Concurrent improves finances, deploys VOD in Lithuania
Concurrent reported Q1 2008 revenue of $16.3 million, which is $1.5 million more than the company brought in a year ago but down 23 percent from the $21.1 million registered in the quarter immediately prior.

On a sequential basis, orders for both on-demand and real-time products were both down. Concurrent said the variation was largely due to the timing of its largest orders from customers.

Over the course of the last year, the company's profit trend went from red to black. A year ago, Concurrent lost $4.8 million; in the previous quarter, the loss was shaved to $712,000. In the recently completed quarter, Concurrent logged a profit of $1.7 million. Helping the company swing to a profit were payments of $1.9 million and $1.4 million, from the Vicor settlement and the patent settlement with C-Cor, respectively.

"In VOD, we expect a robust market in 2008 as operators address the need for time-shifted video, more HD content and advanced advertising, all driving stream counts and reporting requirements to higher levels," says Concurrent President and CEO Gary Trimm.

"In real-time, we believe we have an improved financial model, and the project pipeline is beginning to grow. While our quarter-to-quarter revenues will likely remain highly variable, we expect the last half of fiscal 2008 to be strong, resulting in improved overall results."

Additionally, Concurrent's MediaHawk on-demand platform has been selected by Lithuanian telecom UAB Alpha komunikacijos for the provider's commercial deployment of VOD.

The MediaHawk system delivers independent scalability of content ingest, storage and streaming across both HFC and IP networks. To date, Concurrent has deployed more than 1.1 million video streams in 26 countries.

 —Traci Patterson, Web/News Editor - CED, Editor - xOD Capsule

TVN releases complete VOD platform for telcos
TVN Entertainment has launched VOD Complete for Telcos, an end-to-end VOD solution targeted at Tier 2 and Tier 3 telcos.

Features include an integrated content distribution platform and VOD server; an optimized VOD programming plan; compatibility with all VOD server, STB and middleware systems; marketing support, such as barker channels, promotions and campaigns; a Local Content Solution (LCS) for local community programming and advertising; a reporting and royalty processing service; and a Web-based interactive asset management toolset.

"TVN is currently working with large telcos like Verizon and AT&T, mid-size telcos like Cincinnati Bell and Century Tel, and a growing number of smaller telco/IPTV companies," says Jim Riley, EVP of TVN. "We have learned that VOD requirements may vary greatly, which is why we designed VOD Complete for Telcos as a customized solution from end-to-end."

Limelight Networks sending HD content over Internet
Limelight Networks has unveiled LimelightHD, which delivers HD media and digital content over the Internet.

The service is available on more than 700 broadband access networks worldwide.

The service allows media and entertainment companies, global consumer brands, game publishers and social media sites to deliver HD-quality movies, TV shows, video clips and games directly to a user's Internet-connected TV, game console and PC.

Brightcove, Fox Interactive Media, MSN Video and Rajshri.com have announced that they will offer HD content with the service. Other media technology companies supporting the LimelightHD initiative include Adobe Systems Inc., Microsoft Corp., Move Networks and Veoh Networks.

Harmonic bringing VOD to SES Americom's IP-Prime
Harmonic Inc. is developing a VOD solution for SES Americom's IP-Prime service that will utilize Harmonic's StreamLiner 2000 video servers, CLEARcut storage encoding solution and Ingest Gateway workflow software.

Harmonic's StreamLiner 2000

The solution will enable U.S. telcos and broadband service providers that use the IP-Prime IPTV service to offer VOD to their customers. IP-Prime is a telco TV service that offers more than 275 video channels. With the introduction of Harmonic's on-demand platform, SES Americom will expand the offering to include local and national on-demand content.

The CLEARcut, Ingest Gateway and StreamLiner offerings are part of Harmonic's IP-based on-demand video delivery platform, which supports VOD, near VOD, time-shifted TV, nPVR, barker channels and ad insertion.

