BitGravity launches a new content delivery network designed to enable a new wave of Internet media that is expected to be higher quality and more interactive. BitGravity, which has been operating in stealth for over a year, has already validated its technology with over 50 brand name customers. The company has developed a network engineered for a generation of web-based content just being envisioned by major media companies and innovative media start-ups. BitGravity’s network is facilitating the creative development of multimedia applications previously limited by the performance constraints of the Internet.

BitGravity also announced a strategic relationship with Sling Media, the digital lifestyle products company and maker of the Emmy award-winning Slingbox. Under the relationship, BitGravity will serve as the CDN for a series of forthcoming interactive services from Sling Media.

“Media companies are experiencing a technology barrier; they know in theory they can build applications online in unforeseen ways, but in practice, the current CDN infrastructure is too limiting to realize their vision,” said Perry Wu, CEO and co-founder of BitGravity and a former venture capitalist and veteran of several technology start-ups. “That barrier is now coming down with the launch of BitGravity, and we anticipate content like we’ve never seen before will come to market on our network.”

Major media companies and some technology start-ups have started to develop more innovative video applications for the Internet. While consumers have come to accept the performance and the quality of video for user-generated content and commercially-developed video, they will be less tolerant as the quality matures and as the complexity increases with new applications; requirements that are not ideal running on top of the current CDNs.

“There will be increasing amounts of HD and live content on the web, as well as mosaic applications that allow viewers to jump from one point of view to another, much like a TV director jumps from camera angle to camera angle in the broadcast booth,” said Mr. Wu. “The vision and creativity for these applications exists today, but before BitGravity, the technology infrastructure really detracted from the desired experience. Now you can create experiences that are as engaging as if they were stored locally on your desktop, and when we get to highly immersive applications like online gaming, that’s when the category becomes really exciting.”

The BitGravity network, which has been measured at over four times the speed of some other leading CDNs, is based on optimized routing methodology and network innovations. That combination allows the company to squeeze maximum performance out of a much smaller and more nimble network than typical CDNs. Most CDNs are based on legacy architectures optimized to handle 10-year old applications, like text and jpeg files. The BitGravity network was purpose-built by seasoned technologists with deep expertise in global technology infrastructures, systems engineering and application development.

“We have approached this problem as a technology problem, not as a typical service provider would,” said Barrett Lyon, CTO and co-founder at BitGravity and a well recognized pioneer in distributed network applications. “We have seen numerous applications that stretch the creative imagination and will require equally creative technology to support them, and we have built a company and a network to service that emerging market.”

The company plans to build several applications on top of its core CDN products to expand on its scalability and management capability and not only provide a richer experience for consumers of content, but also give network administrators more control over their content distribution.