What if content-delivery networks threw a price war and everybody came?
Level 3 Communications (Nasdaq: LVLT) announced that it will be a primary content-delivery network for Netflix's (Nasdaq: NFLX) video-streaming service. With more than two-thirds of Netflix's subscribers now streaming -- and a digital catalog that now is up to 20,000 titles and counting -- this can be a pretty sweet gig.
Unfortunately for Level 3, Akamai (Nasdaq: AKAM) has been the sole primary content-delivery network for Netflix since being tapped earlier this year. Did Level 3 step in because Akamai wasn't doing a good job or because it simply came in with cutthroat pricing?
Netflix will rely on more than one server farm to fuel its Web-tethered couch potatoes, but one has to wonder what kind of margins can be had when leading providers are trying to price their way into a competing provider's contracts.
Briefly in the news
And now let's take a quick look at some of the other stories that shaped our week.
- 51job (Nasdaq: JOBS) is getting the job done in China. The popular provider of job listings and online recruitment services saw revenue and earnings climb by 24% and 75%, respectively, in its latest quarter.
- Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) will pay magazine and newspaper publishers that provide digital editions on its Kindle 70% of the resulting subscription revenue, net of modest delivery costs. It hasn't been an easy run for traditional publishers, but can you imagine a nearly 70% return on print publications?
- TiVo (Nasdaq: TIVO) is back in court again, for its patent-infringement case against EchoStar (Nasdaq: SATS) that's been taking years to resolve. TiVo shareholders probably wish they could use their TiVo remotes to fast-forward through all the boring stuff and just get to the resolution.
Until next week, I remain,
Rick Munarriz
