Below the entire day's activities, in clickable sections plus streamed 'Real' sound clips. A whole day meeting, featuring a number of presentations and some workshop groups, and general discussions as a group. ( See Agenda)
(List of participants pre-registered to attend this meeting from the website)
Contents:
1. Introductions
2. The Bertelsmann Presentation
3. The Kendra Vision
4. Q&A and general discussion
5. Moderated Panel (on content) &General discussion
6. Moderated Panel (on technology) &General discussion
7. Workshops and report-backs
8. General discussion & ways forward
Streamedaudio, in 'Real' format, encoded for reception on 28k modems is now also available:
Click here for section 1 (corresponds to item 5 above) (1 hour 15 minutes)
Click here for section 2 (corresponds to item 6 above) (41 minutes)
Click here for section 3 (corresponds to items 7 & 8 above) (60 minutes)
Daniel thanked the sponsors of the event, particularly Dr. Julie McCann for arranging the venue and sponsorship by the City University in London which has been an originating force within Kendra (see about Kendra for further background), and who provided the conference space and facilities for this meeting. Also thanks to Atlantic who had sponsored the October meeting, and sponsor Daniel's time spent on the Kendra project, for additionally providing food and refreshments for all participants.
Steven Morris speaking on behalf of City University explained that they are pleased to be hosting the event, flagging Julie McCann's on-going research into adaptive streaming and intelligent caching systems, and introducing a number of other participants who would take part in the conference. The university's undergraduates have an interest in placements for work study periods with prospective employers, so any opportunities of this nature would be appreciated and should be notified to (need email address for Steven Morris).
The Atlantic sponsorship, of Daniel's time spent on this project, the previous conference and the food and refreshments for this event are greatly appreciated. Atlantic have already launched DSL services in Germany and will soon be launching services in the UK, France and Holland. Further details from the Atlantic website.
Prior to the commencement of the main presentation of the day, a quick show of hands was called for to identify particular interests of participants, who included content creators, ISP's, copyright specialists, payment management systems, and research academics.
Hardy Heine, explained that he would be showing participants a Power Point Presentation about his group's activities in the field of the interactive media, and would subsequently be showing the type of services which users in Germany already enjoy, by means of a special demonstration program on his laptop.
Bertelsmann have worked for a considerable time now on the basis of a recognition that future technologies are becoming interactive, whereby TV and the Internet are converging. Services being delivered are IP based, but involve an extension in the delivery of TV services much beyond simply delivering a television picture with sound.
His Background: had been with IBM for 10 years, then moved into the travel industry, then the TV industry and then joined Bertelsmann, with specific responsibility for the sale of broadband services.
The big-C: context customisation convenience and convergence. Many different areas of interest and specialism are involved and there are many major operators already involved, from TV stations, Radio Stations, Corporate large advertisers, suppliers across a huge range of existing industries who already operate e-commerce applications and many others.
All industries are needed in this field of operations. Content providers, print services, direct to customer services. There are already 300 distinct profit centres within the system.
The Bertelsmann group is not only focusing on Europe, or just central Europe. It is a Global company, of a size and stature which can be favourably compared to other big players in the field. Research by Bertelsmann on the emergent new technologies indicated to them that while there are individually strong companies in the UK with considerable development there, and that US companies are strong in US markets, the approach adopted by Bertelsmann has been geared to multilingual development, and the development of a truly Global system.
Expertise within the Bertelsmann Group includes significant representation from all the different media industries, 90 TV stations 23 radio stations, considerable book and periodical publishing and many varieties of web publishing enterprises, including the search engine, Lycos. In addition they are also partnering with third party interests in the creative but also all other industries, so the group now has in excess of 128 partners including groups with the stature of Unilever and Proctor & Gamble, and even including a German soccer team ... all working on the same technical platform.
In order to function, the system needs to be supported with all the back office functionalities, need multimedia agencies for creation and interfaces, need sale technologies, call care and customer support ... all imaginable skills are required in delivering these convergent technologies. The policy adopted for the Bertelsmann model of convergence technology is based on entirely open standards, with no proprietary tools having been developed. This means that all tools required are available to all over the Internet.
The Bertelsmann model however makes additional features available over and above the re-broadcast of conventional TV. Video on demand services are to be rolled out to supplement existing TV broadcasts with every thing being streamed from their servers so people can choose to view what they want when they want it, rather than being limited to viewing at the time of broadcast. In addition, new types of programming are being developed to address niche markets which may not warrant continuous 24 hour broadcasting using conventional broadcast technology. All such programmes can be accessed 'on demand' by viewers drawing the material on request from the servers, which in the Bertelsmann model are close to headend.
Sample web page shown:
To look at Napster, it started a year ago, and achieved truly phenomenal growth. The Napster integration featured, music and videos on demand and won 'Best music site award, best innovative start up, best guerrilla marketing etc.
Another slide was shown about interactivity and video on demand, showing that this involves offering enhanced TV features. This can mean a combination of additional panels with information being shown on the user's screen as well as streamed moving images with sound. Additional communication features are then possible, including electronic chat screens etc.
The Bertelsmann vision has involved putting together all the stuff from different lines, to then bring this material to ISP's the operators who come from Cable, DSL, local loop, wireless plus existing printed media such as books periodicals etc. The Challenge is to make it run on as many different channels which carry the media.
With content being produced to target individual consumers, whether in their homes or in businesses, the new interactive media technologies need the participation of all interests. While not involved directly in the 'access' media themselves, the Bertelsmann group has a 15% stake in AOL and also in other groups, they need partners in DSL who have a good existing telephone system. Wireless technology is seen as being too expensive for mass market broadband. The UK is seen to be ahead in Europe, in Germany they will start testing in 2003 with different suppliers, so Bertelsmann want experience by association in UMTS as well.
In terms of user devices, set top boxes are seen as the way forward. The technology for these devices already exists, in varying models in terms of handling huge data streams and can therefore handle the services being created. Focusing on standards is seen as important, with DVB and MHP being used, but these technologies are not proprietary to Bertelsmann.
Technical delivery system involves a 'head' server in Germany, distributing information via the Internet backbone, to various regional 'head end' installations which house all the content being offered to customers. The link from regional head-ends is by DSL connection to each set top box, and from there connected to television sets and PC's (or Mac's). Started roll out in April this year, with cable and DSL operators working closely together, with negotiated sharing principles being applied regarding tasks, who does what, and therefore how the revenue share is apportioned subsequently. Who is in charge of billing and accounting etc. Trials in cities in 8 countries in the last year have shown that most households seem to use the service at prime time, i.e. at about 8pm. This is seen as a key in making the new technology attractive to advertising partners in particular. The sharing of revenues derived from users, when aggregated across significantly high proportions of the viewing public, make this an extremely lucrative proposition at a flat fee of about 10DM or £3 a week. Even if there is no connection fee, and the service is provided for free, large associates such as Unilever, Proctor and Gamble, are still very interested. Even with a free service the existence of negotiated royalties and commissions on sales generated from a service which will provide integrated e-commerce transactions by all partners will make it very lucrative. The key is seen to be in the negotiation of fair revenue shares amongst the various partners to cover the entire spectrum of the service.
So the Bertelsmann vision is not just provision of broadband ISP services , its not just the provision of Digital TV, its not just Pay TV, this system is 'pay as you go', it is not just IP multicasting. It is a real alternative to Pay-TV.
(Question): Richard Stubbs of the Newham.net Ltd Project: We area small public sector ISP-, unique in having been set up and working in one particularly poor borough in East London, would this be too small an audience for the Bertelsmann vision to be interested in?
(Answer): Have already started operating in locations with much smaller population sizes than that. There are not many networks already in place. Cable operators have only just started.(Kellerns [? spelling]) group in Germany will upgrade 10,000 households per month, so others are already doing it.
There is less than 2 percent of households on broadband currently, so the market is not ready for these technologies yet, but creating these visions of what the integrated technologies of the future will bring must start now.
(Question): Justin of Atlantic: With reference to your acquisition of a share in Napster, is it the intention to keep the sharing concept as it is but add ability to recoup royalties, or is the sharing idea doomed.
(Answer): We have to operate on this basis, concentrating on core competencies, have to help artists, operators to be paid. Need to build this sharing model.
(Justin): Having been a regular user of Napster it has a number of advantages, but I speak as someone who is prepared to use the service with an expectation of having to pay for it aswell. Because I have found stuff from Napster which is just not available elsewhere, but at the moment there is no mechanism that will enable one to pay for such material even if one wants to. Also, the implication is that if the sharing elements in Napster are allowed to continue to exist, you have no control over quality over the download process, or over the files themselves.
(Answer): These are technical matters, one can show how it would be used in cable systems.
(Justin): So, you are aiming at different platforms, cable with feedback and ADSL, will have different products.
(Answer): Yes. They are different with different receiving mechanisms, so for example connection via a set top box compared to connection to a PC .The product delivered to a PC might look different and be focussed more on business matters, whereas connection to a TV would be more suitable for households connected by cable and be targeted more at fun and entertainment activities.
DEMONSTRATION of the Bertelsmann System from a lap top emulating the delivery to a household, enabling arrange of possible users.
