There are several compelling reasons that digital is an attractive option for both the consumer as well as the publisher.  Although it would seem obvious, Gaming is going through the same conversion from physical to digital that both the music and video industries experienced.  Consumers intuitively recognize the convenience of digital delivery, while the publishers have been smart to develop business models that allow them to capture a larger share of the value they create.  In a traditional retail model the publisher splits the value they create with their retail partners.  If the publisher can deliver the content directly to the consumer, they capture a larger share of the revenue.  Not to mention that digital bits are cheaper to produce than physical copies and consumers appreciate the immediateness of the purchase.

This doesn’t mean that all publishers have to do is slap a storefront together and start printing dollars.  Consumers have had plenty of time to experience iTunes and Amazon.  They now demand significantly more value for their digital dollar and retail for Gaming will need to adapt.  We can see this already with the success of Steam.  It is more than just a digital storefront. It also provides a powerful recommendation engine, player matching services, and social features to connect like-minded gamers.  Plus, the recommendation service is significantly less obnoxious than the local game store clerk.

Several publishers have become ingenious in their use of digital content, incorporating it directly into their games.  Making the game itself the storefront.  Although I know there is some controversy here, games that have done it well have really added to the experience rather than detracted from it.  This also seems like a great way to generate some revenue from pirated games, since the only path to the digital content is through a legal storefront.

The digital experience for a consumer is highly driven by perception.  4 out of 5 consumers will abandon a video stream if it buffers only once, that was a hard lesson to learn for the video industry and could have destroyed OTT.  The same is true in digital game delivery.  Consumers don’t want to wait and a poor experience there will drive them back into retail, or worse, not to purchase.  That’s why it’s important to build digital storefronts that focus on performance, like Steam and Origin.

All in all, I think the gaming industry has several lives left in turning around their revenue problems.  I look forward to hearing your thoughts about the digital trends in Gaming and if you happen to be at GDC in March, stop by the Level 3 booth and catch me in person.

First some background. A web page today is made up, on average, of around a hundred objects. An object is a picture, some text, some html code or some Java-script. You will be familiar with a web page loading in your browser in bits and pieces. Those are the objects you can see but other objects are loading in the background to control actions on the screen.

Some of those objects are static and some are dynamic. Static objects are sent to every person. Dynamic objects are unique to the person making the request; they are generated at the time the person clicks on the URL to open the web page. If you use a web application like email or access a shopping cart, or do anything that involves the personalisation of the content displayed, then some of the objects delivered are dynamic.

Almost every web page has a mixture of static and dynamic content. The balance between the two differs depending on the type of page.

There is a huge amount of empirical evidence that shows that the speed at which a web page loads determines how much revenue is made from that page and how high the customer’s satisfaction is with the experience. And that linkage is measured in fractions of a second. And it’s just as important if you are only delivering some of the objects like the video or a file. Speed is vital for web site owners. The current expectation from all of us, as Internet users, is that a web page loads in around two seconds and that a video starts immediately and never buffers.

OK so what is a CDN? A CDN is designed to do two things within a secure environment*; Speed up the delivery of entire web pages or some objects on a web page, Distribute the load associated with delivery so that the host web location isn’t overwhelmed with demand.

A CDN achieves these goals in five ways;

1. Reducing the number of bits that need to be delivered. Both static and dynamic objects can be compressed in various ways. Smaller objects are sent over the Internet quicker than larger objects.
2. Combining objects into a smaller number of packages. All of those objects are requested one after the other by the browser. Every request has to be made through the Internet and takes time. Less requests result in the delivery time being lower.
3. Replicating static objects closer to everyone’s computer. This is called caching and streaming. The compressed and combined static objects from 1 and 2 above are stored, or cached, at many locations so that the distance they actually have to be transmitted is shorter and therefore takes less time. Or a video object is streamed from many locations. These techniques also achieve the distribution goal as well.
4. Building fast paths through the Internet. A dynamic object cannot be cached or replicated because everyone receives a different version. These objects always have to be delivered further across the Internet; – usually from a single host or origin location. The protocol that the Internet uses (Transmission Control Protocol or TCP) was designed for simplicity and for congestion avoidance. It wasn’t designed for speed. The good news is that there are a variety of clever treatments that can be made that optimize TCP flows to make best use of available bandwidth. These dramatically increase the speed with which dynamic objects travel. These treatments also need to be adaptive because they need to adjust, in real time, to changing conditions on the Internet.
5. Delivering content before it is requested. The CDN is designed to dynamically track the way people travel through web sites. In real time the CDN updates what the most likely next click through a web site is for all the various types of users. And in anticipation of that click the objects that are most likely to be requested next are sent to the browser. They are then ready for instantaneous display when a link is clicked. Feels like magic but is based on some very clever algorithms.

