IPTV - Internet Marketing News and Blogs

ITV's online catch up TV offering will be revamped in an attempt to compete more effectively with the BBC's iPlayer.

Though ITV launched the service months earlier than the iPlayer, it has quickly been overhauled by the BBC's offering. Around 11m videos were viewed via the iPlayer in January, compared with just 2m for ITV.com  

One in four users of social networks say that these sites could become the main way they access music and video content in future, according to a new survey.

Entertainment Media Research's 2008 survey (pdf) finds that social networks have a significant effect on content discovery, with 30% of users searching through them for new music.

Panasonic has teamed up with Google to launch internet-ready TVs that allow users to access YouTube videos through their TV sets.

The new range of plasma Viera HDTVs will be launched in the Spring in the States, giving the web giant even greater reach for its YouTube ad offerings.

The BBC last week made a streaming version of its iPlayer available for the Windows, Mac and Linux platforms.

The battle for the living room is hotting up, with Microsoft's plans to provide movies on-demand through Xbox Live.

The service is set to launch in the UK next week, with launch titles including The Matrix, Harry Potter, and Ocean's Eleven.

Xbox Live users can download movies for 250 Microsoft Points, which is equivalent to around £2 each, or pay more for high definition versions.

The BBC, Channel 4 and ITV have confirmed that their long rumoured joint video on demand (VOD) service will go live next year.

The venture, dubbed 'Project Kangaroo', will operate independently of the three broadcasters and offer video content from a range of providers.

Microsoft plans to add a new social networking option to its Xbox Live platform, by allowing users of the service to connect with friends of friends.

The Dashboard Update will be introduced on December 4, to allow gamers to find friends, send messages and invites, and to compare games.

All of which prompts the question: Is Microsoft trying to become 'the new Facebook'?

I spent an interesting evening last night at the Chinwag Web TV Takeover event listening to an excellent panel discuss the future of IPTV.

The problem this morning is I'm still no clearer on what it means or when it's going to matter.

Is there any future for DVD rental companies? Yet another UK firm, ChoicesUK, is about to call in the administrators, having previously complained about the threat of piracy in the entertainment industry, along with ‘unseasonably hot weather’.

While piracy may have played a role in the company’s demise, it is more likely that it has been ground down by pureplay online DVD rental firms, including one operated by mighty Amazon, which launched its service in late-2004. For starters, online DVD rental pureplays have much lower overheads than ChoicesUK, which seems to have been strangled by the costs of maintaining 170 shops and 1,800 employees.

But hold on. I’m starting to wonder whether the pureplays themselves will last the distance, in the face of changing consumer behaviour.