I’ll be moderating a panel at the Streaming Media West show in two weeks asking analysts how Wall Street looks at the online video sector, how it values companies in our space, where they think the industry is heading and what they are most excited about. The list of panelists includes:

• Dan Rayburn, Executive Vice President, StreamingMedia.com (Moderator)
• Colby Synesael, SVP, Equity Research, Telecom Services, Merriman Curhan Ford & Co.
• Katherine Egbert, Software Research Analyst, Jefferies and Company
• David Eller, Principal, Primary Research, Reuters
• Aaron Kessler, Senior Research Analyst, PiperJaffray & Co.

It’s not too late to register. While the early registration discount period has now passed, if you have not yet registered and want a discount code, let me know.

In the past three quarters, at least 27 vendors in the industry have had changes at the CEO level. While there are always changes in executive management, I don’t recall there being that many new CEOs in such a short period of time in our industry. It begs the question, are VCs getting impatient and demanding a quicker return on their investment? Or are they starting to really see the opportunity and bringing in those who have experience in growing companies larger and faster?

It’s hard to know which one it may be, and it could be a combination of both. But this many new CEOs in such a short period of time does suggest that while the VC money still flows, some VCs are getting impatient. Probably too many of them are still hoping, or I should say expecting, a valuation that will not happen. My fear is that many companies are raising too much money too fast, forcing VCs to set expectations they may not be able to meet in 24 months.

We’ve seen the changes at the top from companies who’s services are wide ranging. Delivery providers, hardware vendors, software companies, publishers and content companies. Below were the ones I could think of off the top of my head and I know there are a whole bunch more I am missing.

• BitTorrent: New CEO, Douglas Walker
• The FeedRoom: New CEO, Mark Portu
• Media Publisher: New CEO, Ray Hood
• Interactive Video Technologies (IVT): New CEO, Phillip Whalen
• Anystream: New CEO, Fred Singer
• JumpTV: New CEO, Jordan Banks
• Cache Logic: New CEO, Phill Robinson
• Revision3: New CEO, Jim Louderback
• MobiTV: New CEO, Charlie Nooney
• EveryZing: New CEO, Tom Wilde
• HuffingtonPost: New CEO, Betsy Morgan
• Dabble: New CEO, Kai Mildenberger
• Topix: New CEO, Chris Tolles
• Joost: New CEO, Mike Volpi
  
• Vudu: New CEO, Mark Jung
• PodTech: New CEO, James McCormick
• Revver: New CEO, Kevin Wells
• RGB Networks: New CEO, Jef Graham
• Akimbo: New CEO, Thomas Frank
• Metacafe: New CEO, Erick Hachenburg
• Podbridge: New CEO, Brian Steel
• USA Video Corp: New CEO, Frank Bowden
• ValueClick: New CEO, Tom Vadnais
• Veoh: New CEO, Steve Mitgang
• muvee: New CEO, Terence Swee
• VBrick: Nee CEO, Vince Graziani
• Babelgum: New CEO, Valerio Zingarelli

Only time will tell what the success rate of the new CEOs will be, but they have to be under more pressure than ever now by investors as the media and everyone else hails next year as the second coming of video.

Over the past few weeks, I have gotten a few offers from some research houses to help them with their research reports on the industry, and in particular focusing on the CDN subject. I’m interested in working directly with a research house who plans on generating regular reports on the CDN market and I am interested in bringing all of my data, analysis, pricing and customers insight to an organization.

I don’t have time to write reports all by myself, but I do want to work with a company to help outline the report topics, provide data, give insight into the market on many levels, introduce them to customers and provide some written editorial in the reports.

I’m listening to all suggestions and idea from companies, be it traditional research houses that sell their reports, or companies who generate reports and give them away to their customers. Please contact me if you have an idea or are interested in discussing further.

That’s the question we’re looking to have Yahoo!, BlackArrow, Revision3 and CNNMoney.com give us their insights on at the Streaming Media West show in two weeks. I’ll be moderating a session on this subject and looking to get answers on which type of advertising works best online: pre-roll, post-roll, in-stream, sponsorship, or all of the above?

We will also discuss if revenue automatically comes with the audience, or will a sudden spike in popularity sink your production under a mountain of bandwidth costs before you ever get a chance to swim? It’s a hot topic and one we’ll have a lot of debate over. The panelists include:

• Dan Rayburn, Executive Vice President, StreamingMedia.com (Moderator)
• Cheryl Kellond, Sr. Director, Global Ad Product Strategy, Yahoo!
• Jason Schafer, VP, Business Development, CNNMoney.com
• Brad Murphy, VP, Business Development, Revision3
• Chris Hock, VP, Product Management, BlackArrow

It’s not too late to register. While the early registration discount period has now passed, if you have not yet registered and want a discount code, let me know.

After my earlier post this morning asking if Akamai will announce their P2P offering next week, numerous Akamai customers wrote in to say that they have been invited to a special Akamai event on Nov. 6th for the launch of Akamai’s new P2P service offering. Customers who have been briefed on the P2P service already have said it will launch in November and be restricted to HTTP download only to start.

Biggest question I have is what the cost difference will be between Akamai’s traditional CDN service and the new P2P offering? Tomorrow, I am going to post what the current going rate is for P2P delivery.

That’s the question I keep getting asked by people the past few days. Seems many are speculating that Akamai may announce a new P2P based delivery offering next week to coincide with their financial analyst summit. I don’t know the date Akamai will announce such an offering, but I do expect one to come before the end of the year. Many in the industry are closely watching to see which traditional CDN provider is the first to offer a hybrid service.

VeriSign and CacheLogic both offer hybrid delivery today, but VeriSign bought Kontiki to get their P2P product offering and has been working to build out its traditional CDN service. And CacheLogic was built from P2P technology from the start and like VeriSign, has also been putting their efforts behind adding traditional CDN services. So Akamai would be the first CDN not built from P2P technology to offer the service if they announced it next week.

I also hear that Internap and Level 3 are working on P2P based offerings for video as well, so it seems the race is on amongst the CDNs to see who will offer it first, aside from some of the work the CDNs do already with BitTorrent.

Hot on the heels of Move Networks raising $34 million at the beginning of this month, more venture capital money will be flowing to other content delivery networks very shortly. Panther Express, EdgeCast and CacheLogic, amongst others, should all announce some pretty large funding deals in this quarter.

The bar between what CDNs have enough revenue to last 2-3 years is quickly dwindling as many of them are now raising enough capital to keep them in the game for at least the next two years while the market shakes out. Next year, we’re going to have a lot of providers in the market with deep pockets, as is evident by the salaries companies in the CDN space are now paying to attract senior sales people.

Add that to all of the P2P and hybrid solutions in the market, the confusion around what all of these CDNs really support and the speculation on what impact Level 3 may or may not have on the market, and next year is shaping up to be the perfect storm in the content delivery industry.

What do people think about us organizing a one day summit focused only on the CDN market? I am thinking of calling it www.ContentDeliverySummit.com and making it a small focused show and really marketing it to the analyst community. What do you think of the idea?