NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF BROADCASTERS SHOW: LAS VEGAS – April 11, 2011 – Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), the provider of cloud optimization services, and Synacor, the 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.
“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.
Kaynak : 