YouTube's Technical Hiccups

Dan Rayburn reminds that YouTube player does not currently have the ability to auto-detect when a user should get the HD copy instead of the SD copy. And why all the buffering issues?

Internet Provides TV with Virtual Water Cooler

* Big Olympics, big Super Bowl, big Grammys, big VMAs - Twitter, Facebook buzz helps attract big audiences.
* Nielsen Company says one in seven people who were watching the Super Bowl and the Olympics opening ceremony were surfing the Web at the same time.

Cheaper to Distribute on Cable than Internet

Mark Cuban has been the laytech person's best explainer about how the Internet can't support high quality video. He writes, "There are maybe 3 companies that can stream to 1mm or more simultaneous users. Google, Limelight and Akamai. And that 1mm simultaneous users isnt just for your content. That is for EVERYONE’s content and they cant get much beyond 2mm without big problems. More importantly, if you want to stream your content to millions of users at once, its going to cost you an incredible amount of money." He concludes that if newcomers want to serve these audiences, its cheaper to pay the cable companies to make a new channel. He says "Maybe someday over the top video will be a realistic alternative to traditional distribution of content, but its not now and its not this year or next or the next and probably not the year after that."

Distribution Cheaper on Cable than Internet, Actually

Mark Cuban has been the laytech person's best explainer about how the Internet can't support high quality video. He writes, "There are maybe 3 companies that can stream to 1mm or more simultaneous users. Google, Limelight and Akamai. And that 1mm simultaneous users isnt just for your content. That is for EVERYONE’s content and they cant get much beyond 2mm without big problems. More importantly, if you want to stream your content to millions of users at once, its going to cost you an incredible amount of money." He concludes that if newcomers want to serve these audiences, its cheaper to pay the cable companies to make a new channel. He says "Maybe someday over the top video will be a realistic alternative to traditional distribution of content, but its not now and its not this year or next or the next and probably not the year after that."