This material is presumed to have been made for delivery to a TV set via a Set Top Box (STB) which will have its own remote control enabling different users at this particular terminal to log in to their personal profile with their own identity and password ...whether this be members of a management team in a business setting, or members of a family who can all log in uniquely. There is sound and there is a 220 x 360 pixel image (approximately 1/16th of the overall screen size). There is advertising on 2 sides of the small screen and a column of clickable buttons on the left offering further options. There are numerous other 'clickable areas' from the advertising space as well as from the windows of textual information which can accompany the reduced television picture. Different screens take you to options including one which offers a preview of movies available to viewers, featuring content taken from some 600 hours of material... click on a preview of one's choice and you go to another screen, still with the same layout, where you have additional information on the movie of one's choice while it is the preview of the movie chosen which now shows in the small screen. Click on start and your screen changes to full screen format at the beginning of the chosen movie, whether this is seen on one's TV or on a PC screen. Viewer has the same control as with video recorders ... viewing can be paused, stopped, fast forwarded or rewound, exactly as with VCR functionality. Viewing can also be stopped.
The difference from using the VCR is that users can however also choose to chat with friends over the same connection(whether about the content, or any other matter) ... using the very same line, in addition to the line still also being available for totally separate telephony conversations.
So, one can be having a telephone conversation, and watching the video, and using another panel within the overall screen for 'chat'. Users can of course simply click back to full screen video functionality at any time. Referring to an advert from Calvin Klein, which has been very popular among viewers, featuring 2 females and a male involved in a developing story, with clickable links to email them ... the new technology would make it possible for the viewer to click on a link offering the option to go to live chat rather than just email. Users can also of course click on options to view products by Calvin Klein, and to place an order. An application handshake identifies the user to the system and confirmation of sale is sent to the customer in their living room almost instantly.
This medium can be applied to all forms of entertainment. With music, for example, users can have their choice in types of music, of particular artists' material. These can be chosen and downloaded into a personal choice of music favourites as one's personal music list, which will often be in music video format. There can also be a video favourites list and so on, but in parallel users of this technology can also click in order to access pages of back ground information about the favourite group , information about the next tour by this group, access to archived concert footage familiarising new users with what that group offers at their live events, and the user can obviously then also choose to reserve a ticket and pay for it as well as receive confirmation. These possibilities are all there simultaneously to users of the broadband technologies which are not available to cable only operators which simply offer the facility of showing just video.
After the music and video favourites, one could go to one's favourite cooking recipes held in remote data bases, you can browse and choose from all the different recipes available covering worldwide tastes. However, you can then also access any made-for-TV programmes that may already be available regarding those choices. So, once you click to your choice from any of an infinite number of choices and arrive at your preference, you then get the programme and you get interactivity and multimedia possibilities concurrently, you can also choose to click and order the book which would currently take you to a Barnes and Noble order point where you do the purchasing. Even if you are TV viewer with no knowledge of PC's or how all this interactivity works, the options are there to explore.
Users can choose to access travel sections for example, by language, by destination, all the information about the places one may wish to visit, and hotel booking agents ... all this is done through partnership. The network provides sellers and users alike with a structure, they in turn, whether as users or as suppliers feed in and customise their own information.
Sport: Go to bicycle races, beach-volleyball ... users can click to results current results, can have results in progress,. Utilising hotspot hyperlink technology, users can even click on individual players in the match to send him/her an email, or click on the pizza advert to have a 12 inch pizza delivered to the door with one's own choice of toppings.
Manufacturers or advertisers may choose to develop special interactive campaigns targeting children , as was recently done by Solero, where an interactive game can be played, the score posted into the system (along with one's email address), for notification of one's overall placing and thus a chance to win prizes offered.
All shopping activities, all e-commerce activities, all these media will be digitised, all books will be made digitally available, all video, all these tasks will be developed and shared with partners in theall-inclusive Bertelsmann vision of the interactive broadband technologies.
Individual niche providers, such as the Comedy Channel for example, can place their material into the system too, so any existing players already operating in the pay-TV field, and many other new niche markets yet to be developed as a result of the advent of these new technologies will be encouraged to place their content on the Bertelsmann system. Content from certain broadcasters, with their individual rights to particular shows, can offer anything from highlights or their entire programmes. There are many possibilities.
There is no provider of such services in the UK, although the video on demand services, with nothing else are developing. Similarly, there are no players in the US doing it, although again some services exist offering simply video on demand. So Bertelsmann have developed a system and are prepared to share their vision with the world.
Daniel Harris' background has included an education in art and design, followed by working in the video industry for 7 years, including editing. Then met Ricky Adar and helped start Cerberus in 1994 and developed Cerbernet as an ISP hoping to develop a delivery system to produce money for artists in the music industry. Unfortunately this didn't work and everyone in the music industry has now grown up and learnt lessons. Cerbernet was bought out by First Telecom, and they in turn by Atlantic, who are of course sponsoring the Kendra project and Daniel's work in this particular area.
This part of the day's agenda is therefore about presenting what Kendra is all about.
It's an opportunity to contributing to the creation of something better than what has gone in the past, and also providing opportunities for involvement and helping out. We all need to get together to make the vision work.
So, what is Kendra, and why become involved? As a consumer living with no TV in his home, Daniel would like to watch what he wants when he wants, to be able to pay for it in some form, whether this be in the form of accepting advertising, or pay for play, or subscription forms. As a content creator he would want to sell his own content, with no heavy deals in e-commerce, just a simple facility to create and sell. As Service Providers, we wish to enable revenue generation, enable that consumer getting to the content of the creator. We wants to ensure delivery, enable billing.
Given his Cerberus experience during 1994-95, he foretold the likelihood of mass piracy in the music industry, and that this would have a heavily adverse effect on the profitability of the industry, which sure enough did happen. We can look at what happened to the music industry and understand this was probably the precursor to it happening to film. Broadband access is beginning to be rolled out very cheaply now, so more and more video will increasingly now also get swapped over the net a la Napster. The Napster experience is not of course directly our concern ... it can be litigated against, it can be changed, our concern should be about Freenet, Nutella[spelling?] and a host of other open architecture systems allowing content to be swapped. Exchanged content is great, but the problem is we are not providing the possibility to buy it.
I WANT to be able to pay. Could have Napster customers paying 15 dollars per month. The Napster experience has taken off because everyone can get what they want when they want, which you can't do anywhere else. Business models exist, but things are constantly changing, and as fast as we may identify new areas of revenue generation, content swapping loses that potential revenue for us all.
Hardy presented Bertelsmann vision, but they are not the only ones doing this ... attempting to be the first movers in certain areas. So will we have 15 different Set Top Boxes, and an infinite variety of different portals?
Nutella[ed: spelling ?] and Freenet,become popular despite all this. While not being in anyway against there being a multiplicity of portals, or applications to deliver content ... but if Sony insists on selling only Sony content, and Universal only do THEIR own ... as a user I don't necessarily want to acquire an item because I want Sony content, I want it because I like that particular artist, or that particular track ...I want to be able to make a single search across all the platforms rather than having to find Sony.
So we need, to persuade consumers as well as the industries involved to come away from the free swapping scenario. We need a system with all content available but which also offers the possibilities for payment to be made. If not, then users will become confused by all the different portals they will need to go to, and if we don't provide them with it in one source, they will go to where it is provided, irrespective of whether it is provided for free because their primary need is met and satisfied.
Kendra is about formulating a platform that would enable content creators and aggregators to provide their content to a generalised system, using understandable handshakes and protocols, which portal creators, or application creators and payment people can link into. There will be millions of portals and application , but different people can follow different access patterns.
So Kendra is about Rights Management, it is also about User Management, however it is also about placing content as close to the user as possible.
The problems are not so much in the technology side, a lot of what is necessary already exists. Akamai get content as closeto users as possible already . Hardy needs to get content into the head ends. Quality of Service must be as good as it could be. If streaming content is now received from the US, then even on a fast modem it can be delayed and caused to stop, due to net congestion. How do we get rid of this? People would be prepared to pay for that content to be received uninterruptedly. There is a need to get content to the edge of the network. Akamai are big but they are not the only player. There are very many telephone exchanges in the UK alone, so we need to have co-operation on many different levels. ISP's, payment companies, official content copyright associations etc. This is a pre-emptive proposal, because if we don't do this, then in 2-3years time, there will again be a massive amount of sharing over the net of films, that we then lose control of. We won't destroy files-sharing, because the technology simply makes it possible. We need to win people over to a different position.
Hardy needs content, but how will he get it. He needs to make deals with all content providers out there. There are some massive issues involved out there, including how the smallest producer might be able to post their content into a standard format network, with a standard description of content. Hardy would get his product a lot easier and a lot quicker that way. If Hardy didn't have to place content into a head end but uses the Akamai principle instead, and Enron and Mirror Images, plus using all existing ISPs out there he would have far greater reach, far faster, much more easily.
So, this is great stuff. It could take ages. But not necessarily. The technology exists. Kendra has 15 ISPs hosting content already, serving content at different speeds. We have mirrors in the US and the UK, we have some big name contributors as well as many small name contributors, as users will know by looking at (the Kendra participating affiliates list).
Whether participants in this audience are here because they wanted to hear an outline of the Bertelsmann vision, or because they are genuinely interested in Kendra ... this CAN be made to work. Situation currently is there is a relatively small core of people who are into making this happen.
However, my forte is not necessarily in organising events, its more in getting relationships established with companies and to making this happen. This is the essential part of this. A well known Cerberus person, Ricky Adar, always said it's "always about triangles", meaning if you want it done, get someone ELSE to persuade the someone you want to persuade to do something. Kendra is however more like a 4d triangle, many more players, and the situation is constantly changing. We need to be very clever, because we need to have both the strands of experience and practical abilities on the one hand as well as the theory and technology on the other. We have an absolute requirement for artists (or should we say content creators), content aggregators, etc but a lot of the technology we need is already there.
