Internet browser video services are growing exponentially within the e-retail, social networking and media industries. The financial services industry is seeing more modest growth, due to a combination of product complexity and older demographics. While enterprises have long used video to reduce employee travel expense for training, it’s now gaining greater acceptance in retail banking, brokerage, and trading websites, where it’s used to deliver:

• ‑Training – online banking, brokerage, and trading platform demonstrations

• ‑Analyst Projections – guidance on market trends, equities and commodities

• ‑Branding and Advertising – product launches and branding campaigns

• ‑Corporate Messaging – CEOs providing guidance and mission statements

• ‑Recruiting – marketing the corporate culture to applicants

The rapid adoption of video as a messaging medium is largely due to industry convergence on a handful of browser-based video players and the advent of Content Delivery Networks (CDN), which simplify deployment and scale with demand.

Dominant Video Players

Whether delivered to enterprise or Internet users, the same video formats are used, making browser-based video an attractive medium. Adobe Flash Player and Microsoft Windows Media Player dominate with 96% and 84% penetration of Internet-enabled desktops worldwide, respectively.1 Both have distinct advantages. Flash is browser embedded, supports rich content, and can be programmed to bypass firewalls. The player’s control panel or ‘skin’ is customizable, so that graphics, function buttons and ads can be embedded, making branding of the player possible. While Flash supports authentication, its higher licensing fees and lack of Digital Rights Management (DRM) make it unsuitable for some applications. Conversely, Windows Media Player has no customizable skin and is less widely deployed, but it does have the strategic advantage of supporting DRM. Content can be encrypted, limited to number of plays, and restricted to a PC or IP address range, safeguarding proprietary training and analyst messaging.

Progressive Download vs. Streaming

Depending on the content and audience, video may be distributed using either progressive download or streaming. Progressive download transfers the entire file to the video player, and buffers before playing to limit interruption. Since the player caches the file, it can be replayed on the PC without having to pull it down from the server. It’s cheaper to deploy and works well for smaller files, but can’t be used for live events and has limited fast forwarding capability. Having a cached copy of a pay-per-view analyst briefing on a PC, for example, may not be desired by the publisher, since the video file can be emailed as an attachment. In this case, streaming or DRM can be used to restrict content to a subscriber’s PC. Pricier streaming delivers both live and stored content, and has less impact on network bandwidth and PC memory because it sends file fragments that the player later discards. Streaming video is preferred for advertising and training, since content owners can collect viewer data on partially played clips, and viewers can skip to any point in the clip.

Content Delivery Networks

Enterprise video is often hosted internally, where audience size and server licensing is predictable. Internet content is susceptible to instantaneous high-demand periods commonly called Flash Crowds,2 making CDNs’ service pricing models and quick deployment times more attractive than large server farm build-outs. Where a market event may trigger a run on a CEO guidance message and overwhelm a site, CDNs have the ability to absorb the load using globally distributed servers. They also simplify deployment by providing a single interface supporting multiple players and speeds, bundled with capabilities like transcoding, geographic targeting, authentication, DRM, advanced reporting and ad insertion. Analyst content can now generate revenue though demographically targeted ad sales, inserted at any point in the stream. Financial media sites lead the sector in monetizing content through dynamic ad insertion, though retail banking and brokerage sites are beginning to follow.

Handheld Video Services

Financial media sites also lead in their support of handheld video services, which is very much an emerging field. Unlike browser-based video, which has standardized on a handful of protocols, handheld video support is dependent on the handheld operating system, device and wireless network provider. Much of the initial content was recorded video files downloaded from PCs to cabled handhelds, but the industry direction is to make browser-based Internet video content wirelessly accessible. One of the biggest challenges is relatively large video players and file sizes, compared to wireless data network speeds and handheld storage capacity. Another is the development of lighter players for the four or so major handheld operating systems. It’s expected that the deployment of faster 3G mobile data networks and lighter players supported by fewer operating systems will overcome these challenges. Increased demand and reduced cost of delivery will also be realized by moving to a single CDN or website delivery method for both Internet browser and handheld video services.

1 Millward Brown, September 2006

2 “Flash Crowd,” Larry Niven 1973

Nick Gallello is a Regional Technical Manager at Internap Network Services, which recently acquired VitalStream. Contact info: 212-981-1799; nick@internap.com; www.internap.com.