Vongo gets an upgrade, ups platforms
Starz Entertainment has launched Vongo 2.0, which bolsters enhanced functionality and performance to create a more robust, smoother-overall user experience for the broadband subscription movie and video download service.

As part of the upgrade, Vongo has also expanded the number of certified portable media devices it supports, by five, to now include seven different models from Archos, Creative and Toshiba. Vongo has also announced its compatibility with several recently announced Extenders for Windows Media Center.

Mobile video viewers on the rise this year
August saw eight million mobile video viewers in the U.S., up 34 percent compared with statistics from January, according to M:Metrics. With 6.8 million viewers, viral videos were the most popular type of video content—an increase of 36 percent since January.

Those tuning in to mobile TV watch short-format or news-related content. Music videos are the most popular genre, followed by movie trailers, weather and sports. Still an early-adopter market, the audience skews toward young males.

"This data is very encouraging news for the growth of mobile as an advertising-supported medium," says Seamus McAteer, chief product architect and senior analyst at M:Metrics. "Clearly, there is the foundation of a market for premium paid video content, which underlies the potentially much more substantial opportunity for free, ad-supported material."

Sprint, MobiTV extend mobile TV agreement
Sprint and MobiTV Inc. have entered into a multi-year agreement and will continue to offer the Sprint TV, Sprint TV Xtra and Sprint TV en Vivo services.

Consumers will see a new interface, video quality enhancements, more support for full-screen viewing, increased channel change speeds and compatibility with more devices.

Rentrak tracks 1.4 billion VOD orders in 1st half of 2007
The number of on-demand orders in the first half of 2007 increased 44 percent, to 1.4 billion, compared with orders placed in the same period last year, according to Rentrak Corp.'s OnDemand Essentials 2007 Mid-Year Report.

Nielsen brings demographic data to Google TV Ads
The Nielsen Company and Google have entered a multi-year relationship, which will bring demographic data to the Google TV Ads platform.

Google TV Ads is an online platform for buying, selling, measuring and delivering TV ads. The platform has been operational since May and includes ad inventory across hundreds of channels and dayparts. Google TV Ads reports second-by-second STB data so that advertisers can evaluate the reach of an ad and only pay for actual STB impressions.

With Nielsen's demographic data, and with aggregated STB data, Google will be able to provide advertisers and agencies with info that will help them create better ads for viewers. Data derived from Nielsen's TV ratings panels will provide Google TV Ads advertisers with the demographic composition of the audience.

Facebook extends ad partnership with Microsoft
Facebook and Microsoft Corp. have expanded their advertising partnership, and Microsoft will take a $240 million equity stake in Facebook's next round of financing—at a $15 billion valuation.

Microsoft will be the exclusive third-party ad platform partner for Facebook and will begin to sell advertising internationally, in addition to in the U.S.

In August 2006, the companies announced a U.S.-only alliance that named Microsoft the exclusive provider of standard banner advertising on Facebook, with Microsoft's digital ad solutions and adCenter platform. In early 2007, the terms were extended to 2011.

• Diller: Big media is late to Internet chat, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

• Ooyala: Let a thousand videos interact, reports Forbes.

• Mobile TV prospects remain clouded, according to RCR Wireless News.

Company: Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB)
Headquarters: New York
URL: www.iab.net
Chairman: Jim Spanfeller, Forbes.com

Claim to fame: The IAB represents more than 300 interactive companies that engage in and support the sale of interactive advertising. It evaluates and recommends standards and practices, fields interactive effectiveness research and educates the advertising industry about interactive advertising.

Recent news of note: A recent study conducted by the IAB and Pricewaterhouse-Coopers showed that Internet advertising revenue in the U.S. was nearly $10 billion in the first half of 2007, an increase of 27 percent compared with the first half of 2006. And in Q2, revenue totaled $5.1 billion, exceeding the $5 billion mark for the first time in a quarter and marking a 25.4 percent increase year-on-year.