Category Archives: Multimedia & Internet

ProxToMe Adds Android to iOS for Proximity Sharing Using Facebook, the Cloud

ProxToMe, for iPhone and Android lets you discover people nearby by leveraging Facebook to share digital content in real-time. By using a proprietary wireless technology the app detects users within 250 feet and allows for seamless interaction. Following on the heels of their iOS release, it now supports Android.

The app’s requirement that nearby users also have it installed makes for an interesting chicken-and-egg problem. Launched in time for the annual SXSW Interactive social computing blowout, ProxToMe appears to be hoping for an initial boost from bands leading the way with content sharing.

ProxToMe also enables cloud-to-cloud content sharing, including Dropbox to Dropbox, which neatly sidesteps mobile bandwidth issues.

Le Nouvel Observateur Digital Uses Openmix Hybrid CDN Strategy for News Cycle Load Balancing

Sudden traffic load bursts following the news is business as usual for an online news provider. When the news is hot, interruptions and heavy slow-downs are common things on various websites; which can mean loss of audience and consequently loss of revenues, forcing technical teams to constantly anticipate any possible incident.

The third most read news & politics media in France, as per a September 2012 Nielsen study, with almost 8 million unique visitors every month, Le Nouvel Observateur recently chose the Cedexis “Openmix” load balancing solution to roll out and manage its own hybrid CDN — a mix of their infrastructure at origin and their own cache servers spread among various webhosting providers with third parties CDNs.

Rolled out during the second quarter of 2012, Le Nouvel Observateur’s hybrid CDN strategy now includes two content origins, backed by Varnish cache servers, located at two French hosting providers whose performance had been previously measured with Cedexis Radar as being optimum for serving their French audience. A global CDN is also used, mostly to deliver content to their international audience.

Details can be found in a case study published by Cedexis.