Google Launches Media CDN To Compete on Content Delivery (techcrunch.com) 10
This week at the 2022 NAB Show Streaming Summit, Google launched in general availability Media CDN, a platform for delivering content using the same infrastructure that powers YouTube. From a report: With a presence in over 1,300 cities across 200 countries, Google says that Media CDN is designed to -- in the company's words -- "automate all facets" of "serving content [close to users]." The pandemic led to an explosion in demand for streaming content as business closures and shelter-in-place orders forced folks to stay home.
Media CDN, which joins Google's CDN portfolio for web and API acceleration, is by no stretch of the imagination the first of its kind. There's plenty of CDNs optimized to serve media. But Google touts ostensibly unique benefits like delivery protocols tailored to individual users and network conditions and "industry-leading" offload rates. "With multiple tiers of caching, we minimize calls to origin -- even for infrequently accessed content," Google VP Shailesh Shukla wrote in a blog post yesterday. "This alleviates performance or capacity stress in the content origin and saves costs." Media CDN also features tools for ad insertion, allowing customers to dynamically inject video content with ads. Moreover, the service is "built with AI/ML" to power interactive experiences, Google says, like real-time stats during sporting events and purchase links embedded in virtual billboards.
Media CDN, which joins Google's CDN portfolio for web and API acceleration, is by no stretch of the imagination the first of its kind. There's plenty of CDNs optimized to serve media. But Google touts ostensibly unique benefits like delivery protocols tailored to individual users and network conditions and "industry-leading" offload rates. "With multiple tiers of caching, we minimize calls to origin -- even for infrequently accessed content," Google VP Shailesh Shukla wrote in a blog post yesterday. "This alleviates performance or capacity stress in the content origin and saves costs." Media CDN also features tools for ad insertion, allowing customers to dynamically inject video content with ads. Moreover, the service is "built with AI/ML" to power interactive experiences, Google says, like real-time stats during sporting events and purchase links embedded in virtual billboards.
Yeah, but... (Score:5, Funny)
Who wants to switch now and then switch again in 6 weeks when they cancel it?
Re: (Score:2)
Google re-invents CDN. Deploys after need subsides.
News at 11-- but on a different CDN.
Re: (Score:2)
Fair criticism, although as it's also used for Youtube, you'd imagine they'd keep it around for a while longer.
This isn't really going to be much use for the average joe - it's aimed at the Neflixes of the world. AWS has some really excellent "media" features (partly because they bought Elemental a few years back). They use all their own tech to run Amazon Prime Video etc, as do Netflix and a few other media companies (anyone know where Apple and Disney are run?). There's actually very little real competiti
Yeah ... no (Score:2)
If it works as well as YouTube with random stream slowdowns and hiccups ... I'd rather look for another service, from a company that's specialized in CDNs, not in selling ads from dubious companies.
Comment (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
If they undercut their competition significantly on price ... well it's not hard to switch CDN if you own your code.
Re:Spying (Score:2)
For google this is no doubt just another way for them to spy on everything everyone does so I hope it does fail miserably.
How long until... (Score:2)