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Consumer demand for bandwidth could see the internet running out of capacity as early as 2010, a new study warns. US analyst firm Nemertes Research predicted a drastic slowdown as the network struggles to cope with the amount of data being carried on it.

Such gridlock would drastically affect how people use the web and could mean the next Google or YouTube simply doesn’t get off the ground, it said. The report said billions needed to be spent upgrading broadband networks.

It put the figure at around $137bn (£66bn) globally. For users, the slowdown could see a return to the bad old days of dial-up, the report predicts. “It may take more than one attempt to confirm an online purchase or it may take longer to download the latest video from YouTube,” the report cited. But it is the knock-on effect for new services that could be the real problem, report authors think. “The next Amazon, Google or YouTube might not arise, not from a lack of user demand but because of insufficient infrastructure preventing applications and companies emerging,” the report warned.

The demand for bandwidth-intensive applications shows no sign of abating. Nearly 75% of US internet users watched an average of 158 minutes of online video and viewed more than 8.3bn video streams during May, according to research by measurement firm comScore.

The financial invested required to “bridge the gap” between demand and capacity would range from $42bn to $55bn in the US, Nemertes estimates. The report is part-funded by the Internet Innovation Alliance (IIA) which campaigns for universal broadband in the US.

Los Angeles, CA — Nov 20, ‘07 – Sony BMG Music Entertainment has signed a licensing deal with Yahoo that clears the way for people to upload files with music or video content by the record company’s artists to Yahoo, the companies said Tuesday.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Like similar deals, the agreement calls for Sony BMG to receive a cut of advertising revenue, Yahoo said. The deal also covers the distribution of music videos via Yahoo player applications and widgets that computer users can place on other Web sites.

The agreement marks the first time Sunnyvale-based Yahoo has reached a deal with a major recording company over licensing content in user-created videos. Sony BMG, home to recording artists such as Britney Spears, Bruce Springsteen and Slayer, reached a similar licensing deal with Google Inc. last year. That agreement also includes Google subsidiary YouTube.

Sony BMG is a joint venture of Sony Corp. and Bertelsmann AG. The Sony BMG-Yahoo deal reflects the popularity of computer user-created videos, which often include copyrighted content.

Last month, a coalition of major media and Internet companies issued a set of guidelines requiring Web portals that host user-generated videos — as Yahoo does — to use filtering technology to block clips with unauthorized content from being posted.

Independently, Yahoo is deploying video identification and filtering technology early next year, the company said.

San Francisco, CA–Nov 02, ‘07 /PRNewswire/ — blinkx, the largest video search engine on the Web, today announced a partnership with GONG, the first and only anime TV network that brings the best cutting-edge Japanese animation anywhere, anytime, on any screen. Under the terms of the agreement, blinkx will transcribe and index video content from GONG, making it easy for users to find and watch at blinkx.

Dedicated to teen and adult anime fans alike, GONG is the first international on-demand, online anime channel in Europe and North America. GONG offers the best in Japanese anime including sci-fi, horror, heroic fantasy and epic space opera content. Currently available online and direct to a variety of devices including computers, mobile phones and MP3 devices, GONG also offers on-demand access to unique Animitles, trailers, wallpapers, news, alerts and free podcasts.

San Francisco, CA – October 31, 2007 – Building on the success of its industry-leading video search engine, Truveo has announced plans to expand its rapidly growing service into several major markets for online video worldwide.  As the first step of this international expansion, Truveo is unveiling video search portals for France, Germany, India, Japan, Korea, Spain, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom.  These new sites are available starting today at:

  ·         France - http://fr.truveo.com ·         Germany - http://de.truveo.com ·         India - http://in.truveo.com ·         Japan - http://jp.truveo.com ·         Korea - http://kr.truveo.com ·         Spain - http://es.truveo.com ·         Taiwan - http://tw.truveo.com ·         United Kingdom - http://uk.truveo.com  

Over the next two months, Truveo™ will continue to build on this expansion with the launch of video search sites for additional countries including Australia, Brazil, Italy, Mexico, The Netherlands, Russia and Turkey.  

The Truveo video search engine lets users search and browse through tens of millions of videos from thousands of sources across the Web.  Over the past year, Truveo’s service has experienced widespread adoption, and it currently reaches over 40 million users a month.* Truveo’s critically acclaimed flagship destination, Truveo, has received widespread praise since its August launch, establishing itself as the leader in the fast growing video search market. 

“The recent explosion of online video is a worldwide phenomenon.  All over the world, individual users as well as major media companies are making their video available on the Web,” said Timothy Tuttle, CEO and Co-Founder of Truveo and Senior Vice President of AOL Video. “Truveo’s ongoing mission is to index and organize all of the video on the Web so that users can easily find the video they want – no matter where in the world they reside.” 

With a large percentage of its traffic originating from outside of the United States, Truveo currently serves a worldwide audience. To better serve its users from around the world, each new Truveo international destination will feature popular, high-quality video of regional interest and allow users to search and discover videos in their native language. 

