NewTeeVee’s Next Big Thing List for 2009
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INLET TECHNOLOGIES
HQ: Raleigh, N.C.
Founding date: 2003
Funding: More than $20 million from Capitol Broadcasting Company, Core Capital Partners, Technology Venture Partners and Telecommunications Development Fund
Employees: About 50
With live high-quality broadcasts streaking to the forefront of online video, Inlet Technologies is the very definition of well-positioned. The company’s encoding appliances and software have been key to nearly every live-streamed sporting event of the past year: Major League Baseball’s season and playoffs, Roland Garros, Wimbledon, the A1GP and Indy 500, March Madness, Italian FIFA Confederations Cup, the Tour de France, the World Swimming Championships, the World Championships in Athletics and the PGA Championship golf tournament. And Inlet recently scored a plum position as partner to both Microsoft and Apple as they push forward adaptive bitrate streaming for their Silverlight and iPhone platforms, respectively. High-quality live-streamed video may eat up resources, but it also draws the kind of engaged viewer we haven’t seen since the pre-TiVo age. (L.G.)
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Quite surprised that this list doesn’t include any credible Live Streaming player ! Let’s look back next year :)
Actually I know that Ooyala does live streaming – they have been doing a lot lately with the Vans surfing competitions and and some MMA fights
So these are the guys we have to thank for the crappy Postseason.tv
http://mlbsupport.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=72
The Philies game was unwatchable today. I already submitted my refund request. Every playoff game is nothing but constant buffering. Today during the 7th inning the video went out! These guys should watch Sunday Night Football on NBC.com to see how it’s done.
The few minutes that the SNF player was on one 1 bar it was superior to Postseason’s player on 4 bars. 95% of the time I was able to watch the SNF game in HD.
Boxee has what 1000 or 2000 users? total?? it gets way more hype than it deserves. bittorrent 2.0… with a lot less users. this thing will flash out.
@gonzo90017:
the technology for both Sunday Night Football on nbc.com and mlb.com is the same. Inlet powers both. infrastructure may vary, but both begin as HD signal.
I just got an invite to Clicker.com and think it’s the most impressive new site I’ve seen since Hulu. The interface is beautiful and it makes it extremely easy to find shows all over the Web.
I also wanted to comment on Clicker, they’re not making content, but they’re making content a whole lot easier to find.
What about Tubemogul? They have been killing it lately with in-stream analytics.
I’d also include Kaltura. They appear to be the leading open source video management platform, at least in the U.S., and they’re getting a lot of design wins. They integrate well with Drupal and WordPress, and the price for the software starts at zero.
Great list, Liz!
A company I hope you’ll also eyeball for future lists like this is Retrofit Films, digital production company, directors of the recent Sprint/NBC Heroes “tagged media” integrated web series campaign who also produced and directed the teaser web series for The CW’s Vampire Diaries and the animated web series for the The CW’s Smallville entitled Kara & The Chronicles of Krypton, among many others.
We’ve worked pretty closely with the major networks and studios to date, although we wouldn’t say that’s our only niche.
Thanks!
Thanks Todd — I’ll ping you on email.
Life sure would be simpler if there was 1 breakout winner… after years of Tivo doing my thinking it’s hard to remember which shows are hulu or netflix or network sites or… sigh. I know it’s the content providers all wanting their cut and afraid of change but I can still whine can’t i? :)
@Scott, Robert, Len and Whit — Thanks for the suggestions, we definitely considered all of those. I’d say they are each a little earlier in the process than competitors we chose for the list. No doubt they are promising companies, but perhaps next year they will get their due.