Comments on: On Mark Cuban’s “Video Lie”

By: Brian E

Brian E — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 23:20:37 +0000

The founder of Veoh just posted a pretty insightful response to Cuban: http://blog.veoh.com/blog/?p=138

By: Drew R

Drew R — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 22:46:32 +0000

The revenue side is more "gating" than transport.

FWIW here's what I said elsewhere.

Generally I disagree with Mark on most things on principle. He's always talking his book. Always. He's wrong that the CDNs will be the new gatekeepers. But there will be gatekeepers nonetheless. IF you had all those one-time events lined up TODAY, you wouldn't have any way to pay Akamai or Limelight. Pay per View? Subscription? Prerolls? FAIL. Whoever figures out a revenue model that scales as big as the events that Mark hypothesizes will be the gatekeeper. I'll go out on a limb and say it will be the big brand advertisers who will hold the keys.

By: Chris Albrecht

Chris Albrecht — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 21:06:32 +0000

@Mark, you are correct. I was thinking more along the lines of how prickly those gatekeeper relationships with traditional cable companies can be. See: Time Warner cable and Viacom getting into snit over carriage fees.

@Greg C. - Tiger Woods did do some good numbers for that nail-biting US Open finale last year

There were more than 5.5 million streams served that day between NBC and the USGA, and the USGA had 600K concurrent users at its peak.

The video for the day was good, but you wouldn't abandon your oldteevee for it.

By: Greg C.

Greg C. — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 18:56:38 +0000

Chris, I think Mark's post would have been more interesting if he would have provided some context on who is making false claims regarding the capacity of CDNs and their ability to compete with traditional TV. I know there is a lot hype as with everything else internet related, but I seen any reputable person making those claims, have you?

I don't know what the numbers were for Tiger Woods epic US Open showdown last were, but it was brilliant and a lot of people would have missed it had it not been for the CDN's steaming it in real time. I realize it wasn't a primary revenue generator, but someone must have thought it was worth the expense.

Didn't some kid start broadcast.com so they could hear basketball games that they otherwise wouldn't hear over the radio? Just sayin.

By: Charles Baker

Charles Baker — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 18:43:56 +0000

Mark,

What are your thoughts on how p2p technologies could help alleviate the bottleneck issues that you brought up?

Thanks,

Charles

By: markcuban

markcuban — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 17:41:05 +0000

Chris, thanks for the comments. The difference between the examples I gave and EPIX is that EPIX is asking to be paid by the MSOs. If they considered MSOs and Satellite Providers to be CDNs and offered to pay them for hosting services, they would already have carriage.

And I love what Roku is doing, but even Netflix doesnt have to worry much about reaching huge simultaneous viewership numbers.

If you want some interesting reading on the math of the problem, look at the literature regarding switched digital IP delivery over cable networks