Wikipedia says Akamai Technologies is a company “that provides a distributed computing platform for global Internet content caching and application delivery.” The reason we went to Wikipedia for a definition is because Akamai is a company that does so many things with the Internet that it’s difficult to describe. So we’re going to let Akamai’s senior product marketing manager Suzanne Johnson do it.
In a conversation with iSPOT, Johnson explains how Akamai does everything from help publishers insert ads in their broadband content to work with ad networks, agencies and ad insertion firms to make broadband content and advertising accessible to users. Since 1998, Akamai’s servers around the world have kept the Internet running smoothly and today they are helping publishers develop ad supported rich media and broadband content.
iSPOT: How does Akamai help publishers monetize broadband content?
Johnson: There are a couple things going on that are driving richer heavier content like video and Flash online. It relates to the fact that as audiences shift online and ad budgets shift online, publishers are investing heavily to build and retain their audiences and stay competitive with more innovative features and programs on their sites. So if you think of a site like CNET, which just introduced CNETTV.com, a TV like experience they broadcast content with on demand streaming and they monetize it through various methods of advertising, from pre-roll to sponsorship to custom content type things. On the other side of the fence are agencies that are coming up with innovative ideas of what publishers can do to create content and programs for brand marketers, so in addition to creating video advertising they’re also creating ideas for live video events or custom video content for brand marketers, from a documentary on the building of the Cadillac for GM or things like Bud.TV. They’re involved in creating custom entertainment content.
iSPOT: What is Akamai’s role in the process?
Johnson: Where Akamai fits in, we’ve been around since 1998 to solve the fundamental problem of the Internet which was the peering relationship between large networks. They have an interest in delivering a good experience. If you’re a user sitting at your computer and you request a piece of content it could take a circuitous route going all over the Internet wherever the networks want to send you as and as the content gets richer it becomes even more laborious. So Akamai says wouldn’t it make a lot more sense if the content was located on servers closer to where end users were requesting the content. That’s how Akamai was conceived. Initially we worked with companies like Yahoo where we would store the images and logos on a server that is located near where you were. If you take that metaphor, we’re doing the same thing for rich media content like streaming. We have a network that is located globally that consists of more than 20,000 servers in over 60 countries and we’re inside the big networks. We have a presence in those networks and our technology takes into account what is the best route to deliver content, how to get it there faster. We have media servers and we have a connection that’s strong and closer to end users. It’s an intelligent Internet that overlays the regular Internet. We offer services that provide reliability and better quality delivery relating to rich media.
iSPOT: How does this relate to broadband video advertising?
Johnson: What’s exciting is to see what the advertising industry is doing and it’s more important for companies on the publisher side. If you’re CNET or Yahoo and your business is building an audience to sell advertising, they’re offering more video content on the editorial side of things and monetizing it through video advertising. We work with the majority of large publishers out there, the top 15 U.S. media companies and TV networks to help them evolve.
iSPOT: If someone goes to CNETTV and calls up a news clip and sees an ad that plays in front of it, what is your role in making that happen?
Johnson: A couple of ways. We work with customers that want to do that themselves, Comcast for instance. We work with them to have ad insertion happen into their video on our network. We have a management platform where customers can go in and figure out if their videos are running and where they’re running and help them configure play lists inside Windows Media Player where ads can be inserted. Most big companies already have an ad server like Doubleclick or Eyeblaster. We aren’t in the business of creating complicated inventory management services like Doubleclick, but they rely our network to deliver large video campaigns, they run on our infrastructure. We work with the top five ad networks like Advertising.com and all the top rich media vendors like Point Roll. All their ads are served off an Akamai server. The other angle is we work directly with ad agencies and their clients. We’ve been seeing more marketers investing in big video presence on microsites, like Bud.TV, custom content that’s targeted for their own sites. General Motors has MyCadillacstories where they have videos and users can submit their own content. More is happening and it’s relevant to the production side. It’s all about delivering video flawlessly. They can’t do it themselves because they’d have to deal with server boxes. We say let us worry about that. We can handle the largest events online on our network and make sure your brand experience is a good one.
iSPOT: What is the biggest problem for a site that wants to play content and monetize it with advertising. How can they get up and running and how do you help them?
Johnson: A newspaper site or someone that’s not traditionally video based needs to go out and acquire content or produce it. We don’t help there but once they have it we advise them on what is the best business model, whether it should be advertising based or pay-per-view, and getting them the right tool set and hooking them up with partners to monetize and control content and get it up and running.
iSPOT: Do you help ad based sites prepare broadband ads?
Johnson: We leave it up them but we insure it will go off seamlessly. Companies have their own sales force, but if they don’t we can help integrate them with the companies they need. We work with Lightningcast and Doubleclick and help content owners integrate their videos into the ad serving engines. One of the biggest challenges is the different technology that needs to come together to produce the online business model. What Akamai brings to the table is we have over 100 services people who make sure it doesn’t break down and if you want to use Doubleclick we can make sure all the pieces work together. We act as a general contractor to bring together the pieces of the online business as they need to run. Our core business is delivering content and helping advertising partners integrate ads in video or digital rights management technology. Whatever your business model is, we have the solutions to help you implement it.
iSPOT: What other areas of broadband advertising is Akamai involved in?
Johnson: We also have customers that work in podcasting. We’re their delivery platform for ads and podcasts. Kiptronics is a campaign management system, they have a platform that inserts audio ads into podcasts and that happens on the Akamai network. If someone is a podcaster, their ads can be easily inserted into podcasts. So many publishers are running podcasts and monetizing them on their sites, publishers are competing for ad dollars, they’re innovating with podcasting. They need to keep up and make sure their audience sticks around. We can help them act on their ideas so their audience grows.
