If you are going to be in the LA area on June 13th, the LA Content Networking Forum will be a great opportunity to meet folks and learn about the
State-of-the-Internet in the LA area (i.e. Content Delivery,
Networking, Connectivity, Metro, Co-location and Peering).

There will be food, drinks, music and a Q&A session following a panel discussion from executives at Level 3, Equinix, Peak Web Consulting and Panther Express.

For all the details, click on the flyer and make sure to register in advance for the event. Space is limited so if you haven’t already, be sure to RSVP.

Why is it that every time a new means of distributing video content comes out, analysts always immediately predict that it will eat into the current way of doing things? From an article on Yahoo!, "Apple will cannibalize a good chunk of the U.S. $26-billion DVD player market in the next several years, according to Deutsche Bank. One of the primary drivers of this change will be the availability of YouTube content on Apple TV."

Seriously, this is just getting ridiculous. If you want to have the opinion that online video will eat into DVD sales, that’s one thing. But to say the reason Apple TV will do so is because of the availability of user-generated content, well now you’re not even comparing Apples to Apples. (no pun intended)

You can’t compare content on YouTube with professionally produced content on DVDs. And you certainly can’t compare downloading content to your computer and having to transfer it to a device connected to your TV with that of having a portable DVD disc with content. Even online video has not eaten into DVD sales and  online video on multiple devices has way more market share than Apple TV ever will. These analysts are just getting carried away.

Turner Networks currently has an open position for a Technical Director, Video Product Development and Delivery in Atlanta.The Director leads a team of 4-6 software engineers who are responsible
for the development, integration, and ongoing management of video
products for Web and broadband businesses. The teams primary activities
include: Developing video players and supporting frameworks for
advertising and content delivery; Leading overall technical
implementation of consumer-facing video players and applications
through the complete development and product lifecycle; and Working
closely with Turners Web/broadband properties.

For more details, contact John Dailey who is leading the search.

If you are looking for a new position, have taken a new job or are a company that has a job opening, let me know. In many cases I will highlight it here on the blog – free of charge.

I got a lot of comments from my recent blog post entitled "List Of P2P Delivery Networks" and the comments only reinforce that delivery networks, especially those who don’t want to be thought of as traditional CDNs, are not making clear to customers what exactly they offer. Like customers, I don’t get it either.

Stevan Arychuk from HP commented that, "BitGravity isn’t a P2P network at all; they are a CDN service (with a twist), but don’t do any P2P delivery." Ok, maybe not, but then what is the twist? Good luck finding out. Their website says their technology is  "the next generation of content distribution" with no info at all on how they deliver content. And I’m not picking on BitGravity, all of the networks that call themselves "next generation" really don’t say what they do.

Move Networks does not use the term P2P on their website, but are classified as a P2P provider by everyone I talk to. Are they really? Only they can say. Their website says their delivery technology is based on "Quantum Streaming" but then don’t define anywhere on their website that I can find how it works.

Grid Networks gives more info than some of the others but then confuses me even more by saying they have a hybrid approach that overcomes the challenges faced by P2P and traditional CDN networks. So if I understand this right, they are saying they are not a hybrid of both but rather of something completely different than the two.

Swarmcast calls their technology "grid-delivery" so I think that is P2P based but the first sentence on their technology page uses the term streaming and then says how their technology allows you to "always achieving the maximum possible download speed." So is it streaming or is it download, or is it both?

Itiva calls their technology "Quantum transport" and says it works "by taking every advantage of proxy and node contribution". Their website says that their Quantum transport technology "is similar to that of a controlled peer to peer model." So then it’s not P2P?

Also, each one of the value propositions of the P2P (or non-P2P providers) has the exact same message on their websites which makes it hard to distinguish providers offerings:

– Move Networks: Highest Quality, Scalability, Low Cost, Reliable
– BitGravity: Performance, Reliability, Service, Price
– Grid Networks: Highest Quality, Performance, Scalable, Cost
– Swarmcast: High Quality, Reliable, Faster, Low Cost
– Itiva: High Quality, Low cost

Is anyone as confused as I am here? Don’t get me wrong. I think it’s great that there are new companies in the space who are looking to improve the user-experience for video based on a different way of delivering content, but if I can’t understand it, how are customers expected to? It’s not your technology that you are selling but rather the value you can show in the technology, translated in terms that are valuable to the customer.

Delivery networks needs to do a better job of education the market and customers on exactly what you do and don’t support. How do you deliver content? What forms do you deliver it in? What formats can you deliver? Can you support live or just on-demand? These are the types of questions customers are asking.

Vendors,you need to help customers cut through the confusion. Make it simple. Deliver a clear message. Give them the information they need to make informed and educated decisions. Because if it stays this confusing in the market, it will not be adopted in the volume you want.

Yesterday, Apple announced that they will be making YouTube content available on the Apple TV in mid-June. In the initial beginning, only select content will be available with the entire YouTube catalog available by year’s end. While some seem to think this is a big deal, it changes nothing in the way of either companies business.

Some have predicted that this is now the first real integration of web video and the TV but I beg to differ. Is there any business model behind it? No. Will Apple they sell more Apple TV’s now? No. Does this give YouTube some sort of way of monetizing their content? No. Yes, YouTube will get some more viewers to select pieces of videos but the lack of traffic to YouTube is not what’s stopping them from creating a revenue stream from their traffic. The only reason Apple and YouTube did this deal is is because they could. It’s does nothing to change the dynamics of the business models or the industry.

This deal also highlights the lack of standards in the market as all of the YouTube content currently in the Flash format is going to have to be transcoded to be able to play back on Apple TV since the Flash videos would look bad on a TV screen. And if YouTube is going to make available however many tens of millions of clips they have, we’re talking about a lot of work to do so. No, it’s not rocket science, but it’s not like YouTube can easily just re-purpose what they have. There is a direct cost to having to transcode millions and millions of clips to another format, not matter how big you are.

Am I the only one that is getting tired of hearing about YouTube? Ok, I get it YouTube, you’re really cool and you got bought by Google. But what about a business model? How about discussing what your video advertising strategy is going to be? You have been saying for the past two years that you are "experimenting" with advertising models. Less talk, more action.

Last month, the newest book in my series came out entitled "Hands-On Guide To Flash Video", written by Stefan Richter and Jan Ozer. My publisher Focal Press has been kind enough to offer anyone who reads my blog to get a copy of the book at a discount.

The book covers Flash Video production from soup to nuts, beginning
with how to configure your camcorder and ending to advanced server
techniques like bandwidth detection and FMS logging and reporting. Real
word lessons from case studies of successful Flash Video deployments
are also included.

I always felt that authors should stand behind their books more than they do, so I will make this commitment. If anyone who buys the book with the discount link feels they did not learn anything from it or that reading it wasted their time, I will personally provide a full refund if the book is returned to me. I don’t want anyone keeping anything they feel does not help them so I’ll take it back and refund your money. Yes, I know that is odd for an author to do, and some will say I am crazy to do it, but I think more authors should stand behind their work.

Also, anyone who posts a review of the book on Amazon will get a free copy of the next edition of the book when it comes out. This goes for bad reviews of the book as well, as all reviews are welcomed.

If you are going to be in the NYC area tomorrow (Wednesday May 30th) the monthly NY Video 2.0 Meetup will be having a discussion on P2P video and will have presentations from CacheLogic, ROO Media, ooVoo and Pando Networks. The event starts at 7pm and is located at the Columbia Business School and is free to attend. All the details are at the www.nyvideo.org website.

I have been asked to moderate the June meetup and am currently accepting topic ideas. If there is a subject you want to see the June meetup focus on, please let me know.