Posts for 'Conviva'

  • Conviva Wins 6-Year Deal For HBO GO Video Delivery Optimization

    Conviva, whose software preemptively optimizes video streams on multiple platforms, has renewed and expanded its existing deal with HBO for another 6 years. Conviva's original deal with HBO dates to May, 2011. Conviva has been supporting HBO's HBO GO TV Everywhere domestic distribution, and under the new deal it will be extended to support international distribution as well. HBO's parent, Time Warner, is also an investor in Conviva.

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  • Buffering: Video Engagement's #1 Enemy

    If you're like me, then you've no doubt experienced the frustration of trying to watch an online video only to have it periodically pause and then re-start, sometimes repeatedly. The pausing triggers a decision of whether to hang in there and hope things improve, or just bail out and move on to the next activity. These "buffering" moments are the bane of the content provider's existence - suppressing viewership, reducing monetization and frustrating users. And the causes can vary, including possible issues with the CDN, broadband ISP, computer, player software, etc.

    Though the buffering problem is omnipresent, I haven't seen its consequences quantified as well as on a free new infographic from video optimization technology provider Conviva. By embedding its software in client-side video players, Conviva has a unique view into users' video experiences across numerous content customers including HBO GO, ESPN, Netflix, Fox, NBCU and others.

    When Conviva detects an issue with the user's video streaming experience, it intervenes appropriately, for example, switching CDNs, reducing the stream's bit-rate, diagnosing network-related problems and so forth. Conviva now optimizes more than 1 billion streams per month, which speaks to how widespread delivery issues are. The result is improved engagement - a higher-quality stream, better user experience and stronger monetization.

    Among the key data points in the infographic:

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  • Conviva is Now Optimizing 1 Billion Streams Per Month

    Conviva is now optimizing 1 billion video streams per month, as major media companies continue to realize that quality matters both to the user's experience and also to their ability to monetize. For those not familiar with Conviva, its software integrates with video players and allows content providers to gain unprecedented insight into the quality of the video being delivered on a per user basis. Using its algorithms to determine the cause of delivery problems, Conviva's software gives content providers real-time performance visibility and preemptively remedies the issues based on a pre-configured set of policies.

    Conviva CEO Darren Feher brought me up to speed on the company's progress in a call earlier this week (related, Darren presented at the ELEVATE conference a few weeks ago, a video is available after the jump). Over 60 major media companies (e.g. Disney, Fox, MLB, HBO, NFL, etc.) are now using Conviva, and Darren reports that viewers of optimized streams watch an average of 40% longer than do those viewing non-optimized streams. More time viewed obviously translates into more ad inventory, and Darren said a few large customers are now seeing an incremental 7-figure ad revenue lift.

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  • Recapping All of the Product and Partnership News from ELEVATE

    At the ELEVATE conference on Tuesday a number of our partners made product and partnership announcements which I mentioned were coming in a teaser last Friday. Each helps move the online video advertising market forward in different ways. A brief recap of each follows:

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  • Conviva Raises $15 Million for Global Expansion and R&D

    Conviva, whose software monitors and helps improve the quality of streaming video, has raised a $15 million Series C round intended for global expansion and R&D. The round was led by GGV Capital with participation from existing investors Foundation Capital, New Enterprise Associates and Pelion Venture Partners. Conviva has raised $44 million to date.

    As I described last February, Conviva's software runs alongside the content provider's video player, sending "heartbeat" reports every 10 seconds about each user's video stream. This data is mashed up in real-time, so that if a problem exists, its exact nature is understood quickly and reliably. When a video isn't playing correctly, the issues can range from buffering to CDN congestion to local broadband ISP failures to other problems. Conviva says it has found that at least 25% of all streams have some issue which disrupts the user experience.

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  • Conviva Addresses Video Quality Problems Impressively

    Undoubtedly we've all had the experience at one time or another of watching (or trying to watch) a particular online video, only to have some problem arise that interrupts our experience. To the average user, it's a mystery what might have happened. Is it a problem with my computer? With my personal Internet connection? With my Internet service provider? With the source of the content?

    Regardless, it causes user frustration, which can lead to clicking away from the video, possibly never to return. More often than not, the content provider isn't even aware of these user problems. As online video becomes more central to content providers' strategies and P&Ls, inferior user experiences are a growing concern for content providers. And given the vagaries of the Internet and the exploding volume of video being consumed, it's an issue unlikely to go away anytime soon.

    That's where Conviva comes in. Conviva gives content providers unprecedented insight into their users' viewing behaviors as well as tools to quickly identify and resolve problems. As Darren Feher, Conviva's new CEO explained to me when I met up with him recently, and in a subsequent demo, the company's studies show that at least 25% of all streams suffer one problem or another. Affected users watch between 30-80% less video than those who don't have problems.

