But there are all kinds of ways to achieve your quota including various forms of arbitrage.

I read today via the MaxCDN blog that SimpleCDN service is in deep trouble – some of their suppliers have apparently pulled the rug from under their feet leaving them with an inability to supply bandwidth to their clients because they no longer have servers to do it.

Note:  I have a sponsorship deal of this blog with MaxCDN and am one of their affiliates, but I really only worry about the affiliate program for large clients with direct referrals – if you have a large site that has high bandwidth demand or needs acceleration, drop me an email via my contact form and I can help you evaluate whether they would be a good partner.
If you check the blog post I think they have a good deal for former SimpleCDN customers or those that just need some continuity until they can recover – I hope SimpleCDN make a little money from people using the coupon code “simplecdn”

The CDN Dog Fight

SimpleCDN have apparently been using infrastructure provided by SoftLayer and Hosting Services, Inc.

That to me sounds like their 10TB and 100TB offerings.

Who in their right mind would offer 100TB of bandwidth with a single dedicated server and not expect it to be used in some way to serve media in large quantity?
They also have unmetered… of course who is going to buy unmetered unless they intend to really use the bandwidth.

Part of the 100TB terms of service state

A content delivery network or content distribution network (CDN) is prohibited from running on our network. Special requests to run CDN services may be approved on a case by case basis. Failure to comply with this policy will result in the disabling of all hosting services.

I don’t know whether they had special permission, or how long that term has been in force.

If someone was going to rely on a hosting partner for a huge amount of bandwidth it seems to me they would check the terms of service, and make any special arrangements.

But Hosting Services Inc also run VPS.net and their own CDN services. Until recently they were Akamai partners until Akamai decided to pull the rug from under their feet, and in a quick shuffle they switched to using Level3.

• This sounds to me like SimpleCDN had a deal
• Hosting Services Inc had had enough of SimpleCDN undercutting them on CDN services using their own hosting plans and decided to terminate them at very short notice, in much the same way they themselves were terminated by Akamai. The value proposition SimpleCDN vs Akamai compared to SimpleCDN vs Level3 is significantly different, such that SimpleCDN are without doubt more of a direct competitor of VPS.net than they were previously.
• That sucks, hense MaxCDN’s offer and me being annoyed and writing something when I should be working

I haven’t had a chance to contact Hosting Services Inc or Softlayer for comment, I am meant to be working on other stuff so just need to get the news out in the hope that it helps a few friends recover from downtime before Christmas.

For whatever reason you don’t kill people’s hosting just before Christmas in this way

Some Twitter Chatter

@SimpleCDN Heard about your predicament. I'm working at MaxCDN and we may be able to help. Call me at 818-284-9829. Cheers, Samir Said (CSO)

December 11, 2010 5:48 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@sbbsam

Samir Said

Latest updates on SoftLayer illegal actions: http://admin.simplecdn.com/

December 11, 2010 5:59 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@SimpleCDN

SimpleCDN

Our engineering team can help you get up and running on CloudFront right away, and we've so far heard great things about MaxCDN.

December 11, 2010 6:00 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@SimpleCDN

SimpleCDN

@QuickWebHosting Us too, but in our case they illegally terminated our services. Hope that didn't happen to you too.

December 11, 2010 6:03 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@SimpleCDN

SimpleCDN

@AddToAny We apologize, and are working on alternative service - and we can help you move to another provider in anyway possible...

December 11, 2010 6:11 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@SimpleCDN

SimpleCDN

@AddToAny We'll post any additional updates on our feed, and via this site http://admin.simplecdn.com/ regarding SoftLayer illegal actions.

December 11, 2010 6:11 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@SimpleCDN

SimpleCDN

@EastOfAnywhere Right now we don't know for sure - SoftLayer's actions are unprecedented and are doing all we can as fast as we can.

December 11, 2010 6:28 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@SimpleCDN

SimpleCDN

@TVMeuBrasil We are doing everything we can - at this point UK2 & SoftLayer are sticking to their goal of illegally forcing SimpleCDN down.

December 11, 2010 7:20 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@SimpleCDN

SimpleCDN

@cloudharmony SoftLayer and UK2 / Hosting Services terminated our infrastructure (hundreds of servers) with no notice and no reason.