The network trial exists, although of course it can be made better, bigger, wider, etc. We next need to get some major content in there, such as a BBC news feed, a Channel 4 feed etc. ISPs could then host a splitter box and allow many of their customers to view that particular stream. That will hype it up. We need hype telling people why Kendra is a good thing which must happen and why they should get involved.
(Answer): It's not just about technology, nor just about relationship either.
Our first meeting, on Friday 13th October was about technically how do we get content out to the edges.
(Question): ([Name?]) Why are ISPs not part of a linked system ... could this be simply because no one has suggested it?
Inktomi are trying, Content Bridge exists. There ARE efforts to try to move the industry forward so content can get to consumer more easily ... predominantly technology providers.
Also there are 7-9 large people as members and its really starting to get going .. what is driving Content Bridge is the need to have better standards for getting content from producer to consumer via intermediate caches and networks. Also need to get visibility on where the content goes, who used it in what language, what performance was like, was the customer pleased or did he abort the viewing after 10 seconds. We need to make competing vendors come up with standard systems. Revenue can be provided by taking items of content, the assets, from the source and placing them at the edges, then tracking those items of content and their usage.
Content Bridge experience will be essential to Kendra. A real minefield exists out there in terms of content and copyright. The current structure for copyright management is very interesting indeed, with 20 different organisations in each country wanting a slice of the cake. AND they can't talk to each other currently. It's slow, it's cumbersome. There are issues to be addressed such as whether artists will get a fair proportion of money accruing or whether it will go to the distributors and the technology people or the telecoms people. There are very many issues.
There are commercial problems, such as over content placed by a smaller content provider via Bertelsmann. Peering systems may well involve the bigger partner charging the smaller one in order to taketheir content. Content providers will not find this easy to understand. Why should they pay while they are used to system currently which pays them for producing the content.
(Justin): So if we need different varieties of content via one portal, and the question is directed towards Bertelsmann, how much of what you show in prototype will you actually be able to deliver. How will it actually work? If I now go to the Bertelsmann site now using broadband will I be able to get Fox, other major media giants' content, do you have deals NOW to do it.
(Answer): YES. They are not themselves setting up similar systems. RTL 2 is 50% owned by Disney for example. The prototype is a prototype because I can not show you material from the living examples in German cities. We have Sony, we have Warner, Universal. There are 200 partners already and we are speaking to al the major players worldwide now.
(Question): ([Name ?]) (City University person): The presentation has heavily featured the Private sector. There is however also the public sector. This isn't just about selling interactive quizzes to gather children's email addresses. Some of us may not want to see the splitting ... the Internet is not a private environment. What are the thoughts on such matters. A famous politician once uttered the comment that there is no such thing as community. But there IS community out there, and we see it become visible through all the community-type transactions such as occur on Napster.
(Hardy): It's a closer user group and you would have to enrol. We do need to establish an identified customer relationship and the details about them.
(Daniel): But we need to include swapping of content issues in this discussion. How do we swap material which we use. We need to use the same language, in the same infrastructure. That is what Kendra should enable us all to cope with. Where both Sony and Joe Bloggs public can post some song files where all the content is authorised, and a revenue stream is generated. Independents must be allowed as well as the majors.
(Izi): Are we not overestimating payment. Bertelsmann seem to understand this. The key is actually that it is management of the account holder's desires which is the key, and so my complements to Bertelsmann. When buying shares in Napster they are not doing it to eliminate piracy. It's for the time management relationship with consumers. But is it just as simple a matter of taking the money and allocating it by a formula? And what will that formula be?
(Hardy): We believe people are ready to pay for content, and yes we also believe they are preparedto pay for time management.
(Question): Interested in set top box scenario, interactive TV being convergence shop. The Internet isexciting because production tools are actually in the possession of the consumers. We have seen the emergence of very innovative new content such as the Blair Witch phenomenon. In Set-Top-Box land it doesn't seem possible for those sorts of things to happen.
(Hardy): There are Specifications and Guidelines, to produce the application. Some of our existing partners are very small companies, and we recognise that we need them too in order to make our technology work. But it is true that our subscribing consumer will only see what we want them to see.
(Hardy): We don't believe there will be a single STB or a single suite of software. One could even say there should be more than a single STB in most households. But at the moment the technology is complicated and so we need special people to install them. In 2 or 3 years the technology should have evolved so we will all be able to install them ourselves.
(Ken) :Japanese mobile phone systems, lots of content being delivered ... real mass of consumers subscribing to content. One reason its so successful is you don't have different payment system for different items. The bill for services or goods just arrives on your phone bill. This is important for many consumption decisions, when an impulse purchase is enabled, with billing on a single existing mechanism. Need a model whereby whoever provides IP access... there are different models , so this association is needed.
(Justin): We need a Napster-type interface which debits our account. It's essential that it is seamless. If there are billing people here perhaps they can make some comments about this. Atlantic is already for amounts measured in multiples of 1 second of telephony time, so why not do it for video also. As they will be delivering broadband services, they can do the billing too.
(Answer): (unknown speaker) Some people here may not be aware of the Microsoft Passport, which is actually a single verified user account.
That would be wonderful, we don't need different log on identities. Would need to be tied to form of access, one bill for access, another bill for passport, but if Atlantic and other telecoms want to do it, they could be the people to do that in the billing context. Bertelsmann would be happy to have the billing relationship defined like that, so yes Atlantic you could do so.
(Hardy): But there is also a psychological aspect, which is that people don't want huge bills, and some prefer separated bills. Sometimes all the billing is done by cable and DSL operators, or it could be Bertelsmann. This will in turn be reflected in the revenue split... if partner does the billing they get something more.
MD of Global Internet Billing wished to point out that his company can provide what is required now, because they are a form payments solutions provider. These payment systems are already in use for many types of products. Any charge for consumption of content, or a service, or purchase of a product appears on a users phone bill. They partner with many different companies and have a variety of technologies allowing charge to phone bill. Started from systems evolved for charging for Premium rate phone calls made by users leading to a charge shown on their phone bill. First technology started 3 years ago in the US. They also have prepay models, involving use of a prepayments card.
(Justin): Broadband makes that technology rather dated and very inadequate.
Later models as operating now with Deutsche Telecom, skip need to make the phone call, and place a charge for consumption directly on the phone bill. They are currently developing an interface which takes information from a web-browser, designed for ADSL.
Principle is simple, how quickly it gets taken up depends by country. Use of premium rate calling has involved a much greater acceptance in Germany. Deutsche has a better collection system than B.T. In fact some two thirds of BT bills are in the customer's hands, because of late payment habits ... so there may be a question on whether BT would actually wish to add new categories to their billing mechanism. Deutsche Telecom in contrast has a much lower consumer debt. The outcome will depend on whether phone companies wish to take on additional debt collection tasks.
(Unknown questioner) ... are you happy to be thrown into telco dispute resolution mechanisms when consumers dispute stuff, because this will happen a lot.
(Daniel Harris): there can be no one billing solution, no one payment solution, no one system. These markets involve a highly competitive situation.
Can see it now, the very people who licence the music, still haven't decided who has responsibility for the web. It would be a shame if too many people stake their claims too early. Oftel has just closed their consultation on regulation of premium rate billing. These premium rate re-diallers may be ancient history because Oftel is looking for an integrated relationship...
How do we make things happen is the object of Kendra. We need to figure out ways and means for Kendra to happen. There are lots of technology companies moving that way. ContentBridge is one of them. It's not a fancy, things ARE moving this way. That is why it IS relevant for it to be around.
[TEA BREAK& Networking]
(Moderator): The object is to make this a fully interactive session, so think of it as a round table discussion, in terms of content, concerns etc. My own background is as a TV producer for CH4 and the BBC. Then 4 years ago I got interested in webcasting, set up the first ever webcasting production company in UK, called 'Webcast'. It was way too early to set up such a company, and so I have since spent time as a consultant to Virgin and others, while now working with Chyron Streaming Services, a major producer of broadcast equipment. The results of their graphics equipment was seen during recent coverage on Olympic 2000 results. They produce much of the transmission and automation equipment for CH4 and BBC. Just decided to get into streaming media in a big way. Giving producers tools for scheduling, cataloguing, producing searchable indexes, targeted ad insertion, digital rights management. And all this in a manner which gives producers the ability to do this from their personal desktops.
So back groundhas been involvement in the practicalities of the subject under discussion at this Kendra conference. How to broadcast content over the Internet regularly, to a professional standard of broadcast, while maintaining a user-friendly interface.
Self introductions by other panellists:
Alex Kinch - FLASH FM : has worked in Internet-related fields since '94, streaming since 95, has worked with some of the big ISPs and is now director of broadcasting. This places him in quite a unique position, because they are among those broadcasters who place their material on the Internet only. They have had to tackle numerous difficulties and acquire experience in licensing issues. Their company was one of the first to do targeted ads in webcasts.
Mark Adams - Cidera, delivering content to the edge via satellite, 100 streaming events, 800 systems, 50 vast servers with virtual application servers. Content is produced to the highest standards possible in order that even reception using a 56k modem will produce a 'DVD quality' of reception to the end users (and it works).
