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发信人: Jobs (温少), 信区: WinNT
标 题: Streaming Media Newsletter
发信站: BBS 荔园晨风站 (Wed Mar 1 21:14:03 2000), 转信
- Cover Story: Michael Robertson Talks About my.mp3.com
- News
- Editorial: The (Sorry) Year in Streaming
- Streaming Media Financial Weekly
- Q&A with Steve West, President & CEO of Entera
- Streaming Media Site of The Week: FromUSALive.com
========================================================================
=======
Join the Streaming Media Discussion List!
This newsletter's sister email publication, the Streaming Media
Discussion List, continues to generate loads of interest and excitement.
This week, we're discussing the following topics:
* What Do Content Creators Need?
* Richochet's Wireless Network
* The new Entera Quicktime server
... and lots of other things. To join, send email to:
join-thelist@streamingmedia.com
========================================================================
=======
Cover Story:
Michael Robertson Talks About my.mp3.com (by Scott Bass)
When Mp3.com launched their my.mp3.com website they created a new kind
of internet music service ... and a whole lot of controversy.
My.mp3.com allows users to listen to a personalized music collection
from any computer, or any internet-connected appliance. One of the key
elements of this new service is the ability to quickly transfer CDs
already in the user's collection to his or her my.mp3.com account, using
Mp3.com's Beam-It(tm) software. Sounds like a great idea, right?
There's only one problem: the non-profit Recording Industry Association
of America (RIAA) says that the service encourages (and even
constitutes) illegal piracy.
For the full story, including a hard-hitting Q & A with Michael
Robertson:
http://www.streamingmedia.com/news.asp?news=4937&format=features
News:
--------------------------------------------------------
SightPath To Integrate With Polycom
http://www.streamingmedia.com/news.asp?news=4966&format=news
Loudeye and Akamai Form Alliance
http://www.streamingmedia.com/news.asp?news=4901&format=news
RealNetworks and Red Hat Team Up for Linux Streaming
http://www.streamingmedia.com/news.asp?news=4902&format=news
SpikeRadio Joins Apple's QuickTime TV Network
http://www.streamingmedia.com/news.asp?news=4928&format=news
iNEXTV.com Announces Official Launch Of EXBTV.com
http://www.streamingmedia.com/news.asp?news=4929&format=news
White Pine Launches CU-SeeMeWorld.com Site
http://www.streamingmedia.com/news.asp?news=4931&format=news
Global Media to Launch New Video Channel on the RealPlayer
http://www.streamingmedia.com/news.asp?news=4932&format=news
RealNetworks Delivers Oxygen Media's Media Programming
http://www.streamingmedia.com/news.asp?news=4938&format=news
ON24 Partners With Worldlyinvestor.com
http://www.streamingmedia.com/news.asp?news=4939&format=news
DSL.net Teams With iBEAM Broadcasting to Deliver Streaming Content
http://www.streamingmedia.com/news.asp?news=4965&format=news
Inktomi to Integrate QuickTime Into Its Content Delivery Platform
http://www.streamingmedia.com/news.asp?news=4925&format=news
iBEAM Broadcasting to Deliver NetRadio.com's Programming
http://www.streamingmedia.com/news.asp?news=4959&format=news
Cidera and Microsoft Link Up
http://www.streamingmedia.com/news.asp?news=4940&format=news
ON24 Makes More Programming Deals With Financial Web Sites
http://www.streamingmedia.com/news.asp?news=4942&format=news
Dazzle Introduces DV-Editor
http://www.streamingmedia.com/news.asp?news=4945&format=news
Cisco Pushes Video Technologies
http://www.streamingmedia.com/news.asp?news=4946&format=news
MTV Launches "Total Request Live" Station At SonicNet.com
http://www.streamingmedia.com/news.asp?news=4947&format=news
RadicalMail Inks Deal With Another E-Mail Marketer
http://www.streamingmedia.com/news.asp?news=4949&format=news
NaviSite Gets Into Streaming Media
http://www.streamingmedia.com/news.asp?news=4950&format=news
Motorola and nCUBE in Streaming Media Agreement
http://www.streamingmedia.com/news.asp?news=4951&format=news
V-SPAN and CMGI Solutions to Develop Broadband Conferencing Portal
http://www.streamingmedia.com/news.asp?news=4954&format=news
Eveo Announces "Earn-per-View" Program
http://www.streamingmedia.com/news.asp?news=4955&format=news
INTERVU and Prairie Systems to Integrate Conference Products