December 11, 2010 7:20 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@SimpleCDN

SimpleCDN

@sidepodcast This was an effort by both UK2 and SoftLayer to remove SimpleCDN from the market.

December 11, 2010 7:22 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@SimpleCDN

SimpleCDN

@Beaker We feel WikiLeaks pain - we pay these guys THOUSANDS, but still they terminate us for no reason with no notice. SoftLayer is bad bad

December 11, 2010 7:23 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@SimpleCDN

SimpleCDN

@jprovo They did cut SimpleCDN off without a valid reason and no notice. Sure we'll go to court, but that doesn't really help our custms now

December 11, 2010 7:25 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@SimpleCDN

SimpleCDN

SoftLayer is not responding to any of our customers or complaints at this point - please keep contacting them, but they may hang up on you.

December 11, 2010 7:27 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@SimpleCDN

SimpleCDN

@sidepodcast Obviously we have a lot to share about this - but you know how it is; waiting for the lawyer okay first, etc.

December 11, 2010 7:52 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@SimpleCDN

SimpleCDN

@sidepodcast Our goal is to minimize impact to customers, even if we have to move them to other providers. Thanks MaxCDN for helping out!!!

December 11, 2010 7:53 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@SimpleCDN

SimpleCDN

@hareemca Many customers lost everything, as our pricing and feature set is / was second to none.

December 11, 2010 7:54 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@SimpleCDN

SimpleCDN

@Beaker As soon as we can release more details we will- but the actions were definitely directed specifically at SimpleCDN - yes we pay bill

December 11, 2010 9:15 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@SimpleCDN

SimpleCDN

@SoftLayer A lot of businesses rely on SimpleCDN, at least give customers time to find a new provider before cutting them off so soon.

December 11, 2010 11:20 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@Y3com

Y3.com

@eluis Believe me, we understand. We are happy that MaxCDN is offering our customers a discount - but yes our offering is / was the lowest.

December 12, 2010 1:44 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@SimpleCDN

SimpleCDN

@SimpleCDN do you guys have backup of the files? Freakin out here... have 750 customers relying on SimpleCDN + no backup! who do I contact?

December 11, 2010 10:47 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@leebensondotcom

Lee

VPS.NET Twitter Statement

This is interesting – when questioned, the VPS.NET MD knows nothing about it

interesting goings on the CDN market. first @akamai pull the rug on @vpsnet, now uk2 pull the rug on @simplecdn: http://bit.ly/hVtxFH

December 11, 2010 4:00 pm via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@sidepodcast

Sidepodcast F1

with uk2 & @vpsnet effectively being the same company, i wonder if the two incidents are related? thankfully we moved content away long ago.

December 11, 2010 4:09 pm via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@sidepodcast

Sidepodcast F1

@sidepodcast As the M.D. of VPS.NET - I knew nothing of this...so I can assure you it's not related to VPS.NET at all. ^NN

December 11, 2010 4:29 pm via CoTweetReplyRetweetFavorite

@vpsnet

VPS.NET

I have also checked cache dates on the 100TB terms of service and have a screenshot from 8th December which contained that clause.

I have had interactions with Ditlev from VPS.net and he always seemed like an honest guy who works hard to satisfy his customers.
However… the prime benefactor of SimpleCDN.com being killed off as a competitor to a UK2 service would be the CDN services within the UK2 group… which are run by VPS.net

So my bonus is along those lines and will reveal a lot more of my long term plans, which I even hinted at long ago in a comment on Jeff Walker’s blog when he first launched PLF over 3 years ago.

Best Existing Solution By Far

The other day I felt compelled to write about Quansite because it is the closest service to what I want to achieve.

If you are looking for a perfect “no tech” solution for small product launches, I honestly don’t think there is anything that can beat it.

For bigger launches you might start running into resource problems – you can upgrade to a bigger package (they offer semi-dedicated) but that is a long-term commitment just to cover peak traffic.

Off-loading media files to a CDN is only a partial solution.