Rachel Baker - irational.org: is here representing an on-online collective which is an organisations of artists. This includes a group of on-line do-it-yourself broadcasters called Exchange. Also artist in residence at Hull's [ed: missed that bit] ... who's objective is to discover how independent projects and community can network, so as to access the networks and the mainstream. Creativity in content provision, and the designation as 'artists' can also apply to newly emerging Internet-artists, whose creativity is the very output of what the web itself can do, and the various activities and software, as well as ways of networking.
Simon Perry- Lemon TV... a content provider who is commissioned by companies, such as CH4 and many other non-broadcast companies to implement webcast presentations. They also produce their own content for distribution to portals. His personal background is that he has been involved in these matters for over 12 years now, from the pre-Netscape days, coming here as a content producer, but with a specialist interest in the technical side.
Tim Newton - Quark TV : Creating content on computers, script writing, independent film making, quite a lot of theatre, getting to know the technical side of what the new technologies require. Now doing work with corporates, a particular project with a South London Drugs Agency doing 'Talking Heads', problems with content that would look good on the net. There is a big difference in delivering content via broadband compared to producing it for use over 56kmodems. He is here because as self taught editors and producers, they are aware of the need to expand beyond their own previous limits.
Hardy Heine - Bertelsmann Broadband Group , Vice President and head of marketing and sales ... real multimedia convergent with life.
Lorraine Barclay - DesignSpirit ... Has worked for 5 years in media, before that worked on convergence issues with the BBC, examining digitising media formats and format issues affecting access to content in the future, plus first digital archive for the BBC.
Izi Muraben - Telecoms & Internet Division, IIR Ltd : a pirate at heart, started a record and music rental franchises company, operating in Holland, until the Bertelesmann Group put him out of business, now runs and administers the European ISP Content Forum.
(Moderator): Let's first get a feel of the kind of people we have in the audience also, suggesting a show of hands by activity: ... Telecoms 7, Content Aggregators 12, Content Creators15, [ed: ? Category] 13, Public Sector 3, Others 5.
(Moderator): propose we start this session by looking at activities in different fields, edge serving being done by Akamai, Digital Island etc. There will be other people out there who want to aggregate content, with difficulties to be experienced in delivering content to the user at a reliably high quality. Seems the issue here is that at the moment it is not possible to deliver broadband audio and video in any sort of economically effective way. The IWA [( had a talk from speaker (phil?) of Madgeweb at a meeting on 29th November] reported a cost of £10 to deliver 90 min movie to someone ... which no one will pay [ed: at that price]. So, the cost of hiring from a local video store is much cheaper. Therefore, how do we economically deliver the content ... possibly from within the network the person is already connected to? So, from Freeserve for Freeserve customers etc. This suggests edge serving will be a vital mechanism until multicasting is developed and implemented on a global scale. We need to hear the views of our participants about that.
(Question): (asking Mark)... Have you considered satellite distribution ... Chair's impression is that the satellite distribution medium is good for getting material from the central servers to the edge, rather than in sending it out ... but put the point for the panel to reply to.
(Mark): Satellite distribution ensures that 100% of one's information will get passed on to the client, so that quality is very high compared to sustaining packet losses of 24 to 45% over the web, given everything that goes on there. One only has control, if one has control of the entire system, so satellite is the only way to actually achieve a 100% quality guarantee, that's why it's gone to satellite. But satellite direct to consumer? Well, Astra is working on satellite distribution and so one can base estimates on the 750k bandwidth required for Astra, in order to give the end-user a full screen movie image. Broadband offers that vital (for true interactivity) return path. The return path technology via satellite is "being worked on", and it would be nice to not have wires coming into the house. But the technology which would require having a dish on every roof is at the trial stages, in terms of a system that could feed info back to the 'broadcaster'.
(Hardy): We believe that return path communication is not feasible over satellite, [uncertainty whether the following statistics were correctly noted] one needs a capacity of 34meg, delivery to a single end-user location would require a capacity of 1.5meg ...necessitating a transponder for each 24 users. That can not be the future ... we are talking about requiring that sort of bandwidth capacity to each and every single user. Satellite transportation of data from the centre to local server is very useful, but not to single consumers.
(Question): As Kendra is about making content distribution effectively, can we stick to the edge server model. But, under the Bertelsmann model, the problem foreseen is that while it seems simple for companies like Disney etc to deliver directly via the system, how about the small content providers. How do THEY get their product to all the edges of the network, so their product also can be accessed. That seems to be one of the things this organisation is about.
(Daniel): Partly, getting content out there is what we area bout yes ... but there IS also CD distribution and other stuff, we can't just ignore that. We have to take those industries and persuade them there is another way to work, look at infrastructure, look at copyright issues, how can Kendra help?
(Alex) What problems does he envisage, problems about being squeezed out by the big boys, whether for commercial or technical reasons, or even just because the big boys are scared ... major players in the music business seem to be experiencing big problems, through the lack of copyright systems. The copyright organisations seem as if they are all going after broadcasters individually, there is no group licensing - the PRS and MCPS, AIM systems. But the SONY's are going to individual ISPs and negotiating with them individually, offering options to cease using their materials, or pay them 15% of revenues. Is copyright actually just about squeezing the small ones out of the market?
Smaller aggregators such as Alex, might create the small gem. It is very difficult for the large record companies to create something truly grass roots and highly innovative which will feel 'close' to end consumers. But let's say I really do like the output from Alex's service, and am very interested in watching that kind of material, regularly ... how would that work within the Bertelesman model?
(Hardy): They can partner with Bertelsmann. We need lots of infrastructure in place. What we are talking about is a truly huge investment ... to put all the infrastructure and hardware in location ... 250,000 pounds per location. We don't ask companies like Alex's to put all the money in there in order to make it all possible. But he could be a part in the Bertelsmann vision, which has paths designed into the system in order to have that kind of material in the infrastructure, without having to invest the huge amounts that are required. Everyone can be part of the revenue sharing model, but these are matters of technical infrastructure. The structure does allow it ... there are all the ancillary structures that are provided.
(Moderator): What is the revenue share however, in such a scenario?
(Hardy): ... to be discussed on a personal basis. There is no average, depends on the actions you are responsible for within the overall chain.
(Moderator): Does your system involve a customer playing music which you have the rights to ... this is a question on agreement and licensing ...
(Hardy): One does need to have a contract yes ... we signed it and we have all the rights ..
(Cody Hogarth - TVfiles): ... it appears that they have the sale system in place and are simply aggregating content from different content providers. They are simply the mechanism.
(Question): Does Bertelsmann do the deal with content providers.
(Hardy): We have 3 different sections. The technical section, the editing and content section which is in the charge of my colleague Simon De Beauer [?spelling], and the marketing and sales section which I am in charge of. We have access facilities, networking with partners, and so, we as a group could certainly deal with clearance issues on behalf of producers.
(Izi with the pirates view): Just to provide another answer to the previous question, and as I am sure Hardy would agree, there can't be a single standard agreement, its just not possible to standardise that. It varies tremendously, depending on whether its Madonna one is speaking of ... she brings customer eyeballs with her, there are the millions who will follow her because it is Madonna ... or whether you want Turkish-Jewish Wedding Songs... Likewise, if the content IS placed with Bertelemann this also will bring eyes to the content ... am I exploiting Bertelsmann...my content provider source may want to deliver via other channels also ... I don't think you can standardise all that ... it will be the same old bazaar haggling situation, with different content copyright owners having different muscle power, with different technical platforms also having different powers.
(Moderator): Content aggregators in our audience, please make your comments !
(Craig Moehl - Groovy Gecko ) you attended the first Kendra meeting. We seem to have an opportunity which we are not exploiting. This panel is content providers. We should be asking what YOU guys want. You have this content, you know your customers, you are all niche industries. How can people distribute your content to the audiences
(Hardy): We would love to own your product and we are developing the infrastructure to serve it on.
(Moderator): Once you do have the pipeline it's a great model. But Kendra seems to be about breaking down those barriers. You have a proprietary infrastructure whatever you may say about its openness. The strategic partnerships to be formed by Kendra would however also have to be with groups like Bertelsmann.We need to have the Bertelsmanns, AND the Universals, and... ... but remember that it is the end users' experience which is the KEY that needs to be considered. That is the focus. What do YOU guys on the panel want? How can other people help you to deliver your content to the people out there, and what part can Kendra play in that? But I propose we ask people on the panel to answer that question after we have had more comments from the floor...
(Joh Danzig - Look-HearTV(r)):... we need a package whereby our end users' purchase requirement is matched all the way down the line. We already have tremendous choice on bandwidth. The consumer isn't buying bandwidth .. it is that which leads to discrepancies in making a sale that is profitable. If you want a shirt, it means you would like a shirt that you would like the look of, rather than because of the Marks and Sparks brand name. We need some form of packaging so what consumers are wanting to be buying is getting there, rather than because the brand name is providing something. We are at an embryonic stage in the development of this industry ... when the real structure is there, then these discussions will pale into insignificance. But once the infrastructure is there we need to make sure it's selling the right thing to us.
(Moderator): If you take it that, in order to get that, ... and to get that to the end user while also providing the best possible end user experience ... you would presumably need to be close to the edge with your servers? What is YOUR current solution? As things stand at the moment we'd have to pay several thousand pounds per month for that kind of service.
(Question from the floor): Sky, with their digital technology have they not done it? The Bertelsmann packaging seems no different ...
(Moderator): Could be Sky is doing it, don't know. But Bertelsmann, you haven't been quite open enough on also being an open video content provider. We need you to be more open on what this would involve. The Bertelsmann model appears to be doing it for businesses prepared to pay more for higher quality. There is a difference between providing a high quality for low volume .. others are low value high volume ...
