Abstract: A method for providing on demand streaming media to a user device, the method includes: receiving, at a streaming device, a request to stream a certain media stream to a user device; wherein the streaming device is coupled to multiple user devices over a network and is adapted to concurrently transmit multiple media streams to the multiple user devices; obtaining media stream fragments that belong to the certain media stream by the streaming device and from multiple distribution devices; wherein the streaming device and the multiple distribution devices form a high bandwidth media distribution peer to peer network; wherein the streaming device is prevented from uploading media stream fragments to any distribution device; and streaming to the user device the certain media stream.

Abstract: A non-transitory computer readable medium, a system and a method for generating a playlist, the method includes: receiving or detecting social network contextual information indicative of a sharing of a certain media entity between certain social network members; and updating, by a playlist generator, a playlist of media entities to be provided to an entertainment application user in response to the detecting of the social network contextual information. The entertainment application user is virtually linked to at least one of the certain social network members.

Abstract: A method for generating chunks for peer to peer distribution, the method includes: converting a media stream to chunks of variable size in response to media characteristics of the media stream; generating a hash value for each chunk; and transmitting to a peer to peer manager hash values and media characteristic information associated with the chunks.

Abstract: A system and method for multicasting an event of interest, the method includes detecting an occurrence of an event of interest within a received media stream; and multicasting the event of interest within one or more media stream of interest.