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Move it on over - December 19, 2007

Media Wonk recommends checking out the streaming video demos over at the Move Networks web site. In addition to the de rigueur flight and running water stuff, the site also features a beta version of Fox On Demand, with full-length episodes of "Family Guy," "House," "The Simpsons" and other shows, an ABC Full Episode player, including "Desperate Housewives," "Dancing with the Stars," "Lost" and other others, as well as beta offerings from Discovery, The CW and BYU.tv. They're some of the smoothest, best-looking examples of video streaming Media Wonk has seen.

Move does it by using something it calls Quantum Streaming, which breaks a stream into hundreds or thousands of little "stream-lets," which can be cached in thousands of nook and crannies around the Internet. Reassmbling them requires client software, but the applet runs inside a browser and installs in seconds. The technology is also "adaptive," meaning the software constantly monitors the speed and quality of each user's Internet connection and the available bitrates and optimizes the stream to produce the highest possible performance. The result is little or no visible delays or re-buffering to mar the video presentation, and a far better user experience than produced by other streaming solutions. The average length of a streaming session from Move Networks' web site, according to the company, is nearly 53 minutes, indicating few viewers are bailing out mid-stream.

Perhaps most critically, Move Networks claims to have solved one of the most vexing technical challenges confronting online video distributors: scalability. Most current streaming platforms treat bandwidth essentially as a fixed cost, which rises in proportion to the number of streams being delivered. That means distributors' marginal costs remain high, even at large scales. That same phenomenon also affects marketers' CPMs. According to Move Networks' web site, however, dynamic bandwidth management, through more efficient use of exiting Internet caches and other technologies, allows its platform can support a million users as easily as a thousand.

So far, Move Networks officials ain't saying much, beyond what's on the web site. But the company did confirm to Media Wonk that it recently closed a second round of financing that raised $40.1 million, on top of the $11 million first round it announced in February. The company hasn't said who participated in the latest round, but the first round included Hummer Winblad and Steamboat Ventures, Disney's VC arm.

"Until now, there has been no way to scale quality long form video distribution over the Internet for millions of users at once," Hummer Winblad partner Doug Hickey said at the time. "This has prevented major networks from building large, viable revenue streams online. Move's traction in this space is a direct result of technology that is completely changing the way people consume, and producers deliver, long form video content over the Internet."



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