SAN MATEO, Calif., — May 4, 2004 — Keynote Systems, (Nasdaq: KEYN), The Internet Performance Authority®, announced today that it will release the results of its first annual Online News Video Quality Study on May 11 at Streaming Media East in New York. Keynote’s annual studies will serve as a benchmark that news sites can use to assess the quality of their Web streams from the end user perspective.
As increasing numbers of Americans turn to news Web sites for news and information, consumers have become more sophisticated and expect and demand consistent quality and reliable streams. The result is increasing competition among the leading news Web sites for site visitors as more eyeballs equates to higher advertising rates.
Keynote is the established leader for benchmarking the performance of Internet applications including streamed media. This year’s study will examine the quality of streaming video from ABCNEWS, BBCNews, CBC News, CBSNEWS, CNN, FOXNews and MSNBC and News using Keynote’s industry leading Streaming Perspective® measurement service.
According to the 2004 Arbitron/Edison Media Research Study of Consumer Use of Internet Broadcasting, the Internet and Digital Media, the audience for radio and video broadcasting over the Internet has grown substantially in a very brief period of time. The study estimates that 51 million Americans used Internet broadcasts in January 2004 and that the weekly audience is 13% of all Americans, concluding that Internet broadcast consumers are the true “ultra-core” of the Internet. These monthly users represent a quarter of those online, yet account for 43% of all time spent online and 42% of estimated online expenditures making them a compelling advertising target.
The Study
During the survey period Keynote
scans the pages of each news site every 5 minutes and extracts the
top 5 stories. The study focuses on the “leading” video streams of
each site, more specifically, the top 5 video streams presented on
the front page. Each stream is measured 10 times per hour for as
long as it remains in this “leading” section. Measurements are taken
from Keynote’s international network of measurement computers in 12
cities using the standard methodology of Keynote’s industry leading
Streaming Perspective® measurement service. The key questions that
The Keynote Online News Video Quality Study attempts to answer
are:
1) How reliable, in general, are these sites as a source of
timely news video?
2) How good – and consistent – is the
streaming experience?
3) What are the differences in quality and
reliability among news sites?
Streaming Media East Panels
Shai Berger,
general manager for streaming services at Keynote Systems (Nasdaq:
KEYN) will participate in two sessions at the upcoming Streaming
Media East event in New York City, which begins on May 10. Mr.
Berger’s involvement in the industry from its earliest days has
given him the expertise necessary to understand both the technical
and economic issues that drive the use of streaming in the
entertainment, educational and enterprise markets.
On Wednesday, May 12 at 10:30 AM, Mr. Berger will moderate a panel of top executives from ABCNEWS, Bloomberg, FoxNews, MSNBC and Reuters entitled “News Portals On The Web: Evolving Content Models.” In this session, attendees can learn how marketers can take advantage of a cross-media strategy to reach an audience eager to explore the ideas, issues and people behind the news events. A description of the session can be found at http://www.streamingmedia.com/east/program/session.asp?id=668.
Additionally, on Tuesday, May 11, at 11:45 AM, Mr. Berger will participate in a panel entitled “Understanding Your Hosting, Storage & Content Delivery Options.” This session will look at the current options available and how to make the right hosting, storage and delivery choices. The session description can be found at http://www.streamingmedia.com/east/program/session.asp?id=651.
The Streaming Media East 2004 Conference is the premier
learning, networking, and problem-solving event for anyone who is
planning to integrate streaming and digital media into their
enterprise, marketing, or broadcasting objectives and those within
the industry looking to develop a sustainable ROI. The program gives
delegates direct access to, and interaction with leading business
and industry speakers offering practical solutions, strategies, and
advice. For more information about the conference held at the Hilton
NY in New York City, May 10 through 12 go to http://www.streamingmedia.com/east.
About Keynote Streaming Perspective
Streaming
Perspective is a world class streaming measurement service featuring
a real-time Web interface that organizes streaming data so users can
quickly understand daily or weekly trends, spot common problems with
streaming infrastructure, start and stop tests on demand for
powerful diagnostic work and drill down to view packet statistics,
trace routes and error codes for each individual measurement.
Streaming Perspective also offers a self provisioned Diagnostic Service that allows the user to control testing through a web interface. Self-provisioning puts a powerful tool in the hands of customers who need to diagnose complex streaming installations or compare service providers.
For short duration live events, Streaming Perspective offers a Live Event Service that measures streams with higher checking frequencies.
Streaming Perspective measures, compares and assures the performance of audio and video streams, diagnosing performance problems before they impact the end-user. Keynote Streaming Perspective is the industry’s most advanced service for measuring, managing and improving the performance and availability of streaming media, providing global coverage for measurements of streaming media delivery from nine U.S. and five international locations- New York, Atlanta, Washington, DC, Seattle, Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Dallas, Chicago, Tokyo, London, Amsterdam, Paris, Frankfurt. Streaming Perspective allows companies who rely on high quality streams to meet internal and external goals and validate service level agreements between themselves and customers or vendors.
Streaming Perspective features the latest versions of QuickTime, RealPlayer and Windows Media Player and simplifies performance management by simulating the behavior of end-users in cities around the world. It is the official source of measurement behind the Microsoft Windows Media 9 Series Certification Program.
About Keynote
Founded in 1995, Keynote
Systems (Nasdaq “KEYN”), The Internet Performance Authority®, is the
worldwide leader in Web performance measurement and management
services that improve the quality of e-business. Keynote’s services
enable corporate enterprises to monitor, benchmark, test, diagnose
and optimize their e-business systems both inside and outside the
firewall. Over 2,100 corporate IT departments and 19,000 individual
subscribers rely on the company's easy-to-use and cost-effective
services to increase revenues and reduce downtime costs, without
requiring additional complex and costly software
implementations.
Keynote is The Internet Performance Authority due to the company’s global infrastructure of over 1,600 measurement computers in more than 50 cities worldwide that capture and store on a daily basis over 40 million Internet performance measurements, frequent media citations quoting Keynote's Web performance data and analysis and the company’s growing range of market-leading Web performance indices for vertical markets http://www.keynote.com/solutions/solutions_pi_index.html.
Keynote Systems, Inc. is headquartered in San Mateo, California and can be reached at http://www.keynote.com/ or by phone in the U.S. at 650-403-2400.
Keynote, The Internet Performance Authority and Perspective are registered trademarks of Keynote Systems, Inc. Other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. © 2004 Keynote Systems, Inc.
Public Relations Contacts:
Della Lowe, Keynote
Systems, Inc., (650) 403-3233, mailto:dlowe@keynote.com
Dan
Berkowitz, Keynote Systems, Inc., (650) 403-3305, dberkowitz@keynote.com