San Francisco, CA (August 17, 2009) - Rooftop Comedy, the leading interactive media producer of original comedy content and comedic branded entertainment, today launches That Sucks, the first television series that converges the entertainment power of television, the immediacy of web and mobile communications and the pervasiveness of social media networks to produce a new model of participatory media programming.

At the heart of That Sucks is Sucksbox, a web and mobile platform that asks the public to respond to a single question: "What do you think sucks?" Answers can be short text submissions, digital photos, audio recordings and videos. That Sucks combines the funniest Sucksbox submissions with highlights of live recordings of the best professional stand-up comedians from around the country commenting on "Things That Suck" along with updates on global "Suck Trends" based on the real-time information flow to Sucksbox.

Rooftop Comedy records live comedy performances 365 nights a year at more than 25 comedy clubs in North America, Europe and Australia that are added to an existing library of tens of thousands of hours of comedy content. Combined with the constant flow of submissions to Sucksbox, That Sucks is able to feature the funniest and most current commentary on what sucks.

Broadcast highlights and viewer calls-to-action are auto-distributed online across all of the major online video portals, thereby further driving viewership to the both the program and the online platform. Viewer submissions can be created from, and are automatically integrated into their Twitter and Facebook updates, providing the potential for unprecedented viral reach.

The integrated program, produced by Rooftop Media / Rooftop Comedy, is shot entirely in High Definition and will initially be available nationwide on MavTV. MavTV is carried by Comcast, Verizon, Dish Networks, Time Warner, Brighthouse Networks, Charter Communications and Cablevision.

About Rooftop Comedy
Rooftop Comedy is the largest producer of interactive comedy programming and original comedy productions.

Rooftop Comedy records live comedy performances 365 nights a year from its network of comedy clubs throughout North America, Europe and Australia, distributing original comedy programming to mobile, web, broadcast, and print outlets that include Current TV, Apple iTunes, Yahoo!, Nokia, Hulu, FastCompany Magazine, YouTube, and TiVO. Working with more than 3,500 professional comedians, Rooftop Comedy maintains a growing video library of tens of thousands of hours of original comedy content. Rooftop Comedy produces a range of local and national events highlighting its talent discoveries, including the annual National College Comedy Competition and the Aspen Rooftop Comedy Festival.

About IPTV Evangelist

IPTV Evangelist (ipTVe) is the ultimate guide to the people and the companies that are defining the red-hot iTV and IPTV markets. Founded by streaming video pioneer Gilbert B. Hammer, IPTV Evangelist combines the latest iTV and IPTV news and analysis with interviews with key players. As the title of the site implies, Gilbert is passionate about the space, which he views as the next-generation for online and mobile entertainment for its creative integration of new and improved forms of communication, storytelling and community.

NEW YORK (Aug. 11, 2009)--Livestream today opened its industry-leading live and linear video streaming platform by releasing several powerful APIs, thus enabling the Livestream service (Free or Premium) to be integrated into in-house or third party online video platforms and players.

The Livestream Player API enables customers, programmers, and web agencies to build their own Livestream powered video players and clip libraries using HTML, Adobe Flash or Adobe Flex development environments. Other Platform API's released today include the Live Publishing API, Guide API, Account API and Chat API.

Livestream Plug-in for Brightcove

The first key initiative utilizing the Livestream APIs was spearheaded in partnership with industry powerhouse and leading online video platform, Brightcove. Livestream and Brightcove jointly developed a plug-in that gives Brightcove customers the opportunity to instantly stream live and linear video via Livestream into their existing Brightcove player.

"Livestream is an important partner for us as we look to meet the increased demand for high quality live streaming among our global customer base," said Chris Johnston, director of technology partnerships at Brightcove. "In partnering with organizations like Livestream, we're able to provide customers with seamless access to a broad feature set for live publishing, distribution and analytics."

Brightcove customers who wish to use the Livestream platform to power their live streaming or 24/7 linear broadcasts can use the player plug-in for Brightcove, available now. The plug-in integrates seamlessly within any Brightcove player template, thus providing the same user experience and leveraging the monetization, analytics and asset management already in place with the Brightcove platform. (More information available at http://www.brightcove.com/en/partners/livestream )

In addition, Livestream is developing plug-ins for popular open source video players, including Longtail Video's JW Player, Adobe Strobe and Flowplayer.
(For more information, availability details and online demos

Early Player API Adoption

In the last several weeks alone, Livestream's APIs have borne important fruit. The APIs helped bring Twitcam.com, the first of its kind product, from the concept stage to a live product in less than a week. Twitcam.com enables users to stream live video to their Twitter feeds, and chat with just one click.

Just days before the launch of Twitcam.com, C-SPAN used the Player API to create a custom, multi-channel player that provided viewers multiple camera angles for its online coverage of the Supreme Court Nominee Judge Sotomayor confirmation hearings.

In addition, the Livestream Player API was used to create a custom, branded and viral Flash video player for the recent Mandela Day Concert that could be embedded as a widget on any Web site or social network.

More information on the Livestream APIs - including sign-up, documentation, live examples and downloadable code

About IPTV Evangelist

IPTV Evangelist (ipTVe) is the ultimate guide to the people and the companies that are defining the red-hot iTV and IPTV markets. Founded by streaming video pioneer Gilbert B. Hammer, IPTV Evangelist combines the latest iTV and IPTV news and analysis with interviews with key players. As the title of the site implies, Gilbert is passionate about the space, which he views as the next-generation for online and mobile entertainment for its creative integration of new and improved forms of communication, storytelling and community.

New York, New York - August 4, 2009 -Lexent Metro Connect, the leading provider of dark fiber networks in the New York Metropolitan area, and FiberMedia, provider of turn-key solutions for datacenter space, managed services and niche technology solutions with four major datacenter facilities in the Metro New York area, announce today the two companies have created a strategic partnership to offer industry-leading, network access space to one of New York City's top carrier hotels, 75 Broad Street. With this partnership, bandwidth-intensive customers such as financial, insurance, healthcare, pharmaceutical, and telecommunications companies, educational institutions, and government agencies, can now build a state-of-the-art, custom built, dark fiber optic network with Lexent Metro Connect and then collocate their core network infrastructure equipment at 75 Broad Street with FiberMedia, benefiting from FiberMedia's network planning, technical support and managed services.

"As the only truly neutral, open access dark fiber provider in the New York Metro region, Lexent customers rely on us to provide 'freedom of choice' amongst the region's top tier data center facilities," states Ray La Chance, President and CEO of Lexent Metro Connect. "The addition of Fiber Media's 75 Broad Street location to the Lexent network helps meet our clients' rising demands for high quality, well connected data center space."

"Once customers' dark fiber networks enter our 75 Broad Street data center facility, FiberMedia works with clients to ensure flexible and affordable datacenter solutions, specifically designed to address critical data storage and other ongoing business concerns," continues Christopher Heim, COO of FiberMedia. "Additionally we offer short-term and long-term placement of fulltime technical staff to support infrastructure and application development and assignments, including HIPPA and SOX compliant solutions. Our solutions provide a true, turn-key network offering, so that our customers are building and interconnecting their networks within a cost-effective and solution-oriented environment."

About IPTV Evangelist

IPTV Evangelist (ipTVe) is the ultimate guide to the people and the companies that are defining the red-hot iTV and IPTV markets. Founded by streaming video pioneer Gilbert B. Hammer, IPTV Evangelist combines the latest iTV and IPTV news and analysis with interviews with key players. As the title of the site implies, Gilbert is passionate about the space, which he views as the next-generation for online and mobile entertainment for its creative integration of new and improved forms of communication, storytelling and community.