And that’s it! Simple. Well, maybe simple to explain but there are a lot of very clever people writing code and deploying technology throughout the Internet that actually make all this happen; And improving it every day.

Some CDN’s don’t do all of these things but are still called CDNs. Some CDNs, like ours, do a lot more than delivery but are still called CDNs. The industry is full of different acronyms and a lack of transparency that I don’t think helps customers.

All we are trying to do is deliver web pages, and objects within those web pages, as fast as possible while not overloading any particular part of the network with excessive demand. Can your CDN provider say as much with clarity, simplicity and without resorting to incomprehensible language?

Over the course of many doctor waiting room visits, I had the opportunity to think about the networks these various healthcare providers might employ to enable their business.  While common in their industry, the various organizations I touched provide a rich diversity in which to consider data network technologies and their role in the healthcare industry.

Everyone say after me, 3, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero. That’s the number of bytes that are estimated to move through the Internet in 2012*.  Add to this number the explosion of new smart devices, smart phones, tablets, and who knows what’s next, and you’ve got the perfect storm to fuel an IT data apocalypse.

I had my own personal IT apocalypse many years ago.  At the time I was a communications tech in a remote office.  The company I worked for had the full range of ways to connect to the outside world, everything from microwave to WAN links were at our disposal.  We ran 24×7 and I just happened to be on the mid-shift when we got hit with a huge blizzard.  The first things to go were the microwave shots. Followed closely behind by the hard lines when the snow took out the poles the lines were suspended from.  As we were scrambling to repoint the dishes, we lost our power.  Now of course this was a Tier III facility; we had onsite generators, but they didn’t kick over.  We went out to the generator hut only to discover that the storm had broken a window and the generator room was full of snow.  So after blocking the window and clearing the room of snow, we were finally able to get the generators to turn over, one time.  The batteries were dead.  Guess whose job it was to PM the batteries?  That was my own personal apocalypse.  We were down for 24 hours.  That’s how long it took for the main power to be restored.

Like it or not, this whole Big Data thing is like snow clouds on the horizon.  I can already imagine how it’ll start.  First, you’ll get that call at 3a.m.  It’ll be about some application that is running intermittently.  Transactions won’t be processed, or replication will be failing.  This will be followed shortly by complaints from the workforce in the field.  They’ll be having problems with the new mobile app that IT just developed for them.  And then the CIO will be calling because the teleconferencing unit in her office isn’t working.  It’s then that someone will discover the overloaded DS3 link.  And it’ll only take six weeks to get that upgraded.  Hmmm.  That could be apocalyptic for the person who has to explain that to the CIO.

All right, this is a little over dramatic.  Sure enough, Big Data is out there, but you can be prepared.  No, you don’t need to start stock piling hard drives and Cat 5 cables. Instead, learn from my mistakes.  Don’t forget your preventative maintenance.  Go look at your WAN.  Monitor your utilization and get informed about what’s coming.  Like Chris Connor said a couple of weeks ago, it’s not the stuff that you know that you have to worry about.  Instead, be concerned about the skunkworks project that’ll dump a couple of gigabits of traffic on you when you least expect it. 2012 doesn’t have to be the year of your apocalypse.

As for me, luckily the company I was working for at the time of my apocalypse was the U.S. Army.  And while they were not too pleased with the outage, I just ended up peeling potatoes for a few weeks instead of being fired.

Have a personal IT apocalypse story of your own? Share it with us.  Best story as voted by our blog managers will get a special IT Apocalypse Survival Kit!

*This is according to IDC in their 2012 Digital Universe report.

PS: Are there storm clouds on your horizon, check out our WAN health check tool

It doesn’t take a lot of insight to come to the conclusion that the Iranian government recognizes the power of the Internet. Clearly the Internet and social media have profoundly changed the way the world communicates.

Could you survive without the Internet? Can you imagine what it would be like if the Internet were to be disconnected in your country?

To help you get better insight into the “health” of your WAN, we are developing a WAN Health Checkup tool.  Level 3’s WAN Health Checkup tool, which takes about 10 minutes to run, asks you for information on your WAN in regard to the network in general (performance, size, etc.), the technologies you use, the network topology and the applications. Once you’ve gone through the assessment, the tool offers guidance on your WAN’s health and whether you could stay the course with the WAN you have, take steps to optimize its performance, or consider significant changes. In a sense, the tool gives you a preview of what you would discuss with our solutions architects in an initial meeting.

