Yesterday was supposed to be the day that live Web video streaming took on TV broadcasting. CNN.com alone served a record 21.3 million streams, with a peak of 1.3 million simultaneous streams. And Akamai reported a peak of 5.4 million simultaneous visitors per minute to the various news sites for which it hosts video, and more than 7 million simultaneous streams.
With millions tuning in from their PCs to watch President Obama’s Inauguration speech, it was one of the biggest tests yet for live video streaming. But live streaming failed. CNN.com kept bumping viewers into virtual waiting rooms. This happened to me in the middle of Obama’s speech. I had to keep hitting refresh, but missed half the speech. The stream on Hulu was even worse, with the video frozen and the audio coming in and out. And forget about Ustream. I couldn’t even get any audio. This seemed to be the general experience out there, based on other reports. → Read More
Globes is reporting that RayV has raised $8M in Series B from Accel Partners. While the company has been in stealth mode, and its site offers little information, sources have confirmed that RayV is developing a P2P live broadcasting offering. Evidentially, users will be able to create and broadcast video playlists at “high video quality”. Similar to Joost, RayV will require the installation of a client application. To date, the company has been funded mainly by Ron Zuckerman who is among the founders of Magma Venture Partners (formerly Magnum Ventures). Zuckerman also co-founded Precise (acquired by Veritas) and Sapiens. → Read More
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