Running Your Own Dedicated Servers

I have heard that on some of the biggest launches they run up to 10 dedicated servers in a cluster, though Stompernet squeak through on just 4 beasts. From a reliable service provider you are still looking at possibly $2000+/month for the hardware, plus you have to have the server jockeys to run them.

Then you need some kind of media hosting, as even 4 beefy servers won’t be able to stream videos to 100s of visitors, let alone 1000s.

Most of the “Gurus” currently use Amazon S3 or Cloudfront

United States Edge Locations
Data Transfer

$0.170 per GB – first 10 TB / month data transfer out
$0.120 per GB – next 40 TB / month data transfer out
$0.100 per GB – next 100 TB / month data transfer out
$0.090 per GB – next 100 TB / month data transfer out
$0.080 per GB – next 250 TB / month data transfer out
$0.070 per GB – next 250 TB / month data transfer out
$0.060 per GB – next 250 TB / month data transfer out
$0.050 per GB – data transfer out / month over 1,000 TB
Requests

$0.010 per 10,000 GET requests

I am not going to knock Amazon, as before they came around a few years ago, CDN bandwidth might have set you back 5x as much, but then nowhere near as many people were publishing videos… it was costly.

Even so lets look at a typical (small) product launch

100 MB video per person
20,000 visitors
==================
2000 GB of data

Not a lot … around $400

But some larger product launches have

500 MB video per person (I am not talking browser killing Stompernet sales pages)
100,000 visitors
==================
50,000 GB of data

A little bit more … around $6500

Just imagine how much one of the really big launches costs, and then the cost of data delivery for the actual content to members who quite rightly want to consume what they purchased.

Or you could look at a sales page

10 MB Video – Very short low quality
500 visitors per day
5GB per day
150 GB/month
============
1800 GB per year

You are still looking at close to $400 for bandwidth /year

If you do insist on using Amazon S3, do at least use something like Media Stream Guard (not aff) from my friend Craig. So many gurus leave their Amazon content insecure.

Alternative CDNs

SimpleCDN – I have been monitoring them for the last year, and they have changed their offer maybe 5 times, effectively wiping out whatever investment clients have already made in setup time. If you were a very heavy user, maybe you would have still had significant cost savings, but the feature sets have been changing drastically.

Rackspace with their Cloudfiles at $0.22 are actually a contender as the playback is probably better than Amazon.

NetDNA – recently quite popular among many bloggers using WordPress and bandwidth pricing can reach very respectable levels offering a price advantage over Amazon – the negative is that most of their “Edges” are in the USA with just one in Europe.

Edgecast – competitive in volume, fast & reasonably full featured. Notable connectivity in Asia

Highwinds – various resellers strong in both US & Europe – Asia promised.

VPS.net – A reseller of Highwinds and also cloud based VPS – were previously reselling Edgecast but there were problems with flexibility.

With most of these CDNs it is possible to get bandwith cost down to below $0.06/GB – possibly a little cheaper with some negotiation and very high volume.

You would have to be running the equivalent of 20 large product launches with Amazon Cloudfront to achieve these pricing levels, and before you reach that level there is some margin for eith cost saving or profit.

Flash Players

You can always take the free option of using a GPL player such as Flowplayer, though they also have a premium option

JW Player has some viral and data benefits that would require a liitle custom programming to get working on other players, but at the same time are not in themselves perfect. I have seen slightly better implementation, but none that I would consider ideal. The licensing for commercial use isn’t too expensive.

Transparent Player – I haven’t checked out version 3 which was recently launched yet (and it is not even mentioned on the sales page last time I looked), but with the unlimited use plan it is a very viable contender

EZS3 provide players in addition to making it easier to work with Amazon obscuring data, usable on unlimited sites. I have seen this used by Frank Kern.

This isn’t meant to be a conclusive list, I know a ton of other options, both with and without available source code for custom modifications. Boy do I want to do some modifications.

Best Current Solution

I am laying my bets on VPS.net for some serious clustered high-availability hosting and also providing primary CDN, with some alternative backups.

With players the field is open

Why No Video Streaming With Own Players?

I can imagine people running huge launches who are extremely well monetized can afford some of the more expensive solutions, because they are then in a position to negotiate, but that isn’t suitable for most.
For some reason even people supposedly running 8 figure businesses have problems keeping servers running smoothly.

