On net neutrality, you can't afford to be neutral.

In the last few weeks, the debate over net neutrality (SEE BELOW) has raged again as Level 3 accuses Comcast of violating FCC guidelines governing how broadband providers (like Comcast) manage traffic on their networks. Comcast has demanded compensation for increases in traffic it anticipates because of Level 3's new partnership with Netflix, which streams video content that consumes serious bandwidth.

Is Comcast playing fair?

Level 3's hints that Comcast has set out to thwart a growing competitive threat; Netflix streaming video is a clear alternative to watching movies and TV on Comcast. And, it's not the first time we've seen Comcast use their bandwidth to stymie competitors. Internet forums reveal that Comcast customers using competitive VoIP providers instead of Comcast’s VoIP service experience packet loss issues. These same problems are not experienced when using Comcast’s service. If you call Comcast to get support you will be told that VoIP is not supported on their network. A curious policy for a company that offers VoIP service.

Comcast, however, is not only in the business of providing cable programming. They are also a broadband provider. Their view is that the increased traffic creates additional burdens for them. They want proper compensation to offset the extra demand and that seems reasonable. Whether such an argument has merit or not depends on the nature of the peering agreement between Comcast and Level 3.

Such conflicts are at the heart of the Net Neutrality debate; which is getting just that much thornier with the proliferation of wireless apps and services. As smartphones become mini computers, consuming much of the same Internet content as a wired computer, there's more complexity to fan the fiery discussion.  Google and Verizon staunchly support Net Neutrality for wired Internet access, but not so much when it comes to wireless where they have other business interests.

You can surely argue that a public company has a right to make money and adjust pricing to protect their margins. For certain, these multi-media players have a lot at stake in this game.

But, as a consumer, what are your rights?

It's likely you have already been affected by these non-neutral business practices, and you don't even know it. Broadband providers can simply target particular types of traffic going through their pipes and prioritize its performance. If you believe you have a right to use the bandwidth you pay for how and when you want, you have a horse in this race, too. You need to be vocal with your providers. Let them know you want the right to use your bandwidth any way and on any device you want. And, not only in the manner that is optimized for their business models. This may indeed require government intervention to sort out, so being vocal with your government representative is also important.

It's a fight for freedom on a new technology battlefield. Don't leave the outcome to companies who won’t provide that freedom unless they have to.

Mike Lachtanski
HP Media Solutions

"Net neutrality" is the principle that data on the Internet should move impartially, regardless of type of content, destination, or source. Some refer to it as the "First Amendment of the Internet".
 
Meanwhile, high-speed Internet carriers are seeking legislative support for a two-tiered model in which carriers could charge Web site owners a premium for priority or faster access. They argue they need the pricing flexibility as new channels, such as wireless, develop and mature. Those opposing the carriers argue that the Internet was created to work in a traffic-neutral way and they, in turn, argue continued growth and innovation depend on it. They want Congress and the FCC to pass telecom reform in favor of Net Neutrality to prevent the development of an un-public Internet. At the most extreme, critics fear that without Net Neutrality, two Internets could emerge: the free, public one we know today and a private one with faster premium priced services. It's a heated debate with extensive and lasting implications.

The opinions expressed above are solely those of the author and do not reflect the policies or opinions of HP.

Karen Reynolds puts tribal knowledge to work for PSG.

When Karen Reynolds, head of Executive Communications for Stephen DeWitt GM of PSG Americas needed a webcast in far away Santiago, Chile, she wanted a no-risk, no-fail, no-panic attacks production. Media Solutions delivered.

Engagement Marketing. Yes, it’s a buzz-phrase. And here’s why.

While marketing to the creative community at the annual mega-award show in Cannes, Horacio Miranda ditched traditional marketing in favor of daily editorial videos of the event—and of the HP-sponsored Young Lions lounge. Awesomeness happens.

Why do some corporate YouTube videos have thousands or even millions of views, while others of similar quality and content seem to fade like a NASCAR fan at the opera?

Everyone interested in social media as a marketing tool should write the following sentence on a stickie and put in on his/her bathroom mirror for a month. (An ankle tattoo is not out of the question.)

JUST BECAUSE YOU POST IT, DOESN'T MEAN THEY'LL VIEW IT.

And, while you've probably mastered the basics for optimizing search with meta data (title, tags, description) when posting to YouTube, here are a few more handy tips and new tools:

1. Max out the meta data - title, tags, and video description. Yes, it's important to choose relevant terms about the product, benefits and people featured in the video, but we often tend to be more conservative than necessary. Include name brands as well as category generics. Define what type of video it is. Generally, as long as it's germane, more is more in this arena.

2. Upload a transcript AND enable CLOSED CAPTIONING. Independent research on YouTube and Google search indicate that they are indexing on both. (Speech to text recognition/ indexing in the works.) And of course, closed-captioning is helpful for supporting the hearing impaired and translations.

3. Encourage engagement. The # of "Shares", "Comments", "Subscribers", and "Favorites" all contribute to your ranking. Make sure you enable the interactive options when you upload the video and take advantage of the GOOGLE MODERATOR feature introduced in May for specific promotional or crowd-sourcing efforts.

