Akamai HD Media Analytics for Broadband Video & Audio Provides Rich Business Metrics for HD Delivery Formats

* Provides detailed business intelligence on content usage and audience engagement for broadband media assets across multiple formats and devices


CAMBRIDGE, MA .- Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), the leader in powering video, dynamic transactions and enterprise applications online, announced that Akamai HD Media Analytics, a highly flexible, customizable solution to understand audience characteristics and content consumption, is proving to be a valuable business tool for content providers. A key component of Akamai’s HD Network, Akamai HD Media Analytics provides content and audience intelligence for multiple playback environments, including Adobe® Flash®, Microsoft Silverlight, and the iPhone, in one unified solution.

“For Media & Entertainment companies, understanding the audience and their viewing habits is critical to running their business. Getting the right metrics, in the right context quickly allows programmers to ensure they provide the most effective content, to the most interested audience. Akamai’s HD Media Analytics solution offers key statistics around audience engagement, with a richer set of context around content and how it is being used,” said Tim Napoleon, Chief Strategist, Digital Media at Akamai. “The Akamai HD Network brings analytics and delivery needs together to give publishers meaningful insight into the performance of their media products in the context of their own businesses.”

Whereas typical media reporting is very consumption focused, such as how many bytes were delivered or how much traffic on aggregate is being serviced, Akamai HD Media Analytics is designed to allow programmers to customize their reports with business parameters so they can look at more business relevant data such as total hours of video viewed, number of unique visitors by program or channel, and even how that breaks down by geography.

Akamai is working with leading global broadcasters, publishers and music companies for whom gaining visibility into the performance of online media offerings is critical. Akamai’s Media Analytics solution is intended to enable these companies to gain deep insight into their audiences - what they are watching, for how long and from where, and therefore make smarter business decisions about programming and better monetize site properties. Current customers include BBC World Service and PointRoll, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Gannett Co. Inc. (NYSE: GCI) and the leading rich media advertising provider.

“Akamai’s HD Media Analytics solution offers us deeper analysis into our live broadcasts,” said Karl Kathuria, Head of Digital Delivery, BBC World Service. “We can now get almost real-time insight into our broadcasts to track how our audience engages with our content. The personalised reports, in the language and context of our business, allow us to quickly report on the success of our broadcasts for our business, and to respond to the changing requirements of our global audience.”

“Working with leading advertisers and agencies, PointRoll serves over 85 billion rich media impressions each year for more than two-thirds of the Fortune 500 brands,” said Sandy Dondici, CTO at Pointroll. “With Akamai Media Analytics, we can easily collect the right data per campaign, increase our overall efficiency and quickly understand critical business data on our progressive download and Flash streaming campaigns. We can provide clients with more customized data reports for each campaign in real-time for an instant snapshot of their performance.”

The Akamai HD Media Analytics solution is designed to give content providers meaningful insight into the performance of their media assets in the language and context of their business, including detailed metrics on:

* Audience Engagement and Video Consumption - including completion statistics, geographical data, viewer statistics, average play duration and usage trends
* Content and Channel Performance - effectiveness of content offerings and distribution strategies as shown by metrics including audience numbers and streams viewed via different distribution channels
* Cost Allocation - view cost center data broken into key groupings, such as content categories, business units, and distribution partners



In addition, Akamai HD Media Analytics offers the following features:

* Broad Format Support - comprehensive support for current and emerging media formats covering delivery to the desktop, mobile, and other devices
* Business Data Integration - custom business information that is easily integrated, enabling businesses to align metrics and audience characteristics to the context of their specific businesses
* Highly Flexible - flexibility to address a wide array of complex media-related analytics needs including the ability to easily tailor analytics tasks and outputs to the specific requirements of each individual business
* Client and Server Side Support - support for both client side and server side analytics for near real time reporting of adaptive streaming technology


To view a demonstration of Akamai HD Media Analytics, please visit http://wwwns.akamai.com/hdnetwork/demo/analytics/default.html