Larry Kless' Weblog: The Week in Review, March 3rd

It was another busy week in the video and streaming media world and I thought I'd try a new approach to comment on the big events that caught my attention.

Monday, March 3rd

It started on with Oprah's big web cast. Oprah launched a new global web cast series and had record 500,000 simultaneous connections which proved to be too much for the system to handle. I didn't catch it live and only read about it, watched it on demand and talked with a friend who attempted to connect to the live event. He said the video froze, sputtered and quickly dropped and Oprah issued an apology email that followed the next day stating,"More than 500,000 of you simultaneously logged on to watch Oprah Winfrey and Eckhart Tolle live, resulting in 242 Gbps of information moving through the Internet. Unfortunately, some of you experienced delays in viewing the webcast. We are working to identify the specific causes for the problems experienced and will work diligently to rectify them. Harpo Productions, Inc., Move Networks and Limelight Networks recognize that interactive Internet broadcasting to a mass audience is still an emerging medium, and we're proud to have been pioneers in pushing the industry forward. We deeply regret that some of you were not able to participate in Monday night's live Web event and that others did not have an optimal viewing experience"