Scaling Your Online Video Business

By Jason Thibeault, Sr. Director, Technical Services
Limelight Networks

Evolving Experiences, Evolving Expectations

More than ever, consumers are taking control of their content experiences. From mobile phones with wireless broadband to Blu-Ray players with integrated Ethernet, digital media is not just available from a PC any more. Consumers expect their entertainment to play on all of their devices—in the highest fidelity possible—no matter where they are, what time they access it, or how popular the content.

These expectations extend beyond digital media to e-commerce purchases, web applications, social networking tools, and even business transactions. As an online content publisher, how do you navigate this fragmented world of multiple access points and build a business? How can you scale your offerings to make sure your business has presence on the most profitable touch points? And how can you turn those interactions into true ROI?

Many Needs, Many Platforms

Successful businesses understand that content has to be developed with consumption across different platforms and devices in mind. It’s equally important that the information is always available and consistently refreshed.

But delivering a continuous stream of content to any Internet-connected device is an incredibly complex undertaking that requires highly specialized technology and skill sets. To build such a pipeline, your infrastructure must be able to handle a constantly evolving mix of delivery modes, format types, encode rates, data transmission protocols, and geographies. Delivery modes can vary among live, on-demand, streaming, and progressive download. Format types may include Flash, Windows Media, Silverlight, Move Networks, QuickTime, Shoutcast and others. Encode rates can shift between small formats, standard definition, high definition, and even adaptive models.