One of the unique aspects of the tool is that it uses “Application Fingerprinting” – a process that matches network capabilities with application needs. And while we know it’s very difficult to predict which applications will be on your network two or three years from now, and also hard to nail down the network topology size, this tool can give you valuable insight into the architecture you’ll need going forward, especially if you request a detailed response based on the data you’ve provided through the tool.

We leveraged our solution architects’ development skills and put our WAN Health Checkup tool through the paces here, but now we need the help of the smart folks like you to get through our next sprint. We’re looking for Beta testers to push us through this next step of development. We invite you to get an early look at the tool and help make it better.  If you would like to participate, you can register for the beta trial today!

You see, 2011 in many ways, marked the advent of “social TV”. Lots of cool little apps like GetGlue and big sites like Twitter emerged as spaces to collectively watch and comment on live TV. And what we’re about to experience this Sunday is going to blow it all away. So, what are we in for? Here are a few of my guesses:

Hashtag Mania

First, you will see Twitter hashtags on just about every commercial and the game itself (#sb46). Audi broke the hashtag seal at last year’s game. And then they just became pervasive across TV shows like American Idol and The Voice. Brands love it because you can begin to justify that $3.5M 30 second ad spot (“Hey, we got 200,000 new followers from our rapping Granny commercial!”). Consumers now expect the hashtag and know how to act accordingly.

Which leads to my next prediction that…

One brand’s commercial will get completely skewered across social media and have that CMO reaching for the TUMS and asking themselves – why did we pick that agency and why did we green light the “edgy” concept?! Bad commercials happen every year, but with social media the mistakes become MUCH more magnified, especially if encouraging your viewers to discuss. And Twitter, in case you haven’t heard, can be quite cynical about hashtags :)

A New Twitter Record

I’m also guessing there will also be one moment that breaks the tweets per second record and it will probably happen at halftime. Why halftime? Well, unless there’s another Helmet Catch ending to this game (sorry Pats fans), most people will be actively tweeting about how great or how awful the halftime show is. This year it’s Madonna. Yes, she is 53 years old. Yes, it is in Indiana. But never doubt the Material Girl, something completely bizaare will happen. I have faith in you Madonna. You can do it!

Real-Time Facebook Feedback

Finally, the “best” commercial won’t be crowned the next day by Good Morning America or Neilsen or USA Today…it’ll be done in your very own Facebook news feed and you will know it in real time from a very quick eyeball test. Take me for instance. I’m married, in my mid-30s and have 3 kids ages 4 and under. Most of my FB friends are in very similar demographics. Last year, after the Darth Vader kid commercial, you would have thought Volkswagen themselves hacked into my Facebook account from all the glowing comments posted from young moms and dads like me!   Heck, us Gen-Xers might have already seen this year’s best commercial, featuring Ferris Bueller and already leaked online by Honda this week. (Full disclosure – we named our first daughter Sloane in honor of Ferris’s girlfriend. I’m biased, you guys.)  So whether you’re 15 or 55, your Facebook friends will let you know immediately which ad was the most effective for you.

The Bottom Line

Is all this good? Being heads down while the game’s on? Some of my favorite memories have come from Super Bowl parties communing and celebrating with neighbors, families and friends. And now that community gets extended quite a bit through the device in your hand.

A wise old man once said  - “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” So enjoy the game, enjoy all the craziness that social media will bring to this game, but don’t forget to look around the room and connect with the ones you’re with.

And you’ll have to bear with me but, since I’m a father and immersed in telecom, it’s natural for me to make the connection between raising my daughters and managing networks. The thing is that it’s challenging enough to manage your WAN for workloads that you know about. When you add in all of the unexpected events, just keeping your head above water seems like a success.

Let me give you a real world example. I recently heard about a large financial services institution whose security team decided they could do their job better by installing IP security cameras throughout their facility and connecting them to the corporate network. Great idea, right? Real-time surveillance, relatively low cost equipment and rapid deployment. The problem was that the security team never notified the WAN manager that traffic on the network was about to significantly spike, and consequently the network performance deteriorated nearly to a standstill when the cameras were activated.

While you probably have a good grasp of what your WAN needs to be today, odds are good that you have almost no idea what it will need to be in two or three years.  Throw in those unexpected challenges and you’ve got more than a network problem — you have a business problem. This is why it’s so important to architect a network that has the network intelligence you need to deftly manage business processes now, while maintaining the flexibility to scale painlessly when you need to add new applications and technology. You’re also likely trying to accommodate your mobile users, manage multiple data centers and apply analytics to the ever-increasing volume of traffic on your network, all elements in the rapidly codifying concept known as Big Data. If you don’t get in front of it, chances are you’re going to end up with the kind of accidental architecture you swore you’d never deploy.