Jeff Walker is using Ooyala – I haven’t quite worked out the pricing, but it will be more than just a CDN.
Brightcove despite the free trial is not cheap
Viddler – if you don’t have their ads then commercial use even as an Enterprise client will cost you $1500 for 4TB of data or 0.375/GB = 5x as much as VSP.net in much smaller volume.

There are many other options with the price range typically $0.30 to $1 per GB.

What I Really Want To Do?

I want to provide hosting for product launches for FREE, including all the bandwidth, high-capacity clustered servers, built in membership software, and many other advanced features.

Is there such an expression “Fat Pipe Sales Funnel” ?

That is only part of the equation, the service has to make money and cover quite considerable costs, but that is where “value add” comes in with all kinds of network effects that add up to more than enough to cover costs and then some.
After all WordPress.com can offer something similar and they are really under-monetized.

Leverage :)

Pipe Dreams?

One focused goal for 4 years will eventually happen but in hindsight I probably should have just concentrated on clogging up the interwebs with small niche sites, or building a huge list, but something held me back. I would almost certainly have the resources to build this project from cashflow now.
Even the paid link battles from 2007 were very much a part of the “sounding out” process on possibilities.

I have avoided masterminds – they would have persuaded me to pursue more attainable goals.

Product Launch Manager Bonus “Can Be Delivered Now”

CDN = “Content Delivery Network: or alternatively “Can be Delivered Now”

There are tons of huge bonuses being offered by other affiliates for Product Launch Manager, because it is a great product but also the affiliate payout is… generous to say the least.

The wonderful thing about the course is that it will massively boost the number of people running product launches in all walks of industry, but at the same time boost demand for higher performance hosting with significant commercial advantages, so it finally makes my long-term goals infinitely more attractive as an investment opportunity.

Just providing one core component might be enough “proof of concept” to tip the investment balance, and just the benefit of having one major “breaking point” of product launches crossed off, the technical side of preventing launches crashing to a standstill because of server meltdown is probably the most targeted bonus you will hear about today… well other than pure consulting offers from people who have run launches.

My Offer

I will provide a preconfigured CDN platform where you can just ftp files or they can be pulled using Rsync, along with origin pull to the CDN along with $1000 of bandwidth at cost – the bandwidth will be available as and when you need it and will not expire if not used on a month-month basis like many subscriptions.
Most likely it will be through VPS.net, but I will shop around and provide additional fallback

I will also provide additional remote consulting for both the CDN and other launch issues to the best of my ability. I am a “jack of all trades” and can talk both geek and marketing. I am not going to place silly limits on time – your success is my success.
As and when I scale, I will be able to provide additional human resources to fill my shoes.

When other components become available you will have the option to use them – I have my server techs sorted out now to manage the clusters and VPS.net is ideal to scale this kind of platform, in many ways more than Amazon EC2 and other cloud options because of the nature of product launches.

Until such time as I have the backend monetization and “leverage” to offer all the hosting for free, additional bandwidth and any server use will be at cost – not inflated cost… real cost. For the CDN it will be something like $0.06/GB at current exchange rates and pricing.

If you want to set up your own VPS servers or clusters I can also offer nodes at competitive rates as I will end up with 100s of nodes, and point you in the direction of people who could manage them for you.

I hope you will consider my offer – the PLM offer isn’t cheap, but will be attractive to existing PLF owners, and maybe a few others.

Alternatively go with the big $$$ packages. You know the game – all those leads you send to the big launches that didn’t convert (but which you presold) will now be offered the exact same package (or very similar) as a bonus, with no commission for the original affiliate despite doing a significant chunk of the selling.

Making crashed servers on product launches a thing of the past

I have a cure for respecting the value provided by smaller affiliates in the sales process as well…

Warning: This article contains lots of really useful information that will probably help people but also contains a few affiliate links – not every link is an affiliate link, and not every link should be considered an endorsement

p.s. I know my server crashes occasionally – I personally suck as configuring linux servers, which is why last week I hired a great team to do this stuff for me.

When the sales letter goes live, <<< USE THIS LINK >>> – hopefully the previous links will still lead to some of the more descriptive videos.