Limelight Networks and IFILM Feed the Super Bowl Commercial Craze With

IFILM Taps Digital Delivery Network to Stream Sunday’s Most Popular Ads to Millions

TEMPE, Ariz., /PRNewswire/ — The only thing that receives as much, if not more, attention than the Super Bowl game are the array of 30 second commercials launched during the T.V. time outs. Thanks to Tempe-based Limelight Networks, a leading end-to-end digital delivery network, and IFILM, a leading video-entertainment destination on the Web, millions of people who either missed ads during the game or simply want to see them again can do their own online instant replay.

Limelight Networks was selected by IFILM as the exclusive streaming provider of the ever-popular Super Bowl commercials and on the Monday following Super Bowl Sunday, IFILM leveraged Limelight Networks’ platform to stream the popular commercials more than 8 million times to its customers around the world. This year’s traffic represents an increase of over 500 percent from IFILM’s post-2003 Super Bowl ad replays.

“Over the past few years, Super Bowl ads have found a niche in America’s popular culture and it has been really exciting for Limelight Networks to play a small role in this phenomenon,” said David Rice, vice president of sales and marketing at Limelight Networks. “We have been amazed at the number of hits our network has been receiving this week. The popularity of this annual IFILM event demands a highly scaleable network to handle the surge in viewers and our distributed delivery platform enabled IFILM to handle this load with ease and keep the ads playing.”

“We are delighted with this year’s event. We served nearly 15 million streams in 72 hours — over five times last year’s traffic,” said Blair Harrison, executive vice president for IFILM. “Limelight Networks handled the traffic without a hitch. Millions of users watching almost a million streams per hour at peak was something we could only have dreamt of a couple of years ago.”

In addition to IFILM, Limelight Networks provides digital content delivery for many of the world’s leading music, entertainment, and Internet companies, including: BuyMusic.com, Musicmatch, Real Networks, RadioFree Virgin, Jimmy Buffett’s Radio Margaritaville, Wind-up Records, Valve Software and QuePasa.com, as well as leading broadcast networks.

About IFILM

IFILM is a media company comprising the IFILM Network ( http://www.ifilm.com ), and the Hollywood Creative Directory with Lone Eagle Publishing. The IFILM Network is a leading video entertainment destination on the Web, offering channels of movies, short films, TV clips, video game trailers, music videos, and its celebrated “Viral Videos” collection. Through its distribution partners including Real Networks, Movies.com, WindowsMedia.com and Rotten Tomatoes, the IFILM Network reaches over twenty million buzz-building visitors per month and offers unique brand-building programs for blue-chip advertising partners. IFILM also publishes the renowned Hollywood Creative Directory, the entertainment industry’s standard for contact directories ( http://www.hcdonline.com ) and operates Lone Eagle Publishing, publisher of industry trade books. IFILM is a privately held company based in Hollywood, California with investors that include Axiom Ventures, Inc., Eastman Kodak Company, Liberty Digital, Rainbow Media, Sony Pictures Entertainment, and Vulcan Ventures, Inc.

About Limelight Networks

Limelight Networks is the first comprehensive digital delivery network, providing online businesses with media routing and distribution solutions that include live and on-demand streaming media, content delivery, storage and hosting as well as Tier-1+ bandwidth services. Leveraging an efficient network architecture with strategic distribution locations around the globe combined with powerful download management and reporting tools, Limelight Networks enables some of the industry’s top content providers, webcasters and enterprise customers to reduce the cost and complexity of delivery, while ensuring unmatched performance. Limelight Networks’ innovative delivery platform has been proven to dramatically cut the costs associated with e-commerce, distance learning, online entertainment and corporate connectivity. For more information, visit www.limelightnetworks.com .

———————————————————————— Source: Limelight Networks