Encoding, Storage, Load Balancing and many other web infrastructure services are now all accessible to just about any businesses in bite sizes. Previously startups had to purchase servers, load balances, routers, write some code and hire a hosting company to house and manage all of the hardware and software infrastructure. All of which requires many weeks of time, effort and lots of up front money to get your web company off the ground. Now entrepreneurs can write some code and purchase bandwidth, encoding, storage and many other services in bite sizes at a fraction of the cost and time. Companies like
RightScale (Santa Barbara company recently funded by Benchmark) are providing a critical management console for cloud computing services to insure availability and reliability. I predict a bright future in Southern California for cloud computing software companies who are providing the "picks" and "shovels" to media companies.
