A few thoughts after my first (and last in San Jose) Streaming Media West since I didn’t have the opportunity to write nearly as much as I would have liked to during the show. Next year the conference relocates to LA which should have the added advantage of providing more proximity to the media and film industry.
Having been to the East show the past four years but never to West, West offers a significantly different crowd. East is filled with a far wider range of people people in every industry, many in media and many who work out of regional sales offices for companies headquartered elsewhere. In San Jose it skews much more strongly tech. Because the convention center is bigger and the booths are more spread out the conference feels smaller though I’m not sure in terms of attendance whether that’s actually the case.
CDNs were noticeably missing from the event floor. There were a few, Internap was there, but Neither Akamai or Limelight had a booth this year. Several years ago CDNs were everywhere you looked at Streaming Media shows. Now it’s platforms.
Some other odds and ends worth noting:
- Fox Business News streaming from the show floor offering interviews with company executives. Cool, but really?
- Amanda Congdon was roaming the show in her new gig as FLO TV pitchwoman.
- For a second consecutive year Wowza beat out Flash Media Server and Microsoft IIS in the Readers Choice Awards
- EveryZing changed their name again and is now RAMP. For some reason the change came in the middle of the conference leaving their staff with the wrong name badges.
- For lack of any company representation, Tremor Media’s Readers Choice Award was claimed by Corey Kronengold. We hear a ransom letter is forthcoming.