4. VIDEO ANNOTATION is another relatively new way to add interactive commentary to your video—perhaps to add background information about the video or suggest links to related videos or channels.

5. Promote early, often and everywhere (appropriate.) Leverage AUTO SHARING when you post your video. Send emails with the link, post it to your blog, and encourage your friends and colleagues to do so too.

6. Make sure you’re content is something people want to watch/read/interact with. Yes, this one is straight from the Department Of Duh, but it’s worth a mention. People read what interests them—hopefully this includes your content.

Cool gadgets to die for.

CAN'T FIND ANYWHERE ONLINE TO SET UP YOUR VIDEO CAMERA? PERFECT!

Joby's Gorillapod line can turn just about anything into a camera platform. But up until recently, it hasn’t given much more than static ability to camcorders. Now, Joby has the Gorillapod Video stand, and let me tell you budding Stephen Spielbergs, you may now let your freak flag fly. Read More

TECHNOLOGY EVERYONE, ESPECIALLY JAMES CAMERON, WILL LOVE.

Holographic video conferencing researchers have made a major step toward a holographic videoconferencing system that would let people communicate with one another almost as if they were in the same room. Read More

Some guys are born to raise the bar. Craig is one of them.

You should take time to meet Craig Barnes. That is, if you can find him standing still.

Craig is Media Solutions' home grown Solution Architect and he is the workhorse behind our powerful Media Portal and all the features that go into it. He and his team of developers peer into the future and begin developing tools we don’t even know we’re going to want — so that when we do want them, they're already built. Over the past year, Craig and his team have done a complete refresh of our entire webcasting infrastructure, which was a massive undertaking requiring many late nights of pizzas, Diet Cokes, and conversations with the cleaning crew. Now that the hardware is live, we’d like to acknowledge Craig for designing us such a robust and solid platform.

Craig, you rock.

In today's global economy, the world never sleeps. So we had to create an infrastructure that didn’t either.

Ask anyone who’s ever renovated a house and they’ll tell you it was worth it, but oh, man, what a ton of work.

Media Solutions is no different. We recently completed a total redesign of the infrastructure supporting our rich media platform. It took unfathomable sums of energy and dedication, but it truly was worth it. This is the system used to host and transmit every HP CEO-to-all-employee meeting around the globe simultaneously to HP employees. It's a system that can support more than 1500 users joining an event per second. It can read/write at 300 Mb/second. And it has fail-over-redundancy and load-balancing from the clustered servers—virtually eliminating hardware single points of failure.

Made up of 16 internal and 16 external servers, this infrastructure allows us further to support and connect directly within HP, legacy EDS systems, and to the "rest of the world" reliably 24 x 7 x 365. All available to you with just one call (or email) to Media Solutions.
 
Sexy? Not so much. Impressive? You bet, bro. Especially if you’re trying to download a 15-minute keynote video in a hotel room in Brunei.

SECURITY THAT'S HYPER-SAFE, ULTRA-SENSITIVE.

HP’s Media Portal includes several security features which handle as much or as little content protection as is needed. Here are the main methods:

• HTTPS – for secured browser communications.
• User validation (requiring user login with individual passwords).
• Access approval – requires an event coordinator to "clear" each user before joining an event.
• Automated rules like *@acme.com can also be used to reduce the effort needed by the event coordinator.
• Event specific password – a separate and unique password used for each event and precommunicated to only those who should have access.
• Referral URL checking – Each event can verify that that the current user came from one or more URLs. It is also possible to deny access based on the referral URL.
• DRM (Digital Rights Management) for encrypted media streaming and policy distribution.

ANALYTICS, TRACKING, MEASUREMENT.
DATA LOVERS, YOUR PORTAL HAS ARRIVED.

HP’s Media Portal has full data reporting for each event. And each report - including registration, attendance, surveys, web page counts, and webcast user questions - are viewable through a web interface or exported to an Excel file. Separate read-only report URLs can be given to event stakeholders who want to keep tabs on their events, too, without giving them full access to the portal. (In other words, so they can't mess up your next event.)

Last issue, we asked "What’s the best way to ensure a viral video actually goes viral?"

OUR READERS ANSWERED:
Not surprisingly, given how many clicks the Old Spice guy still gets on YouTube, 64% of you selected "Make it funny"–the clear winner. 18% of you voted for "Shoot in Hi Def" and "Cross your fingers." While this poll may be a little short on scientific analysis and conclusive methodology, it does serve to make a point. Let’s just say, hypothetically, that you can’t afford to get Isaiah Mustafa to star in your video. You still need to do everything you can to create content that people want to watch. If you can get Stephen Colbert trying to out-rap Kanye, great. But even if you can’t, there are still ways to punch up a keynote or introduce a product that will resonate like crazy with your audience. Who in turn, will tweet, blog, stumble upon and share your message with an even bigger audience.

Yeah, you need some magic to make an idea go viral. But there’s also a lot of science that can act as a catalyst for that magic. To find out more, check out our feature article in this issue under “Stuff to Know.” Or contact us. We’ll rock your content.