So, what’s your experience? When have you been able to get in front of new technology and when were you overwhelmed by it? We’d love to hear your story.

If you think about it, plain old telephone service (POTS as we acronym-obsessed telecom folk call it) is not all that different from silver halide emulsion on polyester base (FILM –who knew, it’s not an acronym). They both have four letters, they’ve both been around since the late 1800s and they both made large companies lots of money. And, yes, they’re both being replaced by newer, cheaper, better technology.

Other parallels:

• Like digital photography, Voice over IP protocols like SIP allow for a separation between the physical media (think film) and the content (think photos).
• The incremental cost of taking a digital photo is pretty close to zero, as is a SIP call within an enterprise.
• With digital, you no longer need a dedicated device to take photos (i.e. a camera). So too with SIP. In-fact, your smart phone can do both (amongst a plethora of other things).

It’s not that Kodak didn’t see the change coming or that they had no strategy. They did, in spades. If anything, they might be faulted for having too many strategies. When they realized the film cash cow would dry-up they decided to branch-out. Displays, components, commercial printing, digital imaging, health imaging, commercial imaging and, of course, film imaging were all part of the plan for the future.

So, what happened? I think it was the convergence of a couple of factors:

• Film sales fell off a cliff sooner than expected
• The peanut butter approach to strategy (spreading resources evenly across multiple initiatives) meant none of these strategies got the full focus of the organization

Sound familiar? It should. At the end of the day, staying ahead of technological change is tough –and armchair quarterbacks like yours truly have the benefit of hindsight. Fortunately, we at Level 3 don’t have a large POTS embedded base –and therefore don’t have that internal conflict that comes from cannibalizing a profitable revenue stream. We embrace this trend and make no apologies for our role as catalysts in accelerating the migration to SIP.

Still, surviving and thriving in a world full of hungry innovators requires a focused strategy. Even a high-tech innovator like Level 3 has had to adapt to technological change. You may remember that at some point in time we were the largest Managed Modem provider, but it’s not a large part of our business anymore. Just saying.

And since Level 3 and Kodak share a Rochester connection (granted, with 7,000 employees left in the flower city they far outnumber our 500 hands-down), we certainly wish Kodak the best. With such strong brand equity in the photography industry I’m willing to bet they will find a way to make this their moment.

I live in Colorado so I have a special affinity for this joke. Yogi has visited my home several times over the years. A couple of years ago he trashed our garage and we’ve learned the following: don’t leave your trash out at night, keep your garage door closed, and don’t leave peanut butter sandwiches in your car. This is what was left of our neighbor’s car when he forgot that rule:

Now think about your website. (Hey you knew I was going to tie this to technology some how.) Which hunter is your website? Are you strapping on your tennis shoes or are you lying on the ground trying to play dead. Or worse, are you just standing around covered in peanut butter? When it comes to your website, being faster than the other hunter’s website is a good thing.

Ok so we all know that being fast is good. But, like the old adage says, “Speed costs money, how fast do you want to spend?” You can make your website fast, but at what cost? Do you spend money on new servers and optimization tools, cut out your rich media, and get rid of all your interactive web elements in the pursuit of more speed? The trick with web speed is to know just how fast is fast enough. Here’s my perspective: your web pages need to load at least as fast as the average web page and faster than your competition. You don’t need to outrun the bear just the other hunters.

So how do you know what the average web page loading time is? There are a lot of different resources you could use, but before you spend the next few hours testing web pages, we’ve already done the work for you. Right now the average home page load time for the top 500 largest businesses is about 7.4 seconds. This number varies a little depending on your industry. The fastest industry, transportation, averages about a 5.4 second load time.

The next step is a little simpler to figure out. Consider using our tool. It will let you test your website against your competitor’s. It will also let you schedule the test to be run once a month so you won’t be caught unaware when your competition straps on the latest running shoes.

So let’s say you’ve run the tests and you’ve discovered that you’re not the fastest hunter in the woods?

Well then it is time to think about how you can improve your websites performance. Again there are a lot of resources you can find that’ll provide tips for accelerating your performance.  And keep in mind that there’s more to website acceleration then just front-end or back-end optimization. We created a little tutorial video on the topic.

We found that for our own website, making a couple of changes like using compressed images, and optimizing our CSS had some tremendous impact. But maybe you’ve already taken care of the simple stuff and you need a little more help. If you’re interested, Level 3 can help you with bandwidth, CDN’s and web server optimization. The bears are hungry, how fast can you run?