Cont' - Online video and the cloud

By Ian Blaine

Video Management:

Most online video publishing or management vendors are cloud-based. Often, they host services in a datacenter and provide access via an administrative console or web-service APIs. Spikes in system usage or video consumption are dynamically handled across a managed infrastructure. However, one critical detail to consider is whether your vendor is using their own hardware and datacenter, or if they are outsourcing this function to someone else like AWS or Rackspace. 

For managing metadata and business policies, you may want your vendor to use their own servers and systems. The alternative of outsourcing the infrastructure requirements to AWS may be more capital-efficient for a startup, but it also presents some disadvantages to the customer, including service level agreements (SLA) and other restrictions. 

For example, your SLA can only be as strong as that offered by the cloud computing vendor. This is one more link in the chain that may break, and a vendor that doesn't control their infrastructure is helpless to remedy a problem. In the AWS case, for example, you have to agree not to hold AWS responsible (see section 4.3 -- http://aws.amazon.com/agreement/).

Also, be sure to read the fine print about what companies can do with the data they get from you. While they may agree not sell or disclose this information to outside parties, their contracts could allow them to evaluate your metadata, how you apply business policies to your videos, and any usage data you collect for reports. For many media companies, this could present a conflict of interest if your provider offers its own consumer-facing online video service. 

Advertising and Reporting:

You or a trusted vendor should operate the revenue-generating parts of your business. As video players request ads and return playback data for analysis, having direct control over the infrastructure is critical. Ad requests and playback information is sensitive data that should not be shared. 

In short, video management, advertising, and reporting require a tighter relationship with a vendor, and media companies should think twice before passing that responsibility on to a third party. This may change over time as providers of cloud computing services may be compelled to offer tiers of service that have more traditional SLAs and data privacy policies associated with them. 

As the online video industry continues to shake itself out in 2009, there will undoubtedly be cloudy days ahead. However, for those companies with premium video content, growing subscriber bases, and the right business models, those "cloudy" days just might be good ones. 

Ian Blaine is CEO and co-founder of thePlatform, which has provided cloud-based video services to major media companies for almost 10 years. The views expressed in this piece are his alone, and do not reflect the views of FierceOnlineVideo and its editorial staff.