For those who really, really don't like pre-rolls and overlays, or just true fanatics of live streams at Ustream, the video hub has instituted a $3.99 a month premium service that bundles ad-free experiences with special member recognition throughout the site. Generally, ad-free access has not been a big selling point for paid content programs. In theory people like to say they crave experiences that block intrusive ads, but in practice they rarely pay for them. In the case of Ustream the service is stripping much of the ad inventory off of premium users. According to product manager Jordan's blog …

How many users does a publisher lose every time the viewer has to endure a delayed start of video content or multiple buffering pauses? And who does that user blame? Hulu or Netflix? CNN? Or Comcast and Cablevision? Surely Akamai and Level3, generally unknown to most onliners, will not take the heat. It is hard to say who pays what sort of price for poor video performance on the Web, but Alcatel-Lucent introduces this morning a video analytics product for top level service providers that is designed to ferret out where and when quality of experience problems exist in the …