Punjab Kesari Group is one of India’s largest newspaper groups with a daily circulation of 1.1 million copies—providing the latest news to readers in 3 different languages.

“As we added more videos online, our library became more time-consuming to manage and our site performance suffered, causing serious buffering issues for our viewers,” said Abhijay Chopra, Director, Punjab Kesari Group. “We chose Limelight as our sole provider for online video publishing and content delivery to help us address these issues and create more powerful online experience for our viewers.”

In selecting Limelight as both their online video platform and media delivery provider,they have not only met all their requirements, they have seen a monthly video traffic increase of 30% month by month, and exponentially increased video views. “

To see full press release:

http://investors.limelightnetworks.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=647153

It’s been eight months since Delve joined the Limelight Networks team, and though we’ve been rolling out additional features in that time, we’re proud to show off our first major product update today under the Limelight Video Platform brand. The spring 2011 release adds new real-time and custom services, including, notably, live streaming support. Although on-demand video has been a far bigger market to date,we’ve seen increasing interest in live broadcasts online. This comes in part from the growth of the mobile video channel, and here again we’ve focused heavily on making our platform deliver content in a way that’s meaningful to both viewers and programmers. Both our live and on-demand video streams play not only on PCs, but also on Apple iOS, Android, and BlackBerry devices. This is a huge issue for publishers, and one that cannot be understated. Video has to be easily transcoded, formatted, and streamed to all of the mobile devices consumers use. We make that happen so publishers can build their audiences, and consumers can access the content they want, when and where they want it.

In addition to live streaming support, the other update I want to highlight is how far we’ve come in integrating with existing Limelight Networks technologies. First and foremost, our new Player Edge Scaling feature takes advantage of the Limelight global delivery network to optimize video playback. Not only can we cache video bits at the network edge, we can store whole libraries there for better player performance. Note that our customers are welcome to use other third-party CDNs, but the integration we now have with the Limelight delivery platform provides a powerful and compelling service option.

Beyond the CDN integration we’ve achieved, the last eight months have let us work closely with the Limelight Networks Mobility team. We’ve already built cross-platform publishing into our video platform, but we’ve also now expanded on our feature set to include access to the full Limelight REACH mobile service. If a customer’s needs are more complex than those we can automatically support with our Universal Embed Codes, the robust Limelight REACH platform provides additional support for furthering a publisher’s mobile distribution strategy.

Again, there are numerous new features in today’s product update release, and I’ve only touched on a few of them here. Below is a list of new features, and full details are available in the company press release. We hope you’ll take the time to check them out.

New Limelight Video Platform features:

• Live streaming to web-based players and iOS devices
• Enhanced mobile and devices support
• Real-time analytics
• Advanced workflow, performance and localization

TV isn’t going just anywhere; it’s going everywhere. Which is why we at Adobe are launching Adobe Pass®, a new authentication service for TV content providers looking to reach more viewers on more connected devices. As a long-time partner with Limelight Networks, we’re also working with the Limelight Video Platform to present content owners and distributors with a comprehensive solution offering everything from video player options and user authentication, to web acceleration services and secure delivery across laptops, smartphones, tablets, connected televisions and more.

TV Everywhere is still a relatively new concept, but one that broadcasters and pay-TV providers are aggressively pursuing in order to meet consumer demand, realize new revenue opportunities, and remain competitive in the market. Authentication is perhaps the biggest challenge with new deployments. How do you get content to new devices quickly and easily while ensuring it remains protected? Approaches in the industry have varied significantly so far, with providers testing a wide range of technologies. This experimentation has made it clear what is most important in a solution – namely flexibility, ease of use, and secure authorization – all of which we can deliver with Adobe Pass.  Once an authentication system is in place, providers can not only deliver content everywhere, but also begin to offer cross-platform services, and take advantage of new monetization opportunities available online.

Meanwhile, the Limelight Video Platform has some great capabilities that fit with Adobe Pass, and with our mission to keep things simple, but also customizable in the online video world. Open APIs, optional integrated delivery services, and flexible content management all contribute to an experience that is effectively streamlined for video providers, and easy and enjoyable for online TV viewers.

For detailed information on Adobe Pass, take a look at www.adobe.com/go/adobepass. Adobe Pass is fully deployed and available today. Highlights include:

• Leverages the Flash Platform and HTML5
• Player and DRM platform agnostic
• Flexible business rules
• Easy integration with multiple Pay tv providers
• Leverages the latest security capabilities in the Adobe Flash® Player runtime
• Single log-in for consumers; no additional download required

The South by Southwest conference is a world unto itself, but for the first time ever you can experience the buzz of SXSW through a live video stream of keynotes and featured speaker presentations. The live feed is powered by Limelight Video Platform, which includes both new live streaming capabilities, and integration with Limelight’s content delivery network services. The CDN integration was a strong draw for SXSW when they brought us on board, and that combination of content management and delivery is a prime differentiator for our platform.

