The Top Articles I Found Interesting That You Might Have Missed

Here are the stories I found interesting over the past week or so on the Web. I've tried to highlight ones that didn't get picked up as much and might have been missed since they weren't caught by mainstream outlets. “The World of Pain that is HTML5 Video” – bit.ly/zNZNX4 – @flashfreaker “Lies, Damn Lies, Ad Industry Growth Forecasts” -…

Azuki rolls out managed, optimized OTT delivery

Azuki Systems, which earlier this month announced deals with Showtime and HBO to deliver programming to Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) iPads and iPhones, today unveiled a solution for service providers looking to deliver managed and optimized OTT live and on-demand video. Azuki said the service can extend service providers’ managed set-top-box services to multiple screens, at home and on-the-go, with no impact to existing DOCSIS and IPTV infrastructure. “Service providers now will be able to tap into the rich potential of OTT delivery,” Azuki chief executive John Clancy told FierceOnlineVideo . “Managed over the top delivery makes an unmanaged network–the Internet–behave like the closed, managed networks service providers have been comfortable with.” Azuki manages OTT video delivery by simplifying and automating the process of normalizing and unifying media preparation, adaptive streaming, digital rights management, entitlement enforcement, analytics and monetization–including ad-insertion, across all consumer-owned devices. The Acton, Mass.-based company said it can help service providers fully deploy the Azuki managed and optimized OTT video delivery solution for both live and VOD in less than 100 days.

Looking For Presenters For How-To Sessions At Streaming Media East Show

At the end of this month I will publish the advance program for the Streaming Media East show, taking place May 15-16 in NYC. One of the changes I am making this year is that 50% of all the sessions will be stand-alone instructional how-to presentations. I've also added a fourth track this year so we will have a total..

ComScore: Online video viewing time up 59% in December Y-o-Y

More than 182 million Americans watched online video in December, consuming a whopping 43.5 million videos, about 23.2 hours of viewing each. The numbers are significantly above those from a year ago, when 172 million Americans watched 5.2 billion videos for an average 14.6 hours each. Click here to zoom in on this and other charts. As usual, YouTube was at the head of the class

Rumor mill: Late-May target date for Facebook IPO

Facebook’s multibillion IPO looks like its set for late May, AllThingsDigital reports. The report said Facebook will have to file its paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission within the month to make that happen, pointing out that any number of issues could derail–or at least postpone–the process. The SEC generally takes as long as four months to review the filing, but can take longer

LG rumored to be in line for Google TV 3.0

LG Electronics may be first in line for the next release of Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) TV software, according to a report form Bloomberg . The move would allow the company to build a set compatible with the software as it begins to gain momentum for a third iteration of its TV service, reportedly planned for release by the end of the year. Google TV was demoed on an LG set at the Consumer Electronics Show this week. Samsung already has been announced as a partner in the Google TV ecosystem.

Akamai Lowering CDN Pricing In Effort To Be More Competitive

About 45 days ago, I noticed Akamai was being more competitive when it came to pricing CDN deals and around that same time, Akamai's sales reps were highlighting this pricing reduction in emails to potential customers. One of the emails I received from an Akamai sales rep said, “as we are at the end of 2011, I wanted to keep…

In a hit for Hollywood, Amazon buys into UltraViolet

A big win for Hollywood, as Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) Tuesday said it was working with an unnamed studio to implement the UltraViolet digital content locker. Rumors that Amazon would become the first major retailer to work with UltraViolet surfaced in December. The sudden popularity of its Kindle Fire tablet moved Amazon to the front burner for studios, which see the tablet as an opportunity for them to solidify their efforts to maximize return on content by both making it both more available to consumers to watch on multiple devices while keeping their digital rights safe. On Tuesday, Amazon’s EVP for Digital Media, Bill Carr, said Amazon was “very excited about the additional possibilities from a customer’s point of view that UV enables.” “The best movie and TV service for consumers is the one that provides them with the broadest choice possible,” Carr said. Having Amazon’s bulk behind it could prompt other competitors, Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL), in particular, into the UltraViolet fold.

Research says size matters when it comes to portable media players

Tablets like Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL)’s iPad have been seen as an important additional screen for content owners and service providers looking for potential new income streams, but a new survey from NPD In-Stat indicates tablets have become important in a totally different vein: Users actually are using them for work. “The majority of tablet owners have a screen size between 9 and 11 inches–a size optimized for sophisticated uses that require a lot of interaction,” says Stephanie Ethier, senior analyst. “The top uses for tablets are web browsing, email, and downloading and using applications, which are productivity-based uses.”About half of the respondents to NPD’s online survey, Smart Mobile Devices: Hardware Determines Usage for Smartphones, PMPs, Tablets, and Laptops, said they had portable media players with screen sizes of less than five inches. PMPs, which can be nearly identical to tablets except for the smaller-than-5-inch screen, are “used primarily to support entertainment-focused uses, like listening to music and watching video,” said the report. Article

Roku starts taking pre-orders in UK, Ireland; hopes to ship by end of month

Roku has begun selling its connected devices in the United Kingdom and Ireland, currently on pre-order only. The Roku LT and the Roku 2 XS are available on Amazon and list at $77 and $154 respectively, and they are expected to start shipping at the end of January. The Roku 2XS is the company’s full-featured model. It includes built in Wi-Fi, plays 1080p video (when it’s offered by a channel), offers an expandable memory slot plus Bluetooth and has an Ethernet port and USB port. The more limited LT has built in Wi-Fi and tops out at 720p

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