The concept of content delivery (also known as content distribution) is be­ coming increasingly important due to rapidly growing demands for efficient distribution and fast access of information in the Internet.

Web Content Delivery.- Web Workload Characterization: Ten Years Later.- Replica Placement and Request Routing.- The Time-to-Live Based Consistency Mechanism:.- Content Location in Peer-to-Peer Systems: Exploiting Locality.- Dynamic Web Content.- Techniques for Efficiently Serving and Caching Dynamic Web Content.- Utility Computing for Internet Applications.- Proxy Caching for Database-Backed Web Sites.- Streaming Media Delivery.- Generating Internet Streaming Media Objects and Workloads.- Streaming Media Caching.- Policy-Based Resource Sharing in Streaming Overlay Networks.- Caching and Distribution Issues for Streaming Content Distribution Networks.- Peer-to-Peer Assisted Streaming Proxy.- Ubiquitous Web Access.- Distributed Architectures for Web Content Adaptation and Delivery.- Wireless Web Performance Issues.- Web Content Delivery Using Thin-Client Computing.- Optimizing Content Delivery in Wireless Networks.- Multimedia Adaptation and Browsing on Small Displays.

The concept of content delivery has become increasingly more important due to rapidly growing demands for efficient distribution and fast access of information from the Internet. The content can be diverse, ranging from HTML documents, images, multimedia streams, database tables to dynamically generated contents. Moreover, to facilitate ubiquitous information access, the varied network architectures and hardware devices can include broadband wired/fixed networks, bandwidth constrained wireless/mobile networks, powerful workstations/PCs, PDAs and cellular phones. The need to deliver quality information--given the nature of the content, network connections and client devices--introduces various challenges for content delivery technologies. Web Content Delivery offers the most comprehensive coverage of state-of-the-art research, providing insightful and thought-provoking possibilities for the future of web applications. Written by leading international researchers, the book focuses on web content delivery, dynamic web content, streaming media delivery and ubiquitous web access, addressing specific topics such as: Web Workload Characterization: Ten Years Later Replica Placement and Request Routing The Time-to-Live Based Consistency Mechanism Content Location in Peer-to-Peer Systems: Exploiting Locality Techniques for Efficiently Serving and Caching Dynamic Web Content Utility Computing for Internet Applications Proxy Caching for Database-Backed Web Sites Generating Internet Streaming Media Objects and Workloads Streaming Media Caching Policy-Based Resource Sharing in Streaming Overlay Networks Caching and Distribution Issues for Streaming Content Distribution Networks Peer-to-Peer Assisted Streaming Proxy Distributed Architectures for Web Content Adaptation and Delivery Wireless Web Performance Issues Web Content Delivery Using Thin-Client Computing Optimizing Content Delivery in Wireless Networks Multimedia Adaptation and Browsing on Small Displays   Web Content Delivery is an essential reference for both academic researchers and industrial practitioners dealing with web content delivery.

From the reviews: "This book is devoted to content delivery, also known as content distribution. … This is a specialized book that will appeal to researchers interested in multimedia services issues, particularly Web content delivery. For those in this research community, it will be very valuable." (Mario Freire, Computing Reviews, August, 2006) "This book is a collection of academic papers. These have been written by leading researchers around the world and assembled by the editors as a representation of the state-of-the-art in web content delivery. … The book is professionally produced, clearly printed and well laid out. … it is reasonably sized for easy transportation, so could be a companion on a long journey to a conference. … It should certainly grace the computer-science shelf of any self-respecting university library." (Andrew Neill, Informer, Spring, 2006)

Provides a comprehensive overview of state-of-the-art research and global development activities on web content delivery Lays the foundations for future web applications Focuses on recent advances that are driven by emerging content types and system architectures Focuses in particular on content delivery in four main areas: web, dynamic, streaming media and wireless