With the economic challenges and people staying home more often, there's growing interest in cheap entertainment. There is a small but increasing number of people using the internet as their primary entertainment gateway.
No, I am not talking about updating myspace or facebook, or looking for cooking recipes online... How about watching quality video?
I remember back in the early 90's seeing a little movie screen on a computer with JFK's inauguration and going WOW.
Well, things have changed and for the better. Before I proceed, I want to give a word of caution, some of these sites listed below are considered "internet hogs" and productivity killers.
I wouldn't be accessing these sites from work -- at least not if I had something to get done.
With that cautionary tale:
Hulu.com - A great set of videos and movies. Movies like Liar Liar and RoboCop, or tv shows some that are currently running such as House, and of course those of the "Golden Age of Television" including shows like ADAM-12 and Emergency! as well as Hawaii Five-O, book em' Dano! (I always wanted to say that).
ITunes. ITunes is not free, but has reasonable costs for shows and movies, great potential here as Steve Jobs is a board member of Disney and always pressing the content providers to lower ITunes fees. There's also Vongo and Netflix as well as a site called surfthechannel.com which claims more than one million shows/movies available.
Local Sites - I also enjoy the local sites like knowpickens.com in case I can't make a meeting or other local event. ETC3 has streaming video as well.
Some news and other content sites use the web for what's called "viral marketing." They “sidecast” programming that may not be profitable for broadcast but where there’s an interest on the web, such as an ongoing news story (Brian Nichols trial in Atlanta). PBS has gotten into the act offering some of their programming online.
How do these sites make money? They sell ads that are normally displayed or charge a nominal fee. The movie industry, unlike the music industry, tends to be more open to allowing their content on the internet with unique ways of gaining revenue from it.
As bandwidth increases, so are the possibilities. Quite a bit of the recently concluded Bejing Olympics was available online. And avid bikers could watch hours and hours of live coverage of the three week long Tour De France -- to the point that at least two Jasper businesses reported some decline in productivity.
Different sites do use different means of broadcasting video. Hulu for example uses flash technology, there are a lot of cell phones (including the IPhone) that do not have flash technology.
Video quality can be dependent on the computer, network speed/traffic as well as how the video is streamed. I have used projectors for video and find the experience quite satisfying but it's not quite home theater.
While the internet will not take over video from television for a long time -- if ever, it's presence allows for new and creative distribution of shows that don't require being in the Top 20 of the Nielsen Ratings to be successful.
As 3G and 4G networks in the cell networks are improved, video content will increase in quality and quantity.
Of course there are societal issues to address (watching Jerry Springer! on the cell phone in public is not a good idea). The fact that consumers have a medium that allows for greater control in what they want to watch has a lot of potential.
[Greg Moore, CEO of Burnt Mountain Technologies, has 20 years in the IT field supporting networks, telecom systems and business continuity planning. He resides in Pickens and is a volunteer firefighter. He may be reached at progress@burntmountaintech.com.]
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