http://www.streamingmedia.com/news.asp?news=4958&format=news
Watch the Seattle Kingdom Implode in 3D
http://www.streamingmedia.com/news.asp?news=4960&format=news
Ezenia! Announces Video Networking Product, Encounter 3000
http://www.streamingmedia.com/news.asp?news=4962&format=news
MediaOnDemand.com To Handle Streaming Media for News Broadcast Network
http://www.streamingmedia.com/news.asp?news=4963&format=news
ViewCast.com Announces Osprey-2000M MPEG-2 Card
http://www.streamingmedia.com/news.asp?news=4924&format=news
Music/Audio:
--------------------------------------------------------
StarMedia Network Launches Multi-Lingual MP3 Player
http://www.streamingmedia.com/news.asp?news=4904&format=news
MusicMatch Unveils Beta Release of Jukebox 5.0
http://www.streamingmedia.com/news.asp?news=4905&format=news
MediaBay Launches Affiliate Program for Spoken Word Content
http://www.streamingmedia.com/news.asp?news=4956&format=news
J. River's Media Jukebox Gets New Features
http://www.streamingmedia.com/news.asp?news=4957&format=news
Destiny Media Technologies Closes Private Placement
http://www.streamingmedia.com/news.asp?news=4952&format=news
GiveMeTalk.com Lets Users Create Internet Talk Shows
http://www.streamingmedia.com/news.asp?news=4948&format=news
Entertainment Boulevard Completes $10 Million Private Placement
http://www.streamingmedia.com/news.asp?news=4941&format=news
Editorial: The (Sorry) Year in Streaming:
By Jose Alvear (jose@alvear.com)
---------------------------------------------------
Last week I looked at the bigger stories in streaming media for 1999.
This time I'll pontificate on what I found to be the most disappointing,
dubious and downright awful stories of 1999.
Want to sound off, too? Just write me at jose@alvear.com and I'll post
reactions and comments in future issues. And get your list ready for
2000.
Yahoo! Buys Broadcast.com
===================================
Announced on April 1st, 1999, Yahoo!'s acquisition of broadcast.com now
seems like a cruel April Fool's joke. Where's the synergy? What has
Yahoo! done to integrate it into the company's offerings, except for
creating a Yahoo-style directory? I expected Yahoo! to enable audio and
video search results after every Yahoo! query. I expected Yahoo! and
broadcast.com to work more as one unit. In many ways broadcast.com has
lost its identity after having big name recognition. The division's
official name is Yahoo! Broadcast Services but many people continue to
call it broadcast.com. The name Yahoo! Broadcast Services just seems so
hokey. Will 2000 bring good tidings? Possibly, but it needs to wake
from its "sleeping giant" phase. Yahoo! has the potential to turn
things around but it seems like it needs a missing link, like a content
delivery company. Anyone up for sale?
AOL Acquires Winamp and Spinner.com
=====================================
Where oh where did Winamp and Spinner.com end up? After America Online
purchased them in June they practically disappeared. Are they just
taking after another AOL acquisition-Netscape--that looked promising yet
ended up a bust? I expected big things. After all they have 20 million
subscribers. Can't AOL find a way to introduce its millions of users to
MP3, Internet radio and streaming? It seems Winamp and Spinner.com have
been working in stealth mode. Are they working on something big?
Perhaps the AOL/Time Warner (and EMI) deal is a major part of its
strategy, but they shouldn't wait to make a big move.
RealNetworks Privacy Flap
===================================
When it was discovered in late October 1999 that RealNetworks was
capturing user data from its RealJukebox music player, a storm of
controversy erupted. Why did a big company with plenty of lawyers think
that it could secretly track the habits of its software users?
RealNetworks claimed that the information it was collecting was meant to
provide aggregate use of RealJukebox, not individual use although
detractors thought otherwise. In any event, users weren't even notified
about it. RealNetworks quickly issued a patch that prevented
RealJukebox from sending personal data to RealNetworks but the public
image damage was done. And though it issued an apology, there was a
feeling of cockiness to RealNetwork's attitude--that they didn't feel
any shame or sense of wrong-doing. All is forgotten now, but not quite
forgiven.
