Years ago, I’ve used to be on a lot of boards of companies from hardware manufactures and content creators to non-profits and service based providers. I really enjoyed the positions as it gave me insight into other segments of the industry and allowed me to continue to always learn more. I’m looking to do more of that again and have been getting a bunch of offers as of late. If you know of an interesting board position or have one at your company and think it’s a fit, please drop me a line. I am more interested in companies who have an actual product or service out on the market as opposed to companies who are still in stealth mode and have no proof of concept.

I’m open to any ideas and will be evaluating all of the offers and picking two or three companies to work with starting this year. It could a company involved in any form of IP based video content/service across any kind of network. I like working with companies who want to build a real long term business and who’s business model is not to build something in twelve months and then try and sell it.

I know I am not the only one that struggles when it comes to using the correct term to classify this industry. Now some would argue that streaming media or online video is not even an industry to begin with and they are right. Streaming media is a technology and online video could be an industry but it also describes the technology used.

So how do we classify this industry? Clearly there is a need to come up with a term that the industry settles on because as this market grows, there are times the industry is going to need to work together on many fronts. For some time it seems the "digital media" term is what’s used, but to me that’s completely generic and really does not describe what we do.

So how would you classify this industry? What terminology do you think best represents what we are doing as a collective group?

Roger Ehrenberg had a great article last week on the SeekingAlpha.com website talking about what companies are best positioned to win in an IPTV-enabled world. As Roger points out, "the trend towards an on-demand, take-it-with-me world was seeded over 20 years ago, and is just now being more fully played out."

I couldn’t agree with him more. The idea that IPTV is some sort of "new" concept is far from the truth. IPTV as a term is fairly new, but the whole idea of IPTV has been around for some time and many companies have been working on this form on content distribution for more than just the past year.

That’s the focus for discussion on the P2P session taking place at the Streaming Media East show in May. With the recent offerings by BitTorrent, VeriSign, Joost and others, is legal P2P finally ready for prime-time? This panel of content owners and technology experts will discuss whether P2P will finally revolutionize online video distribution. They will discuss whether the cost savings advantage with P2P is real, how P2P will translate into a competitive advantage, how P2P distribution may affect the networks and CDNs and what some of the potential problems are that P2P technology may face from the telco’s. Come hear the debate on whether P2P is the answer to the fundamental capacity limitations for large-scale video audiences for today’s Internet.

• Moderator: Rich Mavrogeanes, Founder And CTO, VBrick Systems
• Panelist: Brian Taptich, VP, Business Development, BitTorrent
• Panelist: Nick Rockwell, CTO, MTV Networks
• Panelist: Monty Mullig, SVP, Internet Technologies, Turner Broadcasting System
• Panelist: Christopher Levy, Chairman, Digital Media Management Working Group, DCIA

What topics or points would you like to see discussed at this session? Please include them in the comments section for your chance to win a free conference pass to the show.

Was sorry to hear from Counse Broders over at Current Analysis that one of their analysts, John O’Keefe, passed away three weeks ago. John was a Sr. Analyst covering the Internet/Managed Services industries. The company has a small memoriam about his passing on their home page. I can’t say I really knew John personally, but I don’t know of anyone who didn’t talk about him in the nicest manner.

Counse says they are looking to hire a Sr. Analyst that has a combination of writing talent and analysis skill-set especially in the hosting, streaming media, and CDN markets. If you are interested, contact Counse Broders directly.

Cisco announced today that they have agreed to acquire WebEx Communications for 3.2 billion dollars. While we have all used the WebEx platform many times, personally, I was never impressed with it and I think the value Cisco paid is completely overpriced. For starters, WebEx did $380 million dollars in revenue last year so Cisco is valuing WebEx at almost nine times revenue. This from a product that barely even supports any video functionality but is suppose to be thought of as the tool for on demand collaboration.

Cisco said they were acquiring WebEx because "…companies are looking for rich communications tools to help them work more effectively and efficiently." No argument there, but does a tool set that includes almost no option for live video and very limited functionality for linking to on demand videos classify as a real "rich communication" tool? I guess to some people it does, but I’d classify a system that focuses on video, like a Tandberg system real rich communication before I would WebEx. I know, Tandberg tends to be more of a point-to-point system as opposed to the WebEx platform but even the WebEx solution is operated across their private network. So the two are very similar in many ways, except one makes video a core component of their offering.

With the acquisition, I’d like to see Cisco add a lot of video functionality to the WebEx product line for real collaboration in live and on demand presentations and increase the size of the audience that can come to a WebEx, which currently is very limited. If they can do that, I think Cisco can be very successful with this application in the small and medium sized business market.

Are there any features or functionality in the current WebEx system that you think are missing?

Digital Fountain is looking to hire a full-time Chief Marketing Officer based near their Bay area headquarters. Digital Fountain is a IPTV solutions provider and their technology enables the delivery of home-theater quality television over the Internet, multimedia broadcasting to mobile devices and mission critical defense applications.

Contact Judy Redeker at Taylor Winfield who is conducting the search if you are interested.

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.