(Steve Kennedy - Thus Plc ): The current model, where there is not a huge amount of the web that will charge, but the model will change. Content providers will have to pay to get the material to the ISP's and content providers will have to charge ... however they do it, whether by ads or subscription etc ... but consumers will have to pay, in some form or other, directly to their ISPs and/or content providers. It is that which pays for the infrastructure. Only content providers with deep pockets will take part in this vision.
(Moderator): That's not what happens in cable. Sky Digital has to pay Disney for the rights to carry it on its networks. Are you swayed by that ... or will it not work that way also for broadband.
(Hardy): It will work like that. But you must look at who is Sky Digital. Sky is a contents aggregator, so the aggregator will pay to get the content out to the users, and will then be charging subscription, services fees, etc. If one is the content aggregator one pays, or else content providers have to pay for it.
(Justin): We are all hugely optimistic that we will have the all singing, all dancing system, and make money from being the distributor or being the owner of the content etc... but more and more of the process at the moment is about getting everyone wired .. would you not say that it will take another 5 - 10 years before the thing pays ... the actual costs are quite staggering ... all content needs to be digitised, which it isn't yet ... we need a system for distributing rights etc.
... so it WILL cost tons ... beyond what we are thinking now, we need to think of it in the right perspective ... but as we all know, people are losing their nerve and investors are fleeing these industries in the financial markets at the moment ... it will take a long time to get it sorted.
(Daniel): It's not just about having enough cash ... there are lots of people out there to do the work... Lorraine on the panel has worked on a project with the BBC looking at formats to use in digitising content ... Justin look at the costs to the music industry as an example, and see what happened there.
Quick fixes don't work .. if you get the material out there now quick ... and leave it to sort the problems out later.. will the panel agree about a 5-10 years prognosis, or will it happen faster?
Lorraine Barclay - DesignSpirit The BBC has had exactly the same problem as small content providers, and the biggest problem of all is the one of standards and formats. No one can agree what format to digitise into. Do we use mpeg2, or wait for mpeg4 or mpeg7. There are always new standards coming along. Their decision was to first digitise archives for the news, it is our living history after all. Other issues have to do with compressing. It takes 8 hours for one hours of actual content. Then, what form of broadband is one digitising for. The BBC still have a long way to go in digitising it all ...
(Question): Is this part of project Irene ...
(Lorraine): There are lots of initiatives within the BBC.
(Moderator): Would like to get answers from other people on the Panel on the question of Content providers having to pay to get their material on edge servers ...what do people think of it... Rachel would you pay to get your material seen?
(Rachel): It is difficult in this conference because most of the people here are talking from a distinctly private sector perspective ... there are very few voices here speaking from a public sector perspective. The difficulty is (it relates to what Andy said). We are more interested in not treating the user as a consumer ... a key factor here for the commercials is to shift more product, music books etc .. whereas lots of artists communities are able to create their own infrastructure and product sales. So it's difficult for me to have a dialogue about this with you commercial people. There isn't anyone here representing the public... other than maybe the BBC person.
(Rachel): OK, so you guys go out and create the infrastructure and we'll pirate it ... artists like us. But yes, infrastructure is expensive. We shall look to the public sector then. Yes, infrastructure may be expensive, but that's not what people consume ...don't forget it is artists who are involved in creating those very tools, the interactive experiences ... and helping to shape the development of the web itself. It's not just about shoving ready made bits of audio and video down a line.
The Internet IS about that. It's where commerce meets artists. We are empowered by the Internet. I can sell my film at movies.dot.com.uk. It's then broadcast over the Internet. So I've invested my limited means .. and people are very interested and fascinated... so we are commissioned to produce material for their websites ... we get to meet interesting companies ... interesting ideas ...
(Question): We saw Internet as the great leveller ... this included you as part of that .. now we are looking at getting best quality to end user ... so you will now have to do a deal to get closer to the consumer. Does that limit your creativity ... are you worried, or are you happy to get commissioned by Bertelsmann ?
Flexibility of the times, the times the are a' changing. There will be more fusion. It is possible to make a living and be creative. Technical constraints actually induce creativity because you need to find ways through problems. In the case of both of our backgrounds as writers, working to a brief and making it exciting. That's a very exciting prospect ... that's where the fusion will take place. That's where it will go. It will take time, and lots of it. Meanwhile we need incentives along the path, to keep us interested, to help develop the work.
(Moderator): I think it would be relevant to get an answer to Craig's question, about content requirements. In doing so, the question is ... is Bertelsmann broad enough in its interests to take content that is 'alternative', of the kind that might be created by other members of our panel ... niche content.
(Hardy): Firstly, the public sector question ... yes it IS represented. Among our (affiliates?)(subsidiaries?)(?partners?) are ZDF , VDR, NDR. These are all public companies that already take part. They are part of the system and already integrated to take their content on advisory services, they can produce all the material relating to those fields.
Secondly, the point about other aggregators. Let's take travel for example. Bertelsmann has nothing on travel, so the partners who do travel, THEY do it. They aggregate travel content. Same with Games. Bertelsmann has no games activities. So, different content providers are done by the Games people.
There is a niche for very many different interests. Bertelsmann will not have golf interests, or fishing, or other special interests from other cultures. There is a niche for it all. Even if the content only consists of 2 or 3 video clips, it would be a channel ..
(Moderator): So, do you see Rachel's Irrational.org finding a place in the Bertelsmann structure?
(Hardy): Yes.
(Moderator): But how soon will you want it? Surely you will want a high level of revenue generation first.
(Hardy): Content and video on demand will make their financial return. 60- 80 % of the content is free. It is included in the subscription fee of 10DM (£2) per month for free. Advertising and e-commerce companies could put money in the pot. They can finance things. There are new ways of thinking on how to do this. There are commercials, there are discounts, so consumers can get your video for 5DM instead of 8. There are new business models, because people learn from it all. Big brand names like Unilever are also thinking in these ways.
(Justin): We forget the parallels between the real world and the possibility of a fancy future. In the real world gallery space does not come for free. Exhibitions are sponsored, or foundations provide space, by universities and other bodies having events space. So as in the real art world, IBM will sponsor some big server. Interactive collaborative arts projects will be possible, universities will have space for their students' art work. The Getty Foundation and other bodies will provide funding. It doesn't cost that much because we're not talking about delivering Mickey Mouse to every child in the world simultaneously.
But, isn't it going to take 5 - 10 years, or thereabouts to roll it out and have a meaningful system ?
(Mark): Not best person to say. We already have 11,000 hobs out there to get material out to, and from there to the net. The quality is there. It's a question of aggregating the content. But do we all want all the content all the time? We don't actually want the list of everything. We need more 'push channel' content. That then comes down to marketing to specific groups of people, and pushing it to those users, through marketing.
(Justin): It is all market driven, driven by money. It has to be business as always. Most reports, Forester for example, speaks of 20% of households by 2005, then growth of 20% every 5years. This suggests it will take at least 10 years to get there.
(Daniel): How many people have ADSL OR ACCESS one third ...
Why go to individual content? 1940's films ... how do I get to them? That's the kind of material like that .. not necessarily niche .. but history and archives that we don't have access to..
(Mark) ...that's tonight, what will you watch tomorrow?
(Craig): ..Getting content out there will be a matter of using broadband. But equally, everything does come down to economics. Rachel's compelling content will be there, and there will always be demand for it, however small. But there is no such thing as a free lunch. A consumer must be prepared to pay for it.
Steve said there is not enough content, that's why everything on the net is free.
(Rachel): How do we define artists? Is it as freeloaders?
(speaker's name not noted) Artists are being helped by the public sector. The Arts Council of Great Britain has to pay for the cost of the services used. They are clients of ours, go and see the site, unbelievable content. Talk about talent and directors and film-makers. If you want their content go out there, get the sponsorship, do it.
(Rachel)..organisations are very local, it's a different world. There are some crossovers and points to be negotiated. Go to your councils, go and negotiate it. If you want to come and talk to us with 2 or 3 other people in this room, do it.
Christian Braun - TextOneZero ... Artists needed by the web more than artists need the web.
Artists paying for the net is ludicrous ... the original dream was to allow artists to distribute their art themselves through the net. Yet here we are now debating whether this is to be via the Arts Council or via Bertelsmann ...
So the issue then is about getting money from consumers. If artists want to get their material out there, and they make no money out of it now, it may be no different in the future than before ... they may still not make any money out of it ... at least the art gets out however.
(Ben Roeder - sohonet ): Look at the experience of Sohonet. Artists were having to incur very significant costs and they are trying to do their own distributing anyway. It costs big money to do the distributing now. So, doing the distributing offline is the same. On-line just makes it available to a much bigger audience. Yes, you can do it yourselves, you can still distribute and not go to the big boys' worlds.
(Paul Sergeant - Yesmate.com): A small ISP which retains a close relationship with subscribers to the service. We also work with Westminster digital who produce content with permission from 10 Downing Street, and run the Parliament Channel, so they can distribute politics through various channels.
(Moderator): The Point is that this covers both sides ... it's all about brands and how they are represented over the net. Bertelsmann is buying into other peoples' brands. If Irrational bought in, they would have to give up some of their branding. Will Bertelsmann give up some of their share also? Will things change to the extent of Bertelsmann offering Irrational part of their back-end revenues also, so it becomes Irrational which markets the Bertelsmann image?
