NBC Direct, a video download service that lets you view recent episodes of popular shows, is now live in beta mode. We have seen the future, though, and it is not NBC Direct. They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Here’s a picture of NