BitGravity, a newer CDN entrant, is one of the companies Taylor referred to, but CEO Perry Wu said his company isn't seeing any sort of downturn that others are bemoaning.

"It's a funny time, because we hear it's challenging for a lot of folks, but we'll probably grow revenues between 250 percent and 300 percent this year," Wu said. "We've been able to spend heavily on development, and we're building out our network. The others have done similar things, but with much more capital, so we'll have a healthier capital structure going forward. We'll be able to flex our muscles, and it put us in the best standing, because it's not who gets out of the gate the quickest."

Wu said BitGravity's partnership with Tata Communications, which also invested in BitGravity, is indicative of the different way his company views successful partnerships in the CDN space.

"We help them understand what they need to sell in this market, and they're not just making an investment in a product, they're actually building a viable business," Wu said. "We're taking a much longer view than a simple resell deal. (Tata) has also helped us get into markets where others aren't really competing yet, such as India and Africa."

Another CDN taking an international approach is CDNetworks, which is also touting network expansion during the economic downturn. In an email exchange, Jim Campbell, VP of marketing for CDNetworks, said the company is fortunate to enjoy a very stable, financial position and yearly revenue growth, which enables the company to reinvest in its core technologies and service offerings to satisfy customer needs, provide great customer service, and stay ahead of the competition.

He said the company is focusing on China especially, and says it is one of only a few CDNs with POPs in China. He said customers increasingly are seeking international content delivery capabilities, which CDNetworks is well suited to provide, while other, smaller entrants might have difficulty providing.

Of course, all of these companies want to spin the market realities in their favor, and one reality is that content delivery is an expensive and complicated business to enter and compete in. These companies face tough competition from each other and upstarts not mentioned in the piece, as well as the ever-present issue of customer education about product differences and drawbacks.

Online video will continue to grow in sheer numbers and visibility, however, and there is space for many of these companies to continue growing their businesses for the foreseeable future. CDN survival is far from assured, but you have to like the odds for at least the big guns that are well-funded and have significant revenues. There is simply too much momentum around online video currently to doubt the future success for most of the major players, no matter the short term issues that appear treacherous.

Limelight's Mike Gordon summed up the challenge and opportunity facing CDNs in video delivery:

"Limelight has been as guilty as everyone else of this, but we've had a long conversation with ourselves (the CDNs) about my tech versus your network, my servers versus your POPs," Gordon said. "We talk about it to differentiate ourselves, but customers really care about reliability and scalability and the applications that sit on top of the network, and what they really mean about doing their business better. All of us have the ability to deliver whatever object. If you think having a capability is enough, without expressing it in a way a customer can really use it, in my opinion, time will prove you wrong."

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