[editorial note: smiles all round] Moderator: Rachel likes the idea, so if that WERE possible Irrational would definitely be interested! But what particular bit would you like, in that whole idea? What do we include and what do we exclude?
(Rachel): what's useful is being able to tap into infrastructure (technical) and redirect it. To get to use it for non-commercial stuff. The artists' groups are strongly interested in maintaining independence. It's not just about producing video etc. Part of their interest also is to help create the distribution medium. Napster is art, there are artists involved in creating their distribution, tools and software. The things we can't create are the physical lines, the bandwidth, the physical hardware is what we need.
(Steve): I think I would like to modify last view. There will always be low cost or free content, but it will be a low quality service distributed across the net, competing with everyone else. What content providers will pay for will be true quality. Telcos are totally screwed at the moment, so it will be media companies bailing out the telecos. The archives being put on-line will pay for the archives to be put on line. Utility companies will pay for the utilities companies. But a key question is how we use the various content delivery networks to get the material there to the end user who wants it, and then how to get payment to the creatives.
(Simon): As a content producer, there are only 2 - 3of us in the company, all the effort goes into creation of content. Our views are that distribution is a necessary evil because we want to be paid for what we're doing. But you need to negotiate with lots of people, you need to categorise information about the content (we will talk about meta data later), to put the description in and look for other material which matches these descriptors. This is a key factor therefore, that users should be able to search for their desired items based on those kind of criteria, but there are no standards in existence to make that possible. The networks are part of it, but that's transport. However, content and its classification, that is the key.
(Question): Talking about Bertelsmann and Akamai: What's the Content Bridge part in this?
(Joe): Can answer that while adding my own question to the panel also ... the goal behind Content Bridge is to facilitate getting content to the edge, monetise that process... today content owner pays because they have to. Access providers control the structure and control everything else also. What do Akamai and Digital Island (Digital is part of it) ...Akamai is free to join but they have poo pooed it. The point is to get this process in place, to make this a reality. My question to you is "What is it the artist wants, we have lots of free content, but will it be delivered. The consumer will pay for very high quality which is what Bertelsmann will deliver. A guaranteed quality of service, rather than that obtainable from the current streaming situation.
Content Bridge: is it about creating infrastructure with any isp ... or is it about Akamai and Digital to emulate them?
It's primarily about building open architecture systems. Content Bridge is about developing standards, submission made to it to do this .. but it won't work if there are content providers, and access providers. It's about developing the content and helping them generate revenues. Content providers pay now. In the future access provider may pay you, provided you have high value content.
Sounds like Kendra is similar to and should join Content Bridge, or Content Bridge can join Kendra.
There's another one like Content Bridge. There are 3 consortiums. Akamai with proprietary systems, there is the Cisco content alliance, and there's Content Bridge ... and they tend to be Cisco customers too.
If one of Kendra's goals is to create standards to allow it all to occur, then why would Digital Island want to be a part of Kendra ... so yes ... they are competitors ..but their view is that if Digital Island hosts some compelling high value content, they can make it available to others also .
(Hardy): The Broadband Content Delivery Forum (BCDF) exists, and there are lots of other industries with forums. There are network operators, there are more than 100 organisations that exist already.
(Moderator): So, the technology panel could take up various issues from what has been said. There are any number of contents needed in order to provide the material, so perhaps we may want to ask more about that next time. Now, from this session what was interesting is that we are looking at the question, on the one hand do you have to go talk to major content aggregators to get the content out there. If you are like Alex, real small, if you want to deliver quality to consumer ... then what? It's informative hearing about BCDF and Content Bridge.. are there other more generic sets of standards to be put in place to enable anyone to get content out there? So, yes we have to pay, but how does it happen?
(Daniel): Thanks Kim for moderating the session ... what came out of it for me, from the content panel, ... Steve you said content creators would bale out the telcos when the money that telcos charge for their services falls thru the floor !
(Steve): So. The media people are the only ones with the money to fund this kind of development ?
(Christian): You mentioned that without content there is no Internet.
(Daniel): Rachel, we hear what you say about wanting access to the infrastructure as it begins to go into place. But more broadly, information about Kendra HAS gone out as far as we have been able to make it reach. Our aim has to be to represent a minimum of 25 percent of music and other creatives in the UK. I see this as key. Without content people we are nothing. It's a very difficult thing to bring people into a meeting like this. Yet it IS essential that we do need to have the artists themselves here to meet the technicians. But I must disagree with Rachel's view about 'you create it and we'll use it'. It can't just work that way. And, when speaking about Rachel, there are actually very many different groups creating content all over the place already. Artists come in all kinds of shapes and forms. We should more accurately be talking about content creators, rather than about artists. To creators, the infrastructure is obviously vital.
So to rephrase it, we need content creators and technicians to decide how we build a system like this. We can't just build it, and produce it, and hand it over. Kendra is about being absolutely successful, otherwise why are we doing it. We are not talking about massive bits of technology, but there are no models for this out there. We need to build something that is attractive to both parties, so we need content producers on board from the start. The film makers, and the film producers need to be brought in on a meeting like this.
Info HAS gone out ... how do we make them come along ...(but informing Chris Smith won't do it ... he ain't an artist)
(Moderator): (to Daniel) What do you see the relationship being between Kendra, BCDF, Content Bridge and the others. Will you all just work together with all having very similar aims?
(Daniel): Absolutely so, it is nice that Joe Frost - Inktomi came to both of these Kendra meetings, it is crucial we do all talk to each other, but more than that is the quality of people who are involved. We must get the content creators on board. If we don't have them we may not have the INTERESTING product we imagine ourselves as having. So. shall we do a joint meeting with Content Bridge et al? They have the same problems Kendra has, getting Channel 4, getting the BBC, getting independent artists. It is crucial we get them on board. As I am basically a technologist, I have my own networking channels as that. We need to get through to webcasters, we need all those e-mailing lists, we don't know those people. THAT is where our marketing has failed.
(Izi):Content creators have to work with the technology people, but there is also the little matter of the customer interface also. Remember that while the Internet needs artists, artists doesn't need artists. Who really cares about production and creativity really, that's all a small part of it. If we have the channels to market then people like Bertelsmann will tell us what consumers want in order to enable Bertelsmann to create a niche profile, but the most important bit of it all is the customer interface. All are important, we can't isolate out these things, everyone has to be involved.
(Hardy): I would like to ask one question also, if I may, of the audience. How many people here are from outside the UK ?
(Moderator): 4, and all from the US !
(Bertelsmann): If Kendra wants this to work, then it can't be UK only, this has to be Global. The other organisations address everyone, not just the UK.
(Daniel): Yes, I know the URL is kendra.org.uk ...we went with that just because we couldn't get the domain we wanted. But we do have the Network demo up and running on our website. Half the ISPs are from the US , including one from Mexico, but yes, I agree. We must put more emphasis on collaboration over the net. This kind of meeting doesn't really make a whole lot of sense really, but we can let that emerge later on, in the afternoon.
Anyone leaving this conference at the end of the morning session, please talk to Daniel before leaving.
[MORNING SESSION ENDS]
[AFTERNOON SESSION:]
(Julie): To give you a history of Kendra ... there are actually a number of projects presented on our display board, of which the one you are attending by coming here today is the Kendra INITIATIVE. The History is that about 5-6 years ago, we started a research project called Kendra (working with Daniel) which was about adaptive intelligent cashing for audio delivery. The Kendra INITIATIVE has arisen out of that initial project.
Why area cademia interested in this kind of thing? Academics are interested in technical matters, and being commissioned to obtain answers to possible problems, and like technical and creative people, are interested in trying to facilitate communication and finding solutions to problems. So, academia seeks to bridge the gap in knowledge through the mechanism of research. Therefore academia seeks funding. There are many small companies which wouldn't themselves have the funding to seek technical solutions, so they can look to academia to fulfil need.
Artists also wish to get their art work out, and look to the Artificial Intelligence System to get info out about their work. Both sides have different overlapping needs being served by the outcome to such research. Academia is here to help, working with industrial partners, sometimes the industrial partner funds such research, but not always. Academia may need to gain access to data from private sector practitioners, and so when academia gets the funding, but then requires co-operation with industrial/commercial partners in order to conduct the research.
The sessions earlier today were attended by academics with an interest in content provision rather than the technical side. This session now is intended to look at the technical side of the communications technology industries.
(Craig Moehl - Groovy Gecko): Academically trained, has a personal interest in strategic systems management and comes from a varied background which has included working in the Pharmaceutical industry, with BAT, and being Operations Manager for MTV Networks Europe. Groovy Gecko is a premier streaming provider, encoding, hosting and providing all the extras, e-commerce integration, pay per view etc. Interested in Kendra because of it's inherent interest. Is not quite sure what it is trying to achieve. He is here to become involved in the process of identifying goals and seeing if there are ways in which they can help out... as an ISP we need to know what you need in order that we can try to deliver it.
(Richard Lucas - Vision 360 Ltd): BsC in computer science, Vision 360 enables corporates to use the net ...
