information analyst

Over the past year, as pricing in the sector has reached a commoditized level, the definition of a content delivery network (CDN) has started to change. As pricing competition has narrowed their differentiation, CDNs have started to focus on the value-added parts of their propositions. If you call Akamai Technologies or Limelight Networks a CDN, company reps will do their best to point out that distribution is only a part of their services.

 

This means that while we can track pricing to some extent, as Dan Rayburn famously does at http://blog.streamingmedia.com, it is becoming difficult to simply buy data transfer services from CDNs. These companies like to offer a richer range of services than pure byte-shifting. Each CDN now has its own online video platform (OVP), which provides content management and user interfaces. Each offers some form of relationship with advertising partners, and so on and so forth.

 

Still, there is a fairly clear set of key performance indicators (KPIs) for anyone who wants to engage the services of these companies. These are outlined in the accompanying chart.

Via Nicolas Weil