Sunday, August 2, 2009

Delve Networks and Akamai Partner to Deliver Cloud-based Online Video Publishing

It was more than a year ago that Seattle, Washington-based Delve Networks changed its name from Pluggd and business focus from podcasting tools to online video publishing tools for content publishers looking to create their own branded video experience. Like many others in the saturated online video platform market Delve offers an intuitive end-to-end solution to manage, deliver, publish and measure viewership. Earlier this month launched a self-service option for their video publishing platform. Delve’s video platform includes patented semantic video technology which extracts information from within the video to provide enhanced search, meta-data tagging, and indexing capabilities.

On Friday, Delve Networks announced a strategic relationship with Akamai, the leading Content Delivery Network (CDN) that Delve says is aimed at challenging Brightcove as the leader in the online video platform space, "to give publishers a better alternative than Brightcove’s." The collaboration between Delve and Akamai offers Delve's customers a complete video management solution to deliver HD-quality video on Akamai’s global video delivery network which supports both Adobe’s dynamic streaming and Microsoft’s Silverlight Smooth Streaming technologies. Financial details of the collaboration were not disclosed.

In an interview with Beet.TV, Delve Networks VP of Product Management Edgardo Nazario says that there is great synergy between the two companies and that they "will work together on projects and also pitch each other's customers."



Delve Networks CEO Alex Castro had this to say about the collaboration with Akamai:
"Our joint effort will help us reach many more customers than we could reach alone. Increasingly we are looking for leading partners who can help us provide the best in video management and solutions for our customers. We can think of no one better than Akamai to work with.”

Akamai has similar partnerships with KickApps, VMIX, Multicast, Onstream Media, VBrick, KIT Digital and Ooyala and while this deal is not much different from existing relationships with the other companies and Tim Napoleon, Chief Strategist for Digital Media at Akamai said:
"A fast, efficient media distribution workflow based on industry standards is critical to any successful online business. Akamai's mission is to support innovation and leadership in this space and Delve clearly offers an impactful solution. Providing unique and innovative capabilities, such as a cloud-based architecture and search inside, Delve's video platform is not only technologically advanced, but also easy to use."
In an interview with Pete Wylie this past week Alex Castro described Delve's performance this year and his vision for the future of the company in growth in 2009. "We've tripled our customer base since beginning of the year and launched our self-service product, we've signed some important big name customers and we're waiting on timing to talk about those partnerships," said Castro. Delve, which raised a $1.6 million venture round in May and snce launching 10 months ago, Delve Networks has signed up over 70 customers including Standard & Poors, 1800Flowers, the Kansas City Chiefs, and many others.

While this all sounds like good news it actually hasn't been a good week for Akamai. The comoany has come under scrutiny by Wall Street just this week following a disappointing earnings call by missing analyst expectations and saw shares drop 15% quarter due to a risky strategy of sacrificing revenue growth to hold on to customers. Dan Rayburn also pointed out that despite their pricing problems, Akamai is still not doing enough to grow their CDN business.

Within the online video ecosystem this deal could be viewed as another example of the CDN becoming a commodity. With the rise of online video platforms over the last few years the direct line consumers have to CDNs has been blurred as OVPs offer scalable plans, extensible modules and content delivery solutions. For more on this topic see the LinkedIn discussion: Is control going from CDNs to OVPs ?

Delve Networks is also a platinum sponsor of the Online Video Platform Summit and will be showcasing its platform and technology at the event. For more information on Delve Networks and a free trial, visit www.delvenetworks.com.

About Akamai

Akamai(R) provides market-leading managed services for powering rich media, dynamic transactions, and enterprise applications online. Having pioneered the content delivery market one decade ago, Akamai's services have been adopted by the world's most recognized brands across diverse industries. The alternative to centralized Web infrastructure, Akamai's global network of tens of thousands of distributed servers provides the scale, reliability, insight and performance for businesses to succeed online. Akamai has transformed the Internet into a more viable place to inform, entertain, advertise, interact, and collaborate. To experience The Akamai Difference, visit www.akamai.com.

About Delve Networks

Founded in 2006, Seattle-based Delve Networks makes it possible for organizations of any size across any industry to realize the potential of online video. Delve's advanced, easy-to-use and highly customizable online video platform offers all the tools necessary for publishing video online including video hosting, encoding, content delivery, content management, semantic search, metrics, advertising and syndication. By leveraging the power of cloud computing, Delve gives its customers the ability to quickly adapt as demand for content increases allowing for greater overall scalability, efficiency and reliability. Delve is backed by DFJ Frontier, Intel Capital and Labrador Ventures.


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Updated: 8/3/09
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