(Richard Stubbs - Newham.net Ltd): has worked in the London Borough of Newham for over 24 years now, one of London's really poor boroughs, so when the Internet came along there were many doubts about what it had to offer the poor. There was a feeling then that if we didn't do something about itwe'd be losing out and not keeping up . So they created a partnership with all other major users of IT in Newham, did a survey of all services, realised that if they were to link up all their existing resources they would have a very powerful network. They have experimented using infrared and microwave technology for such linking. They discovered all kinds of problems along the way, including the fact that if you connect more than 20 buildings you can be committing a criminal offence, so they ended up setting up a telecoms company, which company is now the only truly locally based telecoms company in the UK(Hull has another... [ed: but I didn't manage to catch that bit, sorry]) ...started delivering services such as university distance learning to Council employees directly to their own computer desktops. They have had experiences connecting via set top boxes and of digital TV. Under the government's "Wired communities" scheme, a programme to ensure poor areas are not marginalised, the Newham.netLtd project want to connect up all the housing estates in the borough ... thus truly putting Microsoft on the streets [ed: did I miss something about Linux there???] ... In attendance at the Kendra event because their attempts at doing broadband have proved to be "much harder than we thought" ....
The Madonna webcast (a one off webcast from a live London show by MSN, further to previous webcast interview, chat and on-line concert webcast featuring Robby Williams).. one user couldn't get it ... obtained only a still image at the time.
Alex Wolfe - Astream Ltd: ... MediaWave and Virtue TV all crashed, so that's why you weren't able to get them ... Digital and Akamai were able to carry it ... so I was there, watching it on a 100k link for the whole concert with no problems ...
Nigel Rantor - Wiggly Worm Enterprises... just a programmer with a particular interest in networking ISPs, as a programmer he has worked on the underlying protocols, unicasting, multicasting, loves IP and what it can do, but is very interested by the new technologies that are coming up now ... people rolling out muticast. But, unless we know what and how people want to use these systems we can't really make the protocols work. This is a matter for on-going research and its medium-term to long-term based research that is needed. They, the current providers, don't provide you with what you as consumers want ... that's why we are here talking about edge servers. Therefore, there are synchronisation problems, distribution problems, micropayments problems etc ... so if we need that quality of service you, the ISPs need to tell us what you DO need, so we can provide it.
Joe Frost - Inktomi Provide the hardware, in terms of Edge Servers and synchronisation technologies. We are not an ISP, but we are very much the company providing hardware & infrastructure solutions, as already provided toAkamai etc[ed: sorry missed that client list]. Here at the Kendra meeting in order to understand the needs better .. they are also members of the Content Bridge Alliance ...
Steve Kennedy - Thus Plc ...background, from MUAFF [ed: ?] , British Telecom and Demon ... has spent a lot of time since 74 trying to persuade them to get involved in the Internet .. but they decided they didn't want to then ... Demon recently did the Big Brother show ....
Denis Callan - QOS Networks.net... about the Madonna thing : it was all caused by flow of traffic, and digital ip ... Groovy Gecko close to media backbone ... 2.5 thousand guests invited to Brixton Academy, 21 cameras by 'Dull and Dusted' doing camera works, went into production desks, into OB truck outside, to Prescott Street with satellite links ... split up using 5 - 6decoders into bit rates ... taking broadcast quality stream compressing it into thinner pipes for the Internet ... so it hit Prescott Street and hit the encoders before going to Media Wave which provided the infrastructure for Europe. Was worried that Akamai and Digital Island, though we do partner with them in the US ... they don't have much structure in Europe, so Media Wave was asked to do it because they have the biggest network in Europe ... 500 servers located throughout Europe. I am not talking for MediaWave, but that's the structure.
From then on it's Internet structure for you, so if you're receiving via Freeserve for example, the signal goes out over the network, and only reaches you via Freeserve for the last mile. So, if it went down it might have been a Digital Island matter ... Akamai tookit also ... and in Australasia it went out on the asikeel [ed: phonetic?] network. Lots of people who couldn't get a feed from elsewhere could get a feed from Australia.
The point is that the non-cached servers failed, whereas the others worked really well. We need to look at different traffic models ..
(Unknownspeaker): Was at the IWA Meeting watching the streams, the error messages coming up were too frequent ... couldn't handle the bandwidth. Need IP multicasting more ...
ISPs can't see themselves making money out of rolling it out. They make money by charging per bite. The more they move the more they make ... whether the ISPs are free or flat rate .. was talking about the back bonecarriers ..
Compare the 300-500kbps to go into a broadband home, multiply that by the number of millions of users you need to reach, whereas with multicast you need only one stream, so relatively you're making a lot of money compared to the others. So they can't see making more money ... they don't care if I don't see Madonna ...
That's why a lot of stuff doesn't happen.. because there is no business model we can all use, so maybe we need to build business models for us all to use.
When we talk about multicasting we're talking about the structure . But no one wants to talk about the structure at this meeting, really. You need end to end and two way, as soon as it goes off to unicast, it defeats the object. With multicast, if you do it you don't know who is watching you or the content, multicast has no tracking ...
Every Real server has a unique id ... even if you don't know who's watching real server can do it .. but need to connect via ?
(Speaker's name?) The crux of the problem of why content providers aren't filling the room is that we've got to build business models round the technology, whereas maybe we need it exactly the other way round. Technology has to work round the business model .We've heard all this jargon about placing the material near to the edge. Actually it's no different from getting sausages to the local supermarket. This is no 'new magic'. Last year we had lots of people investing in business Internet stocks ... people had dreamed they would make money in so many different ways, but now they have all crashed by a proportion as heavy as 95 5% or more.
(Daniel): ... quite right... we've got to address those issues, the way to do it is indeed that the technology has to meet the business model .
(speaker): In the days when the Printing Press was the latest invention we would have had the same arguments. The web is simply just a quicker truck taking the sausages to the consumer...
(Daniel): I agree with you, if Kendra does not come over like that then its somehow failed. Or maybe it's the industry that has failed, not the Internet. But, we DO have business models on the agenda. Microsoft are interested in knowing what people want .. that's why they registered on the Kendra site. They want to know, they want to know more, I guess they think Kendra can provide more and that's why they've listed themselves on the site.
The Kendra demo, if I can briefly explain, shows people who don't know that it IS possible, but we still need to develop an algorithm which is used to decide which server the client's system should go to in order to get the information desired by the client. Akamai actually do that now. It's quite simple. It's called the K [ed: ?] ...server problem in academia ... ping each server and ....... [ed: the technical jargon was a bit too complex to catch in that instance, sorry] ... the Internet routing registry tells you where the IP numbers are, who connects to where and how. It's a map of the Internet. From that IP map of the world you can tell which bit of the IP world map is physically closest to the user.
Algorithms do it now. Akamai do it and charge 100 times what they should. Inktomi does it too. Groovy Gecko does it too ...each of those is connected to 2 switches. Those switches communicate all over in seconds, so your browser will be sent to the least busy and most available server that can provide it.
(Unknown name): So, speaking for myself, and as a potential provider, I think Kendra need to act on that and then sell THAT to us ... not about switches ... the audience out there doesn't care about switches.
(Rachel): How can one be totally representative ... but speaking as an artist, knowing how it works and responding to it, making work true to it is of interest to me as an artist. We need sensitivity to technology issues, and the technology itself as material. It's not necessary to look at artists as ... what can we do for you ... maybe its about what do we do for you. The person fromNewham.net Ltdis exactly that, someone who is representing a group or view ... you do have to look at the social context, not just 'artists'.
(Unknown): Pseudo dot com was the biggest disasters ... and it crashed
(Unknown): Doesn't seem to be much of a market for music on the Internet, let alone for material specifically designed for the web. There is no demand on the part of the consumers. There is no niche market out there, with money to be made out of the niches.
(Same unidentified person as earlier) It IS just like sausages ... and every one in this room who doesn't recognise it as such is going to lose many millions of pounds, because if it doesn't work on the business market then its not going to work better on the Internet. If you want to put non-commercial French films on the net ... it won't have a market on the net any more than in the other life .. Look at Microsoft for example, they provided a piece of software, but it wasn't the software that provided its massive growth and profits.... and there are many ways for looking at the characteristics that made it succeed. For one, it could be pirated ... and ... best doesn't always win out ... a MAC is better than a PC ... The Guardian is better than the Sun... the point is that it's the market place which always wins.
(Daniel): I think we are not here to debate what we think WILL happen, we're here to discuss what we would LIKE to happen. What we want to happen and what we think is going to happen are different debates, and if what we think that what want to happen looks like it isn't going to happen, then we have to try to change it.
Panellist... what we want to happen and what will happen will also probably differ widely. The logical cynical view would have it that things will happen in the same way in the film industry as happened to on-line music delivery ... and that's exactly the same situation now ... if people don't collaborate, then other people will collaborate outside of the system. The results have been that the music industry is not making money and the industry is collapsing, while the offline industry is fine.
(Daniel): So, how can Kendra help now ...
(Steve): ..One of the problems is the multiplicity of standards, and so while Real are charging for their servers, Microsoft and Bill Gates are giving theirs away for free, though that might change with Microsoft beginning to charge for their servers also. But also, the biggest problem in industry is that DSL is not high speed access to the Internet, it is high speed access to edge servers.
How can Kendra help?
To answer that we have to go back to our original questions ... what do content providers want? That's what we are all trying to do here, to understand those issues, even if this is perhaps from different standpoints. We still need to understand what you content providers need. Do you want just to see what happens, do you want to make money, do you want to measure users. All this new content for a new audience needs to be paid for.
Kendra can help drive the industry standards, so the material can be accessed by anyone, then you will get revenue for it. But the frustration is not knowing what people need.
Nigel Rantor ...needs... Kendra to facilitate the process of finding out who the people are who are blocking the technologies and find out how to release that potential technology.