    Here's how Conviva works: a small bit of its code is integrated by the content provider alongside the Flash or Silverlight player, whichever is used (in either case no user download involved). Conviva is also integrating with online video platforms (so far just thePlatform, but others to come), so the step is eliminated for the content provider. When deployed, Conviva's code monitors the user's video experience and sends back "heartbeat" reports every 10 seconds to the Conviva console. The console gives the content provider multiple views of their users' experiences, including things like a geographic distribution of current viewing, what player's being used, the average time it's taking to start streaming, the average duration of viewing, the amount of buffering, and so on. Conviva shares the science behind all of this if you're so inclined.

    Conviva's secret sauce is mashing up all that in-bound data in real-time and detecting if/where problems exist, and when they do, what the source is. Problems could include buffering on the user's machine, issues with the currently-used CDN, congestion in the local ISP, etc. In addition to these telemetry/analytics services, the company also offers a service it calls "Conviva Distribution" which will seek to remedy problems as they arise based on a set of pre-configured policies. For example, if the user's machine is buffering, Conviva will adjust the stream being sent to a lower bit rate. Or if the CDN being used is the problem, Conviva will switch to another CDN (of the content provider's choosing) in mid-stream, unbeknownst to the user. The content provider gets real-time visibility into what troubleshooting is happening.

     

    In addition to improving the user experience, Darren believes this degree of insight opens up new opportunities for content providers. For example, say there's a higher value set of streams, maybe for a subscription service or a live event. Those streams can be tagged and monitored separately, and have greater resources allocated to them to ensure up-time. Improved visibility into videos that are going viral means their placement on the site and their monetization can be enhanced. Another example is better-informed customer service agents responding to issues specific to a certain set of videos.

    Some of what Conviva does is similar to analytics products like Omniture, performance measurement from companies like Keynote and Gomez and some of the reporting CDNs themselves provide to customers. But Conviva seems to bring together user viewing data in a unique and far deeper way than any of these. This week Conviva is helping NBC better understand its Olympics streaming using Silverlight. Conviva also counts Fox, ABC, NFL and others as customers. Conviva started life as Rinera Networks, pursing managed P2P distribution. It has raised $29 million to date from UV Partners, New Enterprise Associates and Foundation Capital.

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  • Looking for Economic Signals at Digital Hollywood This Week

    This week I'll be at Digital Hollywood Fall in LA, the first big industry gathering I've attended since the economic crisis hit. I've been trying to keep my finger on the pulse of what the crisis means for the broadband video industry. Get-togethers like this, with lots of time for informal, off-the-record chats are great for getting a sense of what colleagues think is on the industry's horizon.

    Here are 3 interrelated areas I'm most interested in learning about:

    Financing

    With the credit markets frozen and stock markets tumbling, the availability of financing is topic number one. This is especially relevant for the industry's many earlier stage companies, reliant on private financing from venture capitalists, angels and other private equity investors.

    By my count we've seen at least 9 good-sized financings announced since around Labor Day, when the financial markets started coming unglued: Howcast ($2M), blip.tv (undisclosed), Booyah ($4.5M), BlackArrow ($20M), HealthiNation ($7.5M), Adap.tv ($13M), BitTorrent ($17M), Conviva ($20M), and Move Networks (Microsoft, undisclosed). The rumor mill tells me there are at least 2-3 additional financings underway currently. Really smart money (e.g. Warren Buffet) knows that downturns are exactly the time to invest. However, the reality can often be quite different. What's the experience of industry participants trying to raise money these days?

    Staffing

    In any downturn, the first expense to get cut is people. Headcount reductions are often done quietly, with word later leaking out to the public. Last week brought news of trimming at three indie video providers, Break (11 people), ManiaTV (20) and Heavy (12). More are sure to follow at other companies. As I've written before, the indies are among the most vulnerable in this environment, likely leading many to find bigger partners for both distribution and monetization. But whether layoffs will hit other industry sectors such as platforms, ad networks, CDNs, mobile video and big media is still to be determined by...

    Customer spending

    Central to the question of how deeply the financial crisis spirals is the interdependence of customer spending at all levels of the economy. Thinking you're safe because you're a B2B company is meaningless if your customers are B2C companies cutting back due to reductions in consumer spending. When consumers tighten their belts that leads to advertisers reducing their spending which leads to media companies scaling back which leads to technology vendors feeling the impact. The reality is we're all in this together.

    In fact, the more I read about the economy's fragile condition, the clearer it is that the primary way out is rebuilding confidence and renewed spending at all levels. If a spending paralysis occurs, it could be long road ahead. While there's no reason to believe that consumers are going to slow their consumption of broadband media, the ability to monetize it and innovate around it would be dampened if spending hits a wall.

    These are among the topics I'll be looking to discuss at Digital Hollywood this week. If you're attending, drop me a note so we can try to meet up and/or come by the session I'll be moderating on Wednesday at 12:30pm.

    What do you think? Post a comment now!

     
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