Want live streaming for your own website? Check out some of the new features in the Limelight Video Platform:

•Live and on-demand video streams supported, with no publishing delay after a live feed is created in the player console
•Multiple customization options for live video streams including custom players and playlists
•Players, playlists, and metadata cached at the edge, with all content delivered over our optimized network platform

The age of Internet video is here, and with it have arrived challenges complex enough to intimidate even the most battle-hardened online professional. How do you make video accessible across new tablets and smartphones? How do you manage a growing library of video assets that have to be packaged and delivered in different ways? What about live versus on-demand streaming? Is there a way to integrate video management with existing IT systems? What about analytics?

Watch Recording Now: Solving Today’s Top Hurdles in Online Video

Produced by Streaming Media

Watch Limelight Networks executives present a practical discussion on improving your online processes and technologies for video management and distribution. Through commentary and case studies, this webcast covers:

• How to streamline video workflow from the ingest process to library management and channel creation
• How to simplify content syndication and distribution to PCs, tablets, and smartphones
• Integration with other IT functions including content management systems, ad serving networks, and content delivery network services
• Considerations for live streaming versus on-demand video
• How to improve analytics data for continually optimized video performance

Today is the start of a new phase for the team at Delve Networks.  We have been acquired by Limelight Networks (read press release).  Our entire team, including myself, will be joining Limelight Networks where we will become the Video Platform Solutions business unit.

Last Thursday, Limelight’s CEO, Jeff Lunsford, flew up to our Seattle headquarters (see flight videos) to celebrate with members of the Delve team (see photo below); it was a fantastic experience and we are all fired up. Limelight’s team culture, vision, and philosophy are very similar to our own and we feel this is a great fit. They value customer relationships first, think at ‘Internet scale,’ and do a great job of making the very complex seem easy.

Even though we are now part of Limelight, all of the things that matter to you will stay the same. We’ll still deliver a powerful, yet easy to use, online video platform with content management, analytics, monetization, player customization, and rich APIs. We’ll continue to provide the same level of support we’ve always delivered. And we’ll still work with CDN partners beyond Limelight Networks for content delivery in keeping with our belief that open ecosystems are important.

What’s new is that we’ll now have access to more resources. As Delve, we built an award wining product and signed up over 120+ customers, such as, Cleveland Clinic, American Hospital Association, ESPN, CDW, Standard & Poor’s, Hallmark, Lego, World Vision, and several professional sports organizations (see customer showcase). We’ve manage to grow our business with far less resources than many of our competitors, which is a testament to our team’s talent, commitment and determination.

Now that we’re joining Limelight we can accelerate our growth, better service larger customers, and enjoy the benefits of Limelight’s global sales organization. Limelight has an unparalleled presence around the world and the capacity to transport huge amounts of content over its intelligent delivery platform. Adding Limelight’s global infrastructure to Delve’s video platform offering increases our ability to scale and innovate for our customers.

To all of our customers, employees, investors, and partners, thank you for helping us succeed in an industry that has grown rapidly in recent years. We’re very excited about the opportunities for innovation ahead, and look forward to doing great things as part of Limelight Networks.

Onwards and Upwards!!

Sincerely,
Alexander Castro
Vice President & General Manager, Video Platform Solutions
Limelight Networks

Delve customers that use the Adify platform can now serve and accept VAST 2.0-compliant pre-/mid-/post-roll, overlay and companion ads. Publishers can also partner with a VAST 2.0-compliant ad network to backfill ads in a seamless way.

Delve is committed to work with partners such as Adify and will continue to implement emerging standards like VAST 2.0 to ensure our customers have the largest array of options to monetize their video content.

Delve already helps publishers deliver video directly to iPod touch®, iPhones®, Android®, Blackberry® and other connected devices. Publishers who want to deliver their content to mobile users can use Delve’s complete solution to create a seamless experience on their website that works for PC’s and mobile devices.

If you are a publisher already delivering video to the iPhone, you will automatically be able to deliver video to the iPad without further changes. Otherwise, contact your account manager to enable mobile delivery immediately.

To start publishing video on your website Try Delve’s online video platform free and discover why we are the easiest and most powerful online video platform.