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.

Lately, I am getting many calls and e-mails from vendors unfairly complaining that they were not chosen to speak at the upcoming Streaming Media East show. I figured it would be a good time to set the record straight on how I choose speakers for all of the shows and reinforce to everyone that you have to follow the rules. Don’t get me wrong, at StreamingMedia.com we love the fact that so many people want to speak at the show and we appreciate that you want as much exposure as you can get for your company. BUT, you also have to follow the rules like everyone else and threatening me, complaining to my boss or trying to insult my creditability is not going to get you anywhere.

So, if you are interested in being a speaker at the show, here is what you need to know and the rules that everyone needs to follow. The first thing to understand is the basics of how the speaking spots work.

• I have 100 speaking spots for the East show in May. I received over 800 submissions for those 100 spots. The simple law of math clearly shows I can’t full-fill everyone’s request.
• Of those 100 speaking spots, about 65 of them go to customers, not vendors. Customers are the end-users who are buying and deploying these online video services. Why do I do that? Because that is what the attendees who are paying to come to the conference want. They always want more end users speaking. That means I only have on average about 30-35 speaking spots for vendors and there are probably 500+ vendors in the industry.
• You can’t buy your way into a speaking spot. We are not like some of the other shows out there where if you exhibit at the show you get to speak or demo your product. This is evident based on the fact that of the 45 exhibitors currently listed on our website, only 7 of those companies are speaking on a panel.
• You can’t buy your way into a speaking spot by sponsoring the show. Of the 22 sponsors we have listed on our website, only 4 of them are speaking on a panel.
• For each round-table panel, I will only place a total of 5 speakers per panel. Yes, many shows do 7 or 8 speakers on a panel, but is that really the best format for a 60 minute session? I don’t think so and neither do the attendees. The only reason the others shows do it is that they want to make their speaker roster list as many names as possible. That means they are putting the marketing of the show first, before the conference agenda and the attendee.
• I have to plan the conference agenda months in advance. Many people do not realize that I turn in the advance program 5 months before the show. The program has to get edited, designed, printed and mailed. This does not happen overnight. So contacting me 2 months before the show leaves you literally no chance of anything being available.
• I open up the call for speakers about 8 months before a show and I leave it open for at least 6 weeks. If you don’t get in your speaking request in during that time, how do you expect me to know that you want to speak? It is not my responsibility to chase you down. I am always willing to talk about what you want to do at the show, hear your ideas and find out how you can get involved. But I can’t do that if you don’t send in a submission at all, let alone on time.

Now some are going to ask, why do I do it this way? Why not allow vendors to pay to be able to speak and don’t we risk vendors not doing business with us because we don’t let them speak when they are exhibiting or sponsoring? We do it this way because this is what the attendees want, it’s what makes for a good show and for the vendors who get it, it’s more valuable for them to have a customer speaking instead of themselves. Could we make more money by allowing vendors to pay to speak? Probably. But that does us no good and our attendees no good. You don’t build a quality conference by choosing your speakers based on who pays you. Like you, I have been to many industry shows where they allow this and you all know how bad many of those speakers are and the lack of value it provides.

If the way I pick speakers is not a fit for your company, if you are looking to pay money to be able to speak, then our show is not a good fit for you. There are many vendors who follow the rules, get their submissions in on time and work with me closely to ensure that the attendees are getting quality information. That is all I care about, producing a show that has value not only to the industry but to the attendees who are paying their money to come.

For some reason, too many vendors think they don’t have to follow the rules and are finding out the hard way that they have to. To the vendors that work with me, I say thank you. I appreciate your help and your professionalism and I hope that all vendors will follow your lead.

Thanks to everyone’s support, fifty posts later, the blog has done over 50,000 page views in the first 30 days and it will be featured on TypePad’s home page on March 23rd. As I said from day one, I believe that the contents and success of any real blog comes from the community rather than just one individual. I welcome your continued feedback and ideas on what you want to discuss and I encourage more of you to use the comments section.

I’d also like to thank the blog sponsors Limelight Networks, PEER 1, NaviSite and Netstairs who have made it possible for me to focus on writing more. If you are interested in reaching a very targeted group of readers, please contact me for blog sponsorship details. We’ve kept it very affordable on purpose so that many can take advantage of the readership and reach of the blog.

Over the coming weeks I will be adding some additional functionality to the blog including FeedBurner feeds, recent posts highlights and some other additions with the goal of making the blog easier and more efficient to read.

I welcome your comments and thoughts at any time. Thanks for your continued support.

Steve Bryant who is moderating a user generated content panel at Streaming Media East in May has an excellent article over at Google Watch, an eWeek blog, entitled "18 Reasons why Google and YouTube are Guilty of Copyright Infringement".

Steve outlines Viacom’s argument as presented in their official complaint and edits it down to the core points as Viacom sees it. Head over to Google Watch to read it.

No surprise here, we all knew it was coming. Today, Viacom announced that it was suing YouTube and its corporate parent Google for alleged copyright infringement and is seeing more than $1 billion dollars in damages. Viacom is seeking an injunction prohibiting Google and YouTube from using any of its content on their websites.

In it’s press release Viacom said, "“YouTube is a significant, for-profit organization that has built a lucrative business out of exploiting the devotion of fans to others’ creative works in order to enrich itself and its corporate parent Google. Their business model, which is based on building traffic and selling advertising off of unlicensed content, is clearly illegal and is in obvious conflict with copyright laws. In fact, YouTube’s strategy has been to avoid taking proactive steps to curtail the infringement on its site, thus generating significant traffic and revenues for itself while shifting the entire burden – and high cost – of monitoring YouTube onto the victims of its infringement."

There is both good and bad to this. The good is that online video will
continue to get more exposure in the press and with consumers because
of all the coverage this suit will get. The bad is that many people
will still reference online video as a product that no one has been
able to create a business model from. While that is not true,
perception is reality in any industry and even more so in the Internet
space.

This should make for some interesting times as I expect we’ll now get to hear even more information about Google and YouTube that we didn’t know about before regarding their business, the buyout and potentially revenue. The comments form is open.

On of the largest investment banks in the world is looking to fill the job of "Global Head, Enterprise Video Platform". I’ve been asked not to say what bank it is but the job is based in London and they are looking for someone with a proven track record within a large corporate environment. You must have experience with enterprise content management systems and internally hosted distribution platforms specific to video delivery.

If you’d like to know more, please e-mail Phil Erwood directly.

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.