InformationWeek

Keynote Systems Inc.'s Streaming Perspective service lets companies measure the performance of on-demand and live content from a user's perspective. Keynote's Scale for Streaming lets companies rank the performance of their sites against industry benchmarks as well as competitors' sites.

Service Metrics Inc., a subsidiary of Exodus Communications Inc., is offering Streaming Media Performance Monitoring, a service that uses data collection agents to emulate the media players that users employ, then measures packet loss and jitter that can hurt streaming performance.

Analysts say the new services can help E-businesses better architect their online systems to handle streaming media. "If you get interruptions in the stream and things get jumpy and jerky, it really ruins the whole experience," says Michael Goulde, a senior consultant with the Patricia Seybold Group. "Being able to measure from the end user's perspective is critical in making some very important decisions in how you are going to distribute the content."

A Zona Research Group report on the service introductions says streaming media over the Internet "will largely remain a toy" unless companies can prove they are delivering high-quality transmissions. Zona says the new services could help: "We see this as paving the road toward wider use of Internet-based streaming media as a training and entertainment medium," it says.

Keynote's new service, as well as the Keynote Scale, will be available in late July and will support Real Networks' Real Audio and Real Video, as well as streaming MP3. Support for Microsoft Windows Media will follow soon. Pricing will range from $395 to $9,995 per clip per month, depending on measurement interval and size of the stream.

Service Metrics' service will be available in the third quarter; pricing isn't available.