Akamai has integrated Adobe Primetime ad insertion into its network to enable server-side online video advertising. Red Bull Media House and Turner Broadcasting are both trialing the joint solution.

While other server-side ad solutions exist, John Bishop, CTO of Akamai's media business told me last week he sees this as a "Server-Side 2.0" offering because the ad requests run directly through Akamai's CDN, thereby eliminating slower communications paths that can hinder scalability.

Campbell Foster, Director of Product Marketing for Adobe Primetime, noted that the company has found other server-side ad insertion platforms have balked when reaching around 250K concurrent ad requests. By leveraging the Akamai CDN, the companies believe they can achieve near limitless scalability.

With server-side ad insertion, ads are stitched into the content in the network, rather than in the player. Moving to the network means the player bears a lower processing burden, which in turn reduces buffering, which interrupts the viewer's experience. Server-side ad insertion also reduces the work involved in delivering proper ads to multiple devices and also mitigates ad-blocking software. Last, it yields improved analytics.

The overall goal of the combined Adobe-Akamai solution is help convert the online video experience into one that is more broadcast TV-like, regardless of device used.

(Note: Akamai is a VideoNuze sponsor)