The Pixelon Files
===================================
Pixelon (http://www.pixelon.com) should be called PixelOFF with their
outrageous claims and nebulous "proprietary" technologies. They came
out last year claiming to be the first company to allow full-screen
TV-quality video over the Internet. Quite a big claim but that's really
not such a big boast. Especially since Pixelon was NOT streaming files
but simply downloading them to users' hard drives. Who can't do that?
Send a multi-megabyte file over the Internet, let the user wait then
play it locally. Sounds like 1994 technology. (I waited for two hours
for one music video to download on my 56K modem and it still didn't work
correctly). After Pixelon launched in late October, it claimed that it
set the record for most viewers for a broadband webcast for its iBASH
'99 concert in Las Vegas. I think we'll all heard claims like this
before. Lately, Pixelon has drastically redone its web site and changes
seem to be in the making. Can Pixelon get back to respectability? I'll
have more on Pixelon in future issues.
Vaporware Award: CMGI's iCAST
==================================
Early in 1999 CMGI made a big deal about announcing they would enter the
streaming media field in a big way. The new company was called iCAST
and it was expected to launch sometime in 1999 but the date kept getting
pushed back. After a high profile executive left in late 1999, and some
executive reshuffling, iCAST pushed back its launch date to early 2000.
Fortunately, iCAST just launched this week and its iCASTER
software-which promised instant messaging, file sharing, MP3 playing and
more--was unveiled. Tune in to see how CMGI fares with this big step
into streaming media.
KISS-FM's Entertainment Site
============================================================
During last year's Radio Ink conference in October, attendees were
subjected to a long, cheesy video by Los Angeles radio station KIIS-FM
as they unveiled their (ta-da!) KIIS-FMI.com initiative
(http://www.kiisfmi.com). The new site was nothing more than a new
online entertainment site but the video they showed almost made me
believe it was going to be a runaway hit. Unfortunately KIIS-FMI isn't
on the streaming radar screen; it hasn't even taken off the ground, it
seems. Granted KIIS' venture isn't in the same league as networks like
DEN or Pseudo, but I was rooting for a radio station that was: a) moving
into the Internet space aggressively and b) moving into the world beyond
radio. Despite all the marketing hype, it was great to see Rick Dees
introduce his son Kevin live on stage as the world's first Internet
jockey or "IJ".
Broadcast.com Makes a Dirty Word out of Victoria's Secret
===========================================================
The event that was supposed to put streaming media on the map, did
exactly that. When Victoria's Secret advertised in the Super Bowl and
told users to log on to their web site for a streaming fashion show,
people came in droves. Millions came and crashed broadcast.com's
servers causing most viewers to see nothing at all. The repercussions
of that event are the stuff of legend, now. Today, saying the words
"Victoria's Secret" to anyone in the streaming media business is like
saying a curse. It will either elicit a chuckle of derision (by
broadcast.com's competitors) or a steadfast insistence that streaming
media works (by broadcast.com). If we've learned anything about this
event, however, it's that content providers should be prepared for
Internet traffic (expected and unexpected) and that we can never
underestimate the power of lingerie.
Streaming Media Financial Weekly
by Paul Kushner
-------------------------------------------------------------------
PayForView Hires Marketing Executive
http://www.streamingmedia.com/news.asp?news=4927&format=news
Hitplay Hires Four New Executives
http://www.streamingmedia.com/news.asp?news=4930&format=news
Cidera Appoints Chief Financial Officer
http://www.streamingmedia.com/news.asp?news=4903&format=news
QSound Labs Reports Fourth Quarter and Twelve Month 1999 Results
http://www.streamingmedia.com/news.asp?news=4964&format=news
VideoShare Hires Gerald Brown as Vice President
http://www.streamingmedia.com/news.asp?news=4953&format=news
IXL Spin-Off FootageNow Secures $25 Million In Venture Capital
http://www.streamingmedia.com/news.asp?news=4944&format=news
musicmaker.com Announces Fourth Quarter and 1999 Annual Results
http://www.streamingmedia.com/news.asp?news=4943&format=news
ViewCast.com Announces Fourth Quarter and 1999 Year End Results
http://www.streamingmedia.com/news.asp?news=4926&format=news
The Streaming Media Sector
by Paul Kushner
-------------------------------------------------------------------
The Impervious Stream
As the Dow nose-dived and the Nasdaq inched upwards, the Streaming
sector flew (for the most part). The Streaming sector had some high
flyers this past week, and those that weren't flying were merely idling
their engines. Only three companies had off weeks worth mentioning.
