'Mad Money' Spotlight: Cramer's Online Plays

Companies involved in supporting and creating Internet video would seem to represent an obvious growth business.

But tradable plays are few and far between for the retail investor -- and long-term investible stocks almost nonexistent -- Jim Cramer noted in his "Mad Money" broadcast Friday evening.

A few relevant stats: many pundits expect video to account for 60% of all Internet traffic in four years. And a recent poll of American adults showed that the Internet is the favored method for consuming news -- by a long shot -- with 56% of those polled saying they get most of their news from the web. In second place was TV, with 21%.

Looking forward, 84% of the survey's participants said the Internet will be the news source of choice for most people. One can only imagine that video-over-the Internet will represent a large portion of that news.

As of now, Cisco(CSCO Quote) is the gorilla in this pen, with its prized networking equipment. Beyond that, however, Cramer advised doing some research on a group of smaller -- and therefore riskier -- companies in the Internet-video business. Two of the bigger firms Cramer mentioned were Infinera(INFN Quote) and Akamai(AKAM Quote).

Infinera, which went public in June 2007 at $13 a share, makes a kind of advanced circuit that uses lasers and is designed for optical communications networks. Demand for the Sunnyvale, Calif., company's products have slowed since last year, with year-over-year revenue contracting by 50% to about $450 million in its latest quarter, ended in March. Short sellers also hold about 15% of the stock float, which could indicate some bearish sentiment about the company's near-term prospects.