This morning Adobe announced that they launched its Flash Lite 3 software, used for playing back Flash video on cell phones and Flash enabled web sites. Adobe says that Nokia and NTT DoCoMo are planning to support Flash Lite 3 with their upcoming handsets, but didn’t say for how many models. Nokia, said it would launch a new development community today to help Flash developers and designers with mobile software development.

Adobe also announced today that major television broadcasters and leading content publishers would collaborate with Adobe to distribute video content via the new Adobe Media Player. Today also marks the first time that the Adobe Media Player is available to the public as a beta download, with the final version being ready in the first half of 2008.

Chris Hock, who was the Group Product Manager for Flash at Adobe, has left the company and taken a new job. While I have an e-mail in Chris to get more details, I do know that he has taken on a role as the VP of Product Management for BlackArrow, a yet to be launched "multi-platform video ad-management solution".

For many of us in the industry, Chris has always been the face of Flash, leading the charge for the adoption of the Flash platform back before Adobe acquired Macromedia. While there are a lot of smart people over at Adobe who will continue to carry on the platform, I’m sure he’ll be missed by Adobe. Anyone who was trying to contact Chris can now contact Kevin Towes, Product Manager, Flash Media Server who will be taking over some of what Chris was working on.

As soon as I hear back from Chris and get permission, I will post his new details here for anyone who wants to contact him. Chris says you can contact him at chock@blackarrow.tv

Note To Adobe: As of Friday, when you call into Chris’ old number, the call does not get transferred anywhere. And when you call into the Adobe receptionist, they say they have never heard of anyone with his name. There needs to be a better procedure in place to transfer his calls to someone who can take them.

Yesterday, Acacia Technologies announced that it has acquired rights to a patent relating to video editing
technology. The press release says that the "patented technology generally relates to altering video
streams in real time to remove portions of an original image and
substitute elements to create a new image. This technology can be used
to digitally change the background of a video image without using
traditional blue screen techniques."

I’m trying to get more details on the patent number(s) but so far, Acacia is not providing any of that info. As anyone who has followed the online video industry may remember, Acacia Technologies was the firm that hit many in the market with letters claiming that their DMT (Digital Media Transmission) patents were being infringed upon and covered just about every form of video delivery over IP. For more on Acacia you can visit the special patent section on the StreamingMedia.com website at www.streamingmedia.com/patent

You can also learn more about other companies aggressively pursuing patents as potential revenue generators in my article from June entitled "Digital Media Patents for Profit".

(image credit: photo of CEO Paul Ryan from the Orange County Register)

DIRECTV, which announced last month that it would be streaming NFL games via their SUPERCAST product has apparently been using Level 3’s new streaming content delivery network which Level 3 is slated to officially launch later this year. As some in the industry are now noticing, anyone with the NFL Sunday Ticket on DIRECTV that has access to the SUPERCAST product can trace back where the streams are coming from. While Level 3 would not "confirm nor deny" they are doing the delivery for DIRECTV, it’s clear what network these streams are originating from. I don’t know if this is an exclusive deal to Level 3 or not, but streams have been coming from Level 3 since the start of the season.

It will be interesting to hear who Level 3 has signed up as their first round of customers when they officially announce their new streaming CDN offering in the fourth quarter of this year and whether these customers are signed deals or those doing trials to see what Level 3 has to offer. First it was noticed that Metacafe videos are coming from Level 3 and now DIRECTV, so clearly Level 3 is already competing for some business in the CDN market.

No matter what some analysts may want you to believe, the CDN segment
of the market shows no signs of slowing down and there exists a continued demand for
delivery of all shapes and sizes. A year ago, I was tracking about 15 delivery providers in the market. As of today, there are now at least 28 providers for online video delivery be it via streaming, progressive download, P2P or hybrid solutions. At least 6 of the providers on the list below are putting out major announcements in the next 2 weeks and at least half of the ones below all have major announcements in the pipeline. The fourth quarter of this year is going to be filled with announcements from CDNs with large customer wins, new buildouts, new types of delivery services, enhanced reporting products and hybrid delivery solutions.

That being said, over time, all of these providers won’t be able to stand on their own and 18-24 months from now, the CDN industry will once again see a round of consolidation in the market. But until that happens, as more customers flood the market, bitrates keep increasing, content becomes long-form, and more devices are being used for video playback, customer will have a lot of options in the market – especially with the VC money still flowing into the CDN space. As for providers listed below, I am not comparing them as being equal to one another as there are many differences between all of them. Every provider has different strengths and weakness all based on what a customer needs. This is just a list of those providers and is not a comparison of companies based on size, technology, geographic reach etc.

In alphabetical order the delivery networks are:

• Advection.NET (stream, download)
• Akamai (stream, download)
• BitGravity (stream, download)
• BitTorrent (P2P)
• CacheLogic (stream, download, P2P)
• ChinaCache (stream, download)
• CDNetworks (stream, download)
• Digital Fountain (stream – launching Q1 2008)
• EdgeCast (stream, download)
• Grid Networks (P2P)
• Highwinds (download)
• Ignite Technologies (P2P, download)
• Internap (stream, download)
• Itiva (P2P)
• Level 3 (download – stream launching Q4 2007)
• Limelight Networks (stream, download)
• Mirror Image (stream, download)
• Move Networks (stream, download)
• NaviSite (stream, download)
• Octoshape (P2P)
• Pando (P2P)
• Panther Express (download)
• PEER1 (download)
• Rawflow (P2P)
• Rinera (don’t know)
• Solid State Networks (P2P)
• Swarmcast (streaming via HTTP)
• VeriSign (stream, P2P)

Those not included on the list are companies who make products for the delivery networks, providers who are going after small businesses, or those who re-sell one of the providers above. In addition to the above, there are two or three companies not listed who are contemplating entering the space in 2008. So next year, we may well have over 30 providers.

I just had a last minute cancellation at the Streaming Media Europe show for the "Streaming Video Content To Mobile: What Works Technically and Commercially" panel on Thursday, October 4 in London. If you are interested in filling the round-table panel spot, contact me ASAP. This spot is open to everyone, including vendors, as long as you are a fit for the topic of the session.

I am in the final stages of finishing off the Streaming Media West program and agenda and have a new opening. Due to the cancellation of a session, I now have a 60 minute window on Tuesday, November 6 that I am looking to fill with a new topic.

I am looking for someone who wants to moderate a session, decide on the session topic and description and invite and choose the speakers. Yes, I am looking for someone willing to do most of the work and really lead the creation and formation of the session. I am open to all ideas on topics and the format of the session be it presentations, demos or round-table style.

What I am not looking for is sales pitches or someone who says they are interested but puts forth no plan. I am looking for those who can send me an e-mail with topic ideas, format preferred and a list of potential companies they want to reach out to as speakers/presenters. It’s your chance to design a complete session and make it your own. We’ll promote it and give you tons of visibility. I will take all submissions up until EOD on Monday and then make a decision.

This is your chance to stand up and be seen as a thought leader and help shape the discussion around a topic that you are most interested in pertaining to online video.