Richard Stubbs - Newham.net Ltd Certain well known and highly relevant technology providers were very heavily promoting to Government that the connection of all schools should be via their ISDN systems ... ADSL was poopooed .. we connected all the schools in our borough via ADSL over a year ago and it works fine. We won't tell you how we did it, in our instance there was an example of one organisation willing to do it. But we do just need to be told what technologies WILL do.
Kendra is a forum, it's a meeting space. It's encouraging to know there are people here prepared to give their time up. So, to finish we remind ourselves about what alliances we need to build, and about what opportunities do exist for the future. We all need to get something out of it, and it needs to be commercially viable and that means it must have a sound business model in it. But, we also need critical mass, so keep coming to these meetings, tell your vertical markets about Kendra and bring them in to the process, get hold of everyone you know ... and good luck to you all in rugby.
[TEA BREAK& Networking opportunities]
In this section we are going to talk about what Kendra needs to become, about what it need to be in order that you will be prepared to make a commitment to it, and about what commitment you are willing to make to Kendra when it does satisfy what you want.
So for the next session we shall break up into small groups of 5-7 people and spend maybe 15-20minutes in our deliberations. We ask that someone in each group make an itemised list of say 10 points about what Kendra needs to become, and use those during the presentation by the group back to the full Forum. We can then take it from there to discuss what commitment people can make, and what expertise they can offer, to help make that Kendra vision into reality.
(Workshop sessions followed)
WORKSHOP GROUP REPORT-BACKS
Group A: Report back by Alex Wolfe
Richard Lucas:
What group members can contribute:
One strongly held personal perspective: wasn't sure if Kendra is correct vehicle for solving the problem, though Kendra comes closer than anything else
GROUP E:
Kendra to decide whether it is to facilitate, or directly be involved in content distribution and note that it would need Liability Control mechanisms, because under UK precedents, every member would be liable for anything placed on its server network.
Daniels feedback
[Editor: cannot vouch for complete accuracy of what was caught during live-note-taking, particularly during relatively complex technical explanations]
(unknown speaker): US Dept of Defence funded it at inception ... Alper Net set up, this was free and it allowed universities doing military research to be part of the network. ... DOE sponsored the design of an Internet protocol ... these protocols grew from that ...but then they published the specs and developed a public version of it that was based on bsd unix, except unix was free or very cheap to licence for academics, and the resource was available because they gave out source code for it. Then BSD stack became one flavour and the others differentiated themselves, and then RFC's came out. RFC's are free because they are created and required to be free ...
(unknown speaker): Real Networks developed it for their own use, Microsoft have theirs and Apple have theirs ... they charge for their own implementation of their technology ....so the specification is made public, but the implementation is licensed by the producer of that system.
(unknown speaker): Offer of content for the trial ;... Need content for the trial, for the trial to carry on. Need to put in some software or system to enable more content to go on easily. There was talk about a web-based collaboration system which was seen as essential also. Physical meetings are very time consuming. Many people can't make it, having something on the web means people can contribute when they can and there would be a living document on there.
(unknown speaker): Having a formal structure sounds good to talk about, but when it comes down to it, who is going to do it?
(unknown speaker): There are other people who aren't here who share this idea. But how do we actually do it? It isn't going to happen unless other people get involved and take responsibility for it, because this is nuts and bolts stuff. We are all here because we enjoy what we are doing, but if Daniel is doing just that, and it takes a lot of effort and energy and that's not what he'd like to have done ... then what?
(unknown speaker): There is so much networking that is needed, and that's what Daniel does best, so Daniel doesn't want to do the other stuff and needs other people to get onboard, need to commit boring time to it, people with content servers need to take part in the content trials ... etc
(unknown speaker): No one is going to volunteer to do 'labels' work, so whom do we pay... if its that kind of help that is required, then just get someone to help pay forsome admin ... if the volnteering is offering other things fine ... but if its doinglabels its another matter.
Richard Stubbs: involved in many start ups .. different problems arise the minute someone says lets pay for it, then the process of having money to pay makes it a very much more involved process. That in itself therefore creates more problems than it solves.
(unknown speaker): ... Payment should be optional and lack of payment should not exclude anyone
(unknown speaker): Needs legal form, a Board of Trustees, is this to be decided democratically or will it be dictatorially imposed ...?
(Daniel): It's a bit of both ... I know this project can be made to fly, but I'm not sure I know how to make it fly ... so these are all excellent ideas , but how do we actually do it?
(unknown speaker): Don't have enough time to do that while its being set up into a legal status.
(unknown speaker): Administrative burden of arranging an organisation like this is a big thing, cannot someone offer that in order to free up Daniel. We just need to have volunteering on administration ... get someone to help with that now ...
(unknown speaker): Labels ... it's a banal task, but we could write out own labels, share the load!
(unknown speaker): Need level of professionalism, need objectives, business plans & models... and someone who can see where we are going to be in a years time.
(unknown speaker): Email on the basis of a database, develop it as an intranet, a business plan cancome from that, so get the email lists working
(unknown speaker): We already have 15 people on a list, but the thing never happened ... mission statement group never met, in fact the next meeting could have almost not happened if we had left it to them. Actually, it became a matter of how do we get the next meeting actually to happen.
(unknown speaker): Suggestion: Daniel it's your baby ... but probably its very early, show of volunteers hands is great, but a baby needs to be nurtured, the second meeting HAS been called and we have had a meeting of minds ... that needs to grow .. it may take 8months, a year, you have to give yourself a bit longer before we even know why we ARE coming together ...
(unknown speaker): Atlantic ... are they not prepared to support it on a continuing basis ...?
Offer of administrative support by Richard StubbsNewham.net Ltd
(Andrew Kemmetmueller - Telia Internet Inc.) I've travelled 3900 miles to come here from the US .. and it takes a lot to be able to do that but at end of the day the whole situation seems to be exactly where we were when it started ... where we were last time ... so we are still exactly where we left it last time ... we set up visionary a vision group to set up the meeting ... we don't need another group set up until we figure out where it is to go ...otherwise I can't keep on flying across the Atlantic ... we should have no other meeting until the aims and other requirements are figured out ..
We must have something established before the meeting starts. Then we can move forward, the food's not that great to get us across the Atlantic. We would like to see a broadband initiative that takes a global perspective ... listening to everything that goes around the room here, the market is different totally to what is happening in the US. Those voices are not being heard in the US experience. In order for this to be successful it needs to be Global. The carriers are global companies and they will not look at it as a UK solution, and it will not go forward until we have a plan, a goal, and specific goals and proposals for action ...then we can go to all the US competitors and sell the idea, and they will come on board, but until we have something like that then they will not join up ...
(Daniel): the website gives us all information and it is working in its demonstration of the trials, which was its primary purpose ... and it is working because the big boys are already on there with half of them even being here at the meeting.
(unknown speaker): OK, so Microsoft is on the website though they are not here. Those kind of people need to come here (does not have to be physically here) but their presence needs to be more than a 'look and see' attitude. They must be here with commitment, and we need to get it together to give them a plan ...and invite them to address those issues.
(Daniel): Meetings are important, but what are we doing at the meetings .. it should be an open forum where people can drop in and express their opinions. Techies can do it on-line like the Linux people did. So the techies need to go off and then report back to full meetings. Always reminded of Triangles of commitment ... if enough ISPs join the trials, then the coders will come forward too. Also, if we get content, we'll get more ISPs. However, we can only start from where we are now. Cerbernet grew organically, hassled deals here and there and it grew, that's the way I do things, and lots of people then have a problem with how things are done when I'm doing it.
(Nigel Rantor): .. I want to get everything on my TV ... not on pc .. if I have to pay for it I will ... but I don't think that's necessary ... We should roll with it without we start complaining about the form ... not many people making content .. co-opting coders to come and help you is no problem ... if you get people like Richard .. to say play with our network ... and use experimental bit of Janet ... we (the coders) know they can come here .. they would love it
(unknown speaker):..(not physically here) ... but metaphorically here ... we don't need creatives to come and talk about technical stuff ... we need to see THEM ...Outside of the normal things we see on TV. So co-joining with people doing Festivals for example.
(Andy [ed:but which Andy was it?]): Committee I was in floundered, and it was a reasonable cross-section. Setting up the committee was a good thing, but there was no chairman, so everyone expected Daniel to do it ... we just need to issue something on paper to be criticised, that will get the discussion going. We just need to implement having the committee.
(unknown speaker): Content ... its not time to get content people in on this in this forum ..there is enough content from people here .. then get more content people in to see what we've done ... BBC can show what BBC has done...
(Jon Danzig- Look-HearTV(r)): video film maker, writer director, has made lots of films in 20 years. Think the question should be ...what is it I can contribute to the meeting that will help you, and what do I need to walk away with that will make me wish to come back to the next meeting? One of the benefits of this forum surely could be educational ... I have no idea how you get film that's a first print to the cinemas, or to the TV's and IP based Distribution channels.
(Daniel): Call for show of hands: How many would come to next meeting ... 2/3rds of 3/4 [ed: as quite a few people had left by now]. How many people would invite others to come to the meeting [ed: same sort of numbers] same as last time ...
(unknown speaker): Network set up in 1995 .. sohonet ... Sohonet grew out of rival post production companies sitting round a table, and discussed wouldn't it be nice if we can connect facilities together so we can send data to each other ... Neil lane was on this list ... the person who set it up was Chris Lion, should be invited. But they ended up having some 40-50 meetings before things were really happening so impatience is premature in terms of Kendra's track record, this being only its second meeting.
Some closing suggestions:
Assisting Daniel in Business plan: