The Devil's in the Details

Integrated Online Solutions Versus Stand-Alone Solutions
Many online solutions are delivered as part of a larger service, such as a CDN or an online video platform (OVP). These packages vary from service provider to service provider, with some offerings being full in-house, homegrown solutions that track both file and streaming delivery, while others are merely rebranded versions of popular web and streaming analytics tools.

In the rich media space, there are early attempts to integrate rich media servers within CDN environments, which would allow for both hosting and tracking of rich media elements.

Some of the hosted SaaS solutions, such as Skytide or Keynote, work with both the CDNs and the end customers. For the CDN or OVP, these solutions would measure quality levels and delivery compliance via strategically placed measurement servers on certain CDNs’ networks. OVPs that use Flash-based streaming can also take advantage of end user quality of experience measurements via client-side injection of tracking scripts.

For the end customer, or content owner, these same measurements are also available, plus the monitoring of stream performance, availability of the CDN or OVP delivery network, and service-level agreement compliance.

With either a stand-alone or CDN/OVP reporting solution, ask the provider how the detailed reports will be exported in case these statistics need to be used in a larger business intelligence solution.

Conclusion
While our scenario mentioned at the outset of the article is geared towards the reporting of information at an executive and technical level within an enterprise, the basics remain the same. A variety of decisions need to be addressed when determining which reporting and analytics solution is best for your purposes, not limited to the question of how streaming and on-demand media delivery fit into your overall business strategy.

When making a decision about analytics, don’t ignore in-house solutions that may be part of existing CMS, ERP, or even CRP solutions. But you must also realise that those solutions are geared towards file delivery and won’t necessarily take into account the reported details that are needed to make proper decisions about streaming content.

In the rich media category, reporting solutions can benefit both the presenter and the viewer, and the integration of rich media templates into browser-based players (such as Flash and Silverlight) will go a long way towards combining the tracking of simple audio and video streams as well as rich media content.

Finally, when considering a CDN or OVP solution, ask about the service provider’s ability to provide real-time reporting and integration into web analytics or business intelligence solutions. See Jan Ozer’s review of online video platforms in this edition of Streaming Media for additional comparisons of OVP solutions.