.

Delivering Media For Microsoft Silverlight With Windows Server 2008
This session will cover how to take advantage of the new Silverlight media serving features in Windows Server 2008. Attendees will learn about the new capabilities of IIS7 Media Pack including bit-rate throttling and playlist options for progressive download content. The session will also demonstrate the enhanced capabilities in Windows Media Services 2008, including scalability doubling and appliance-like cache/proxy deployment for edge networks specific to streaming.

Last week seemed to be the week of many CDN rumors, one of which was Microsoft being interested in buying Limelight Networks. While I have no idea if that is the case, the blog posts and articles that followed the rumor were a great example showcasing how many people really don’t understand the product offering that the different CDN providers have in the market today. Too many are still comparing one CDN provider to another unfairly. The term "content delivery" is used way too generically these days and folks tend to speak to it as if it covers every type of content under the sun, even when it doesn’t.

Update: I am getting a lot of comments from those who are saying that Limelight does lots of other kinds of delivery and my choice of the word "only" is incorrect. While I know they do some, the majority of what they deliver is video and rich media content. But I did contradic myself when I said "only" video but then also said "mostly" video in another post. To be exact, I should have said "mostly" video in this post as well.

Numerous blogs all talked about how it would make sense for Microsoft to buy Limelight Networks so that Microsoft could accelerate it’s own CDN build-out. SiliconAlleyInsider.com speculated that, "perhaps it (Microsoft) believes Limelight’s infrastructure and expertise will help accelerate its transition to cloud computing. Specifically, instead of buying CDN services from Akamai, et al, Microsoft could now float MSN, Office Live, Silverlight, and other Software-As-A-Service products on top of the Limelight infrastructure." How is that? Limelight Networks does not offer application delivery, software as
a service, static caching and most other forms of content delivery over their network today. Limelight specializes in running a network that is optimized specifically for the delivery of video content only. So Microsoft acquiring Limelight does nothing in the way of advancing their "cloud computing".

On the same day of this rumor, DataCenterKnowledge.com reported on some of the details surrounding the build-out by Microsoft of it’s own "edge network". This gave some good insight into what Microsoft is working on however, the Microsoft person quoted in the post never used the word video. They said "edge network". Most video delivered on the Internet today is not delivered from the edge and most video is not cached like many seem to think. So what kind of content exactly is this Microsoft network going to deliver? I’d love to see a follow up story by DataCenterKnowledge.com talking to that.

Around the same time as this rumor, GigaOM.com ran a short post about Limelight’s share price and revenue guidance and said, "Limelight
spends about 60 cents on every $1 it earns just to provide service,
whereas Akamai spends about 30 cents, I’m not sure how low Limelight
can go. Or for how long." Yes, those numbers are correct, but not
in the context they reported them. No one knows how much it costs
Akamai to operate their network specific for video since they delivery
many kinds of content. Again, Limelight delivers only video, so
comparing Limelight’s costs to deliver one kind of content, to Akamai’s
costs to deliver many kinds of content, is not a fair comparison. Using
those numbers in that context is just plain wrong and set expectations wrong in the market.

I’ve said it many times before on my blog, you can only compare the CDN service from one company to another and not the companies themselves. The CDNs are out in the market making very clear statements about what they do and do not offer, yet it seems like no one wants to listen. At Akamai’s recent analyst day, what did they focus most of their time on? Not CDN, but application delivery. They are trying to tell the market they do more than just content delivery of static images and video content. Limelight on the other hand is trying to educate the market about how they only delivery video and are the specialists when it comes to that kind of content. Level 3 is focusing on offering a bundled service of transit, co-lo, static CDN delivery, streaming etc…. same with Internap who is focusing on multiple products. In most cases, the CDNs are delivering a clear message to the market on what they do and do not offer in the way of a product portfolio yet it seems very few are paying attention to that and have a clear grasp of the products that make up the numbers.

All week long I’ve gotten lots of questions about Apple’s new movie download service and what this means to Akamai. There is a lot of speculation out there about Apple’s new service, but now that it has been officially released, I’m not sure why analysts who cover Akamai are so concerned about the impact they think this has on Akamai?

For starters, we all think that Akamai is delivering this content, but I have yet to hear anyone from Akamai confirm this in any public forum. Be that as it may, lets assume Akamai is delivering this content for Apple. What’s the big deal? This is one customer, adding a video offering to the market that is anything but mainstream. Akamai is not going to be delivering so many movies over the next 2 months that it’s going to have any large impact on Akamai’s earnings for Q1. Apple’s new movie service is anything but mainstream and won’t me mainstream anytime soon. For starters, the service has a very limited library and the content only last 24 hours, which is going to turn a lot of people off. You can’t transfer any of the videos to any iPod except for the absolute latest versions, the HD movies are not available expect when rented from an Apple TV device and for all of Apple’s talk about their new MacBook Air, who’s going to rent a movie to play back on that thing when the speakers in the new laptop are only in mono?

Bottom line, the new Apple movie rental service is a start, but it’s not going to revolutionize the video market for movies anytime soon. Widespread adoption won’t happen when you need a device to rent movies and when the amount of time you can watch them for is so limited. The number of Apple TV’s that have been sold is very small and even if Apple sells a few million of them this year, that’s anything but mainstream. Analysts know that the way any company like Akamai grows is by signing up many new customers or upgrading many current customers each quarter. Rarely does one customer have a direct impact on any vendor that results in a big spike in revenue in such a short period of time.

That’s not to say that a new service like this by Apple is not good for Akamai or any CDN in the long run, but it is way too early to tell what real impact it will have on revenue and we won’t be able to judge that impact for many quarters to come.

Swiss American Securities just called me after reading my blog post to let me know that they have no record of anyone at Swiss American Securities saying that Apple plans to drop Akamai and switch to Google for their content delivery.

Many analysts all sent me the same supposed quote this morning from Swiss American Securities but interestingly enough, no one seems to know where the quote actually came from, who said it, and where it was first reported.

Another reason why I am glad I am not a financial analyst. Way too much speculation without facts.