Truveo is a one-stop destination where consumers can search across a wide range of content from major video websites around the world.  In addition to indexing user-generated video from popular video uploading sites such as YouTube, Dailymotion, Kewego, MyVideo.de, Pandora.tv, and Tudou, Truveo also features a wide selection of high-quality, professionally produced video from many of the world’s major media brands. For example, Truveo’s video sources include: L’Equipe, Le Monde, France 24 and TF1 from France; Berlin TV, Spiegel and ZDF from Germany; NDTV, IBN Live and India Times from India; KBC from Korea; El Mundo, Telecinco and Digital+ from Spain; Taiwan Television from Taiwan; BBC, Daily Star, EuroNews, EuroSport, ITN, Skynews, The Sun, and UEFA in the United Kingdom; and thousands more. More at AOL.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Oct 29, ‘07–Akamai, the leading global service provider for accelerating content and applications online, today announced The HDWeb, a ‘proof-of-concept’ portal designed to showcase the experience consumers can have with high definition content online. The Website, available at TheHDWeb, showcases content from a variety of industries including music, movies, professional sports, games and news. Akamai customers are now delivering a consistent, high-definition video experience on Akamai’s uniquely distributed edge delivery platform that is specifically tuned for optimal delivery of high-definition (HD) files online. As an industry leader and pioneer in online video, Akamai has raised the bar for what a service provider must offer companies in order to deliver this content effectively and efficiently online today.  

Companies providing HD content for the initiative include Apple, BBC Motion Gallery, CBS, Gannett, MTV Networks, NBA and more. The proof-of-concept portal will serve as a temporary Internet Programming Guide to HD video on the Web and provide access to a complete HD experience. These companies understand the value that HD content brings their brand and are ahead of the curve by offering HD programming online. 

Akamai’s goal is to provide high bandwidth consumers with a superior online HD experience and highlight the content providers that are pushing the industry forward. The HDWeb portal will:  

- Bring together the most powerful brands online to showcase premium content
- Offer a glimpse into the ‘future’ of the Internet
- Engage audiences with higher quality video experiences
- Seed the market for premium content monetization strategies
- Show industry support and leadership around the move toward high-definition video  

Akamai recently outlined technical criteria for delivering HD content on the Internet. Akamai has architected its platform to comply with the following technical criteria that content owners must leverage to successfully enable an HD Web. Akamai believes that it is the first and only platform to meet these technical requirements which include offering:  

- Technology and an operational model to operate serving devices in the largest high-throughput networks around the world (servers need to be physically in the networks, as that is where the capacity lies)
- Established relationships with the largest high throughput networks
- Support for delivery, storage, and management of files greater than 2 Gigabytes
- Support of VC-1 and MPEG-4 video standards, achieving visual parity with other broadcast video networks Support for files with resolutions of 720p, 1080i and 1080p
- Client-side technology that is deeply integrated into its delivery system to be deployed as appropriate 

More info on Akamai’s High Definition solution can be found at Akamai.

blinkx Now Processing Over 4 Million Daily Searches for Online TV and Video.

San Francisco, CA–October 29 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — blinkx, the world’s largest video search engine, today reached a new milestone: with more than 220 media partnerships and indexing over 18,000,000 hours of video, audio, viral and TV content, blinkx is the top destination for searching video on the Web.

“We continue to sign top quality partners in popular areas such as sports and entertainment content,” said Suranga Chandratillake, founder and CEO, blinkx. “New agreements this quarter include CelebTV, Goal.com and PromQueen, and with the launch of our native language search for French, German and Spanish TV and video content, we are furthering our commitment to offering consumers the largest index and the most effective video search technology available on the Web.” 

In addition to improving the video search experience for consumers, with introduction of AdHoc, the first contextual advertising platform for
video, blinkx is delivering solutions to help media companies monetize their content on the Internet, attracting name brand advertisers such as
Nokia, BestBuy, General Motors and ABC.

blinkx uses advanced speech recognition technology to deliver results that are more accurate and reliable than standard metadata-based
keyword searches. blinkx

To curb video piracy and to prevent itself from copyright violation lawsuits, Google is introducing ‘YouTube Video Identification’. A YouTube page explaining video identification says, ”Thanks to the continued cooperation of content owners large and small, YouTube is able to develop, test, and implement increasingly effective content management tools. Today, we are proud to launch, in beta form, our latest innovation in online video: YouTube Video Identification.

Like our other content policies and tools, YouTube Video Identification goes well above and beyond our legal responsibilities. And like those other tools and policies, Video Identification aims for three main goals: accurate identification, choice for copyright holders, and a great user experience.”

YouTube further elaborates, “YouTube Video Identification will be available to all kinds of copyright holders all over the world, whether they want their content to appear on YouTube or not” and “No matter how accurate the tools get, it is important to remember that no technology can tell legal from infringing material without the cooperation of the content owners themselves. This means that copyright holders who want to use and help us refine our Video ID system will be providing the necessary information to help us recognize their work.”

More at YouTube