UP (AKAM, AOL, ITVU, MACR, MDEA, NTAP, PLCM)
------------------------------------------------
Akamai (AKAM) rose over twenty-five points for the week. On Tuesday they
announced a strategic alliance with Loudeye (formerly encoding.com).
Under the agreement Loudeye will provide encoding services to Akamai.
Akamai, in turn, will integrate Loudeye's services into its content
delivery network.
America Online (AOL) came out of its post-merger doldrums last week,
closing at 59 5/8 a gain of 8 3/8 points on the week. The main catalyst
for this move was a pair of very positive Merrill Lynch analyst reports
that came out early in the week. The report was the shot in the arm that
AOL needed, it seemed to give a final approval on the mega-merger that
the investing public was looking for.
INTERVU (ITVU) flirted with its 52-week high and closed at 152 1/64 on
Friday posting a gain of over 17 points for the week. On Wednesday they
announced that Handtech.com (a new distribution channel for delivering
products, services and Internet-based applications) will utilize
INTERVU's Netpodium Web event technology to train its more than 12,000
consultants. On Thursday INTERVU announced that they had entered into a
deal with Prairie Systems their conference systems. Also on Thursday
INTERVU announced that they would webcast President Clinton's speech
from the University of Pennsylvania.
Macromedia (MACR) made a 15 1/4 point positive stride last week and
finished at 85 7/8. Macromedia announced Tuesday that they had signed an
OEM agreement with e-commerce provider Smith-Gardner & Associates, Inc.,
to incorporate Macromedia's Dreamweaver 3 into Smith-Gardner's WebOrder
Enterprise Edition. On Thursday, Macromedia announced that they had
partnered with "Intuwave" a developer of wireless data services and
applications. The deal will enable the development of advanced wireless
content and services based on Macromedia's Flash technology.
Media 100 (MDEA) skyrocketed 11 1/2 points for the week, a move of over
40%. On Tuesday they announced that their "iFINISH" streaming media
production system is the first solution available allowing the
combination of editing, effects and real-time MPEG-2 file creation for
DVD authoring and streaming media production.
Network Appliance (NTAP) jumped over 25 points on no real news to end
the week at 192 15/16. (See Chat Room Banter Spotlight.)
Polycom (PLCM) the closing bell Friday saw PLCM hit triple digits, this
week gain of 22 3/8 propelled them to an even $100 a share. On Wednesday
they announced a "memorandum of understanding" with SightPath to
deliver live and on-demand broadband streaming media to corporate
desktops. The companies claim that this use of technology "transforms
any room with videoconferencing equipment and existing IP infrastructure
into a corporate studio and Web broadcast facility."
DOWN (LAUN, MPPP, ONT)
------------------------------------------------
Internet music got knocked this past week, as both Launch Media and
MP3.com's stock prices will attest to. Launch dropped to 19 3/8 while
MP3 fell to 17 7/16, loses of 3 1/2 and 5 9/16 respectively. There was
no new negative news from either company. Many feel that the recent MP3
lawsuit has been dampening MP3.com's stock price, something that is hard
to tell in this market place.
ON2.com (ONT) closed at 24 5/8 on Friday down 4 3/4 for the week on no
news. On the positive front, Tuesday they announced that they added
Strauss Zelnick, President and CEO of BMG Entertainment, to the
company's Board of Directors.
The Streaming Media Index (The Streaming 47)
------------------------------------------------
A non-weighted index of 47 streaming media companies.
Closing Price
Companies Symbol (2/25) Change (+/-)
--------------------------------------------------------------
APPLE AAPL 110 3/8 - 7/8
AUDIBLE ADBL 12 3/16 - 3/4
AUDIOHIGHWAY AHWY 6 15/16 - 13/16
AKAMAI AKAM 267 1/16 + 25 3/8
AMERICA ONLINE AOL 59 5/8 + 8 3/8
EXCITE@HOME ATHM 34 - 1/16
AVID AVID 14 7/8 + 5/8
BRILL DIGITAL BDE 5 15/16 + 7/16
CMGI CMGI 117 1/2 + 9 1/8
DIGITAL LAVA DGV 5 1/2 - 1/2
EMUSIC.COM EMUS 6 1/2 - 1 1/4
EXCALIBUR TECH EXCA 31 1/16 + 3 11/16
EZENIA EZEN 9 5/8 + 1/2
FVC.COM FVCX 13 5/16 - 11/16
GLOBIX CORP GBIX 55 - 2
MUSICMAKER.COM HITS 4 31/32 - 1/16
DIGITAL ISLAND ISLD 109 - 6 3/8
INTERVU ITVU 152 1/64 + 17 1/64
INSTANT VIDEO IVDO 13 7/16 + 2 3/16
LAUNCH MEDIA LAUN 19 3/8 - 3 1/2
LIQUID AUDIO LQID 27 + 3/4
MACROMEDIA MACR 85 7/8 + 15 1/4
MEDIA 100 MDEA 36 3/8 + 11 1/2
MEDIUM4.COM MDMM 4 7/8 - 1/4
MP3.COM MPPP 17 7/16 - 5 9/16
MICROSOFT MSFT 91 5/16 - 3 3/4
NETRADIO NETR 5 1/8 - 11/16
NOVELL NOVL 32 1/16 - 2 1/16
NETWORK APP NTAP 192 15/16 + 25 11/16
OPTIBASE OBAS 33 3/4 + 2 3/4
ON2.COM ONT 24 5/8 - 4 3/4
PINNACLE SYS PCLE 45 7/32 - 4 21/32
PICTURETEL PCTL 7 1/16 - 15/16
POLYCOM PLCM 100 + 22 3/8
PRINCETON VIDEO PVII 8 3/4 + 1 11/16
REALNETWORKS RNWK 78 3/8 - 6 1/16
SONIC FOUNDRY SFO 61 3/4 + 2 1/4
SGI SGI 8 11/16 - 1/4
S3 INCORP. SIII 15 5/16 - 15/16
STREAMEDIA SMIL 6 11/16 (0)
SRS LABS SRSL 13 1/4 - 1 7/8
VIEWCAST.COM VCST 5 5/8 - 1/8
VTEL CORP VTEL 6 1/4 + 1/16
VIALOG CORP VX 7 3/8 + 1 5/8
WEBTRENDS CORP WEBT 95 11/16 + 10 11/16
WHITE PINE WPNE 31 1/4 + 3 3/16
YAHOO YHOO 165 3/16 + 9 1/16
====================================================================
Chat Room Banter Spotlight
By Paul Kushner
------------------------------------------------
(A weekly look at what people are saying in the various message boards
around the net about a select streaming media stock. Of course we know
these all must be taken with a grain of salt.)
Network Appliance Inc. (Nasdaq: NTAP)
Network Appliance is a company that provides streaming media caching and
as well network-attached storage (NAS). In a little under a month NTAP
has more than doubled, from 90 5/8 on January 31st to 192 15/16 this
past Friday. The 52-week range on NTAP is 19 11/16 - 207 15/16. Any move
this large and this quick is sure to bring investors out of the woodwork
and into the chat rooms; which is why I went there to take a gander at
what's being said.
The euphoria from beating third quarter earnings estimates is still
alive on the NTAP boards. Two weeks ago NTAP came in at 11 cents a
share, a penny better than consensus estimate. That earnings report and
the subsequent positive brokerage coverage/stock split announcement that
followed it have spurred NTAP into the $200 stratosphere. Bear Stearns
started coverage of NTAP with a buy rating and placed a $200 price
target on it. According to one poster, another supporting element of the
NTAP run-up is due in part to a certain weighty Internet investing
report.
Some on the Ragging Bull boards feel that it might be time to get out of
NTAP and take some profits. The posters seem to be afraid of the sudden
run-up in price collapsing under current market conditions. It also
seems that people feel the upside of NTAP has diminished; the stock
price is almost near the 12-month target ($200) set by Bear Stearns. Of
course many other posters, in fact the majority, believe that NTAP has
lot more running room in front of it, especially with the stock split
looming. The technology of NTAP is far superior to the competition. In
fact some posters believe that NTAP has a two-year jump on the rest of
the group. One big issue of discussion is the "SAN vs. NAS" debate
(network attached storage vs. storage area network). NTAP is the leading
company in the NAS corner. One very interesting article that got a lot
of attention on the boards a few weeks ago was one written by Wall
Street City.com titled "JNI Corp Versus Network Appliance". (A good
read.) NTAP wins the fight in that article and in the minds of the chat
room posters
(http://www.wallstreetcity.com/commentary/commentary_full_story.asp?Comm
entaryID=15294)
MOTLEY FOOL (1852 Posts)
RAGING BULL (749 Posts)
SILICON INVESTOR (2573 Posts)
YAHOO (8977 Posts)
Stock Pick Of The Week
by Paul Kushner
------------------------------------------------
Media 100 Inc. (Nasdaq: MDEA)
Media 100 really moved last week gaining 11 1/2 for the week. Last
Tuesday they announced some big news about their software iFINISH (See
Streaming Media Sector section.) MDEA seems to have some real momentum
behind it and I think that momentum will carry into next week. The
fifty-two week range on MDEA is 4 15/16 -36 3/8. On Friday MDEA released
their annual report, which looked pretty good. One interesting note
about MDEA is that investors seem be shrugging off the news that back in
December CEO John Molinari sold a bunch of shares.
Last week's stock pick, Microsoft (MSFT) took it on the chin Friday,
losing 3 7/16 for the day. For the week, Microsoft was down 3 3/4 and
closed at 91 5/16. It had an intra-week range of 90 1/2 to 97 1/8. The
alternate stock pick, Instant Video (IVDO) {Burst.com} gained 2 3/16 on
the week and to close at 13 7/16 on Friday.
Disclaimer
------------------------------------------------
The Streaming Media Financial Weekly is not intended to be a
solicitation to buy or sell any securities. Please do your own research
before you buy or sell any security. The Streaming Media Financial
Weekly is published for informational purposes only. Writers of this
newsletter may buy, sell or hold a position in the companies mentioned.
Trading results may vary, and no guarantees are being made with regards
to profits. Past performance is no indication of future results.
Q&A with Steve West, President & CEO of Entera
Interview by Jose Alvear
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Up until now, getting into Internet streaming media meant that you had
to use RealNetworks, Microsoft, or Apple servers. Last week, content
delivery company Entera (http://www.entera.com) officially released its
first commercial streaming media server effectively giving developers
yet another option.
Entera has been working on the server, called TeraCAST, for a few months
under a beta download program but finally released it as a commercial
product. It is available on various platforms like Windows 98/NT,
Linux, Solaris, and FreeBSD and comes in two versions; a Lite
30-simultanesous user version and the Plus commercial version with
unlimited streams.
But what's unique about TeraCAST is that it is a standards-based
RTP/RTSP server that is built on Apple QuickTime. So users need the
QuickTime 4 player to view streams, although it also supports Cisco's
IP/TV and Sun's Java Media Framework 2.0 for playback over Java
browsers.
What makes TeraCAST appealing is its $1,495 price and its unlimited
streaming. You can stream to as many users as your hardware can handle.
That makes it particularly attractive to RealNetworks' customers that
pay high per-stream fees, or to those developers that just want to run a
QuickTime server on an operating system other than Apple's.
President and CEO Steve West says that Entera isn't looking to make
content providers switch from Real, just to open up content to QuickTime
users. Can Entera make a dent in the streaming media server market?
Only time will tell.
Streaming Media Newsletter: Why don't you start by telling me more
about the just-released TeraCAST server?
A: Well, basically we're launching a streaming server for the masses.
Right now the choices right now are RealNetworks, Microsoft and Apple
QuickTime. RealNetworks of course has a very expensive solution for
content providers. For example, if you want 400 streams coming from
their service it's going to cost $26,000. With our solution it will
cost $1,495 for 400 streams. So obviously this opens up the streaming
media market to lots more companies that want to go into the
video-on-demand marketplace.
Q: So you're basically targeting the RealNetworks customers?
A: Well, not really because our server works with QuickTime player,
Cisco IP/TV and Java Media clients. RealNetworks, of course, only works
with Real clients. There are about 70 million RealPlayer clients out
there, and about 30 million Windows Media Player and about 30 million
for QuickTime. So right now the frustrations with the QuickTime people
is they can't use the RealServer because it doesn't work with it and
also because it's very expensive. The content providers we've talked to
want to be able to serve the total audience, not only Real and Windows
but also the QuickTime player audience. The QuickTime audience is
growing the fastest, at a 33% growth rate. They haven't had a server
that they can work with. Now they do. Of course, they can work with
the Apple server but Apple has never really been focused on servers.
And they don't work on Linux at this point in time, and obviously
there's a huge Linux market out there that wants to work with media
players. Our server works on Linux, Windows NT, Solaris, FreeBSD; all
the major operating systems that content providers are using to deploy
streaming content.
Q: So you've brought up a good question. Since there are free
QuickTime streaming servers available, why would someone want to pay
$1,495 for your servers?
A: Ok, that's a good point. In the Windows environment you still have
to buy NT, so that typically will have to cost you $10,000 so that's not
free. But most Tier 1 content providers aren't necessarily in favor of
putting NT in their network environment. They're more likely to put in
Sun or Linux so obviously they can't go to Microsoft, which only
supports NT. They can go to Real for that solution, however it's
extremely expensive and cost prohibitive for the smaller
webcasters/mid-size companies to get into the marketplace. So that's
why they would choose us as an option.
Q: Apple has a free Linux server, however.
A: The Darwin? Absolutely and if one believes that they are going to
be focusing on the server business then that might be an option, but I
think you can check around and find out how many Darwin servers there
are in the service and content provider market.
Q: So is your value proposition partly technical support?
A: Absolutely. Included with our product are three levels of support:
standard e-mail support on a non-priority basis, standard 8am-5pm online
real-time for additional (modest) cost and then we are the only ones
that I know that provide 24x7 for additional cost. And of course we
provide integration support for developers. The other thing we have
that is different is that our application is embeddable. What that
means is that you can plop our application--if a content provider wants
to build a video on-demand service--you can put our application and
embed it into their front end or back end. Plus you can make
enhancements to it with our open API. You can sort of position us as a
Red Hat for the streaming server market because one of our value-adds is
the integration we provide after the fact.
I think the main thing that I want to make sure you understand between
what we're doing and what Microsoft and Real are doing, is that we're
using standards-based technology. And I use that in the truest sense of
the word because I know Real will say they're standards-based but will
not publish their protocols for handing information back and forth
between the server and the client. We use the standard RTP and RTSP and
we make no modifications to that. Therefore if you have a client--any
client that supports RTP/RTSP--you can work with our server.
Q: What has been selling more? What operating systems are more
popular?
A: Well our product was just launched just two days again, so as far
as new product delivery it's obviously negligible. But we have had
3,000 downloads in the last three months, because we had beta versions
of the product on our web site. The beta companies are Intuit, Cobalt,
E*Trade.
Q: Are companies choosing mostly Linux?
A: Yes, the majority has been Linux. Number two is Windows NT, which
is interesting. Number three is Sun.
Q: I wrote about streaming with Linux recently and saw there was a lack
of support for streaming servers.
A: Yes, there's a lack of servers and there's a lack of streaming
servers for Linux. Like I said: why do I think we're going to be
successful? Well, for $1,495 dollars that's pretty cheap compared to
$26,000 for a Linux [RealNetworks] server.
Q: It seems risky, however, to target the Real market.
A: Actually we are talking to content providers that have Real servers
within their systems now.
Q: How do you get them to switch over from Real?
A: No, the idea isn't to get them to switch from Real. The idea is,
the content providers are only getting 70 million of the 120 million
user market. That's the idea. They want to get to 120 million.
Q: So that means using both simultaneously.
A: Exactly right.
Q: Ah, I see. So how was the software created? It wasn't through
Apple's open source project Darwin server project, I understand.
A: It was developed by our own development team. We have the
third-largest streaming media engineering team right now, and we created
our own server, using QuickTime because is a standards-based media
player. It does happen to be that a number of our engineering folks did
come from Apple, but it has no relation to the Apple Darwin server at
all.
Q: So how does TeraCAST tie into your other offerings? I know you also
are in the content delivery space.
Well, for us, our goal and our vision is to develop a broad range of
content solutions that run on a common platform. The situation in the
market today for an ISP or an ASP is that they've got to do things like
load balancing, streaming, etc. and buy a different product for each one
of those. So what we're doing is in the process of developing products
that can do all those things from one single platform. Streaming is a
piece of that. We have our caching product. We're looking on
additional products in the content management area to provide a broader
solution for service providers.
Q: So eventually your offerings will be more tightly integrated?
