NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF BROADCASTERS SHOW: LAS VEGAS – April 11, 2011 – Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:AKAM, news, filings), the leading provider of cloud optimization services, and Synacor, the leading provider of personalized homepages and online entertainment services to operators, today unveiled a technology demonstration designed to show how programmers and operators can easily facilitate new TV Everywhere services. TV Everywhere is a new model being embraced by programmers and system operators as a way to provide paying subscribers with access to their favorite TV programming across multiple devices. The business objective is to create an easy way for consumers to enjoy the content they consume on television across all of their devices, including PCs, tablets and mobile devices.
The demonstration showcased this week at NAB unveils a simplified way to connect programmer content libraries with operator subscribers in the context of TV Everywhere by leveraging Akamai’s identity services, a common standards-based set of APIs, along with Synacor’s authentication and authorization platform, which work together to grant entitlement of content to authorized subscribers.
TV Everywhere-type business models offer a tremendous opportunity to build subscriber loyalty and add value for operators and programmers alike. One of the practical challenges in bringing TV Everywhere to market is how to quickly implement the entitlement models at the center of these services. Seamlessly connecting programmers, operators and consumers typically requires individual integrations and can quickly get complex. Equally important is ensuring a consumer experience that minimizes barriers to accessing content, such as confusing and repetitive log-in processes.
Akamai and Synacor have each developed capabilities intended to address these challenges, aimed at providing a standardized way to bridge the gap between the involved parties, as well as enhance the consumer experience.
Each company has contributed innovative capabilities to the demonstration including:
- Identity services for TV Everywhere to provide a single integration point to normalize the authentication and authorization content requests between programmers and operators through a common, standards-based set of APIs that are architected to enable content providers to manipulate and control access rights as a way to support new business partnerships.
- Authentication and authorization of subscriber identity to supply consumer and operator specific metadata for business rule decision making.
- Smart identity provider discovery functionality that is designed to surface only the most relevant consumer options for login, leveraging geo-targeting and common domain footprints.
- Single Sign On (SSO) to minimize disruptions to the viewing experience, an important factor for content providers hoping to increase content consumption, viewer adoption and engagement.
- Viewing continuity so that viewers won’t miss a scene when pausing and playing back video across many connected devices – for example from laptop to tablet – with location and device-shifting technology.
- Akamai HD Network integration for scalable, high-quality, secure streaming and audience analytics.
“We’ve been seeing the entertainment industry undergo a major digital transformation and with new business models like TV Everywhere, the pace of innovation is growing rapidly. Akamai’s cloud based infrastructure has been enabling new digital business models for years, and working with our customers in this transformation is a natural next step,” said Troy Snyder, Vice President of Strategic Initiatives at Akamai. “Akamai is committed to addressing the complete needs of the programmers, operators and consumers as content libraries are expanded, more devices emerge for on-the-go viewing and the value of the content available is enhanced.”
“TV Everywhere offers both operators and programmers a tremendous opportunity to extend their brands on the Web, build subscriber loyalty, and take advantage of new business models,” said Ted May, Senior Vice President of Business Strategy at Synacor. “We look forward to working more closely with Akamai to enable TV Everywhere initiatives and to taking a giant leap forward in enhancing the video experience for millions of consumers.”
While the Akamai and Synacor features above are not currently commercially available, the demonstration shows the potential ease with which programmers and operators can easily reach their audiences using the strengths of the two companies’ offerings.
About Synacor
Synacor powers personalized homepages and online entertainment services reaching millions of high-speed Internet subscribers worldwide. Its stable of cable, telecom, and satellite providers utilizes Synacor’s best-of-breed technology solutions to deliver the next generation of video, news, gaming and other IP services across multiple devices and digital platforms. Synacor’s innovative technology platforms enable its partners to quickly adapt to the evolving online landscape, driving consumer engagement and generating new revenue opportunities. Synacor is headquartered in Buffalo, NY. For more information please visit www.synacor.com
About Akamai
Akamai® provides market-leading, cloud-based services for optimizing Web and mobile content and applications, online HD video, and secure e-commerce. Combining highly-distributed, energy-efficient computing with intelligent software, Akamai’s global platform is transforming the cloud into a more viable place to inform, entertain, advertise, transact and collaborate. To learn how the world’s leading enterprises are optimizing their business in the cloud, please visit www.akamai.com and follow @Akamai on Twitter
Akamai Statement Under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act This release contains information about future expectations, plans and prospects of Akamai’s management that constitute forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provisions under The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by these forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors including, but not limited to, the effects of any attempts to intentionally disrupt our services or network by hackers or others, inability to develop media solutions that address the complete needs of programmers, operators and consumers as content libraries are expanded, lack of market acceptance of solutions we do develop, inability to introduce commercial versions of features we have demonstrated, a failure of Akamai’s network infrastructure, and other factors that are discussed in Akamai’s Annual Report on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, and other documents periodically filed with the SEC.
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