Absolutely. The next release will take a number of different products
and integrate them into essentially one product. Again, our orientation
is standards-based so I guess you'd call it the open-systems
alternative.
Q: Can you explain the free server a bit?
A: There is very little difference. The main one is that TeraCAST Lite
is limited to 30 concurrent users whereas TeraCAST Plus is unlimited.
You can run as many users as your hardware is able to handle. We've
tested with Cobalt and Sun SPARC and the amount that you can get through
a particular box really depends on the CPU processing power. We know
you can get 1,000 streams using our server on a Sun machine. You may
get less on a lower end appliance platform but we know that they give
you at least 400 streams out of it.
Q: Is TeraCAST good for high bandwidth use or just for Internet low
bandwidth?
A: It can certainly be used for high bandwidth but the majority of the
use right now is for the lower bandwidth. That's generally what the
content providers are going to market with. But you can get a very,
very good, almost broadcast quality movie at 356Kbps. It's marvelous.
You can have DSL and offer that kind of service.
Q: What about the encoding, especially live webcasting? You don't
sell-
A: We don't provide the encoders, we work with a number of encoding
platforms, MPEG1, MPEG2, but we also have a joint marketing relationship
with Sorenson [which makes Sorenson Broadcaster for streaming live
QuickTime].
Q: You also include some software for encoding files, I believe.
A: Yeah, we bundle Terran's Media Cleaner EZ, within the product. That
also does file format conversions and it's also an authoring tool.
That's bundled with TeraCAST Plus not Lite.
Q: Can you talk more about the Java side of the Java Media Framework
support?
A: We have done testing with Sun for their Java media format player, so
really any desktop that's equipped with Java (which is almost universal
these days) can work with our server. We also have tested with Cisco's
IP/TV player. And those media players do conform to the RTP/RTSP
standards.
Microsoft has announced that the next release of the media player will
be compatible with the RTP/RTSP standard. So today you can't use the
Microsoft Media Player, but if they do indeed roll out what they've
announced, then we will also work with Microsoft. But that's dependent
on Microsoft.
Q: Can you also work with Real?
A: We cannot serve to a RealPlayer, however we do have a licensing
partnership with Real. It's not in relationship to our servers; it's in
relationship to our caching and proxy technology.
Q: So do they view you as competition?
A: Oh, absolutely. It's a world of "co-opetition". Real is a partner
of ours and they're also a competitor. We're going to be at the
RealNetworks Conference 2000. We won't be showing off our server (that
wouldn't be good) but we are showing our caching and proxy technologies.
Q: What are your future plans for streaming? Will you be releasing a
player, or more servers?
A: We will be offering some additional streaming products. I can't
really say anything about it at this point. Maybe in a couple of months.
Streaming Media Site of The Week
by Paul Kushner (paul@looksmart.com)
--------------------------------------------------------
http://www.fromusalive.com/
FromUSAlive brings the local public access channel to everyone. And in
this case that's a good thing. FromUSAlive claims to be the nation's
first webcaster to focus on local entertainment for local markets.
Whether that is true or not doesn't really mater, because this site has
mass appeal. Featuring an eclectic array of quality content, FromUSAlive
blurs the line between an Internet site and a quirky television station.
The lengthy list of shows include: "Teen Entertainment USA", "The Game
Room" - a unique look at the newest video games on the market, "The
Board Room"- about board games, "Serenity Dragon: Paintball", "Let's
Dance Salsa" - live dance lessons, "Military Memoirs" - hear war stories
from veterans, "Tranquility Base", "Science and the Outer Streams",
"Serenity Dragon- X-stream sports", "Teen Sports USA", "Inventors
Insider", "History House", "Martial Arts", "Mystery Forum" - live
interviews with mystery writers, "Ask Your Broker" - live financial
advice, "Cheyanne Art Show" and "Stories" an authors' forum.
My personal favorites are the military memoirs show, "Let's Dance Salsa"
and the martial arts instruction videos. The video quality for the
military show is a little blurry on my 56K connection but the audio is
what's important and that's fine. All of the shows have archived
libraries of past episodes, so the amount of streaming video you can
view is immense. It's a veritable treasure trove of undiscovered
content.
The site is set up nicely and allows users to select from three or four
different bit rates (newer shows have four choices).
"A-" rated site = Worth A Visit
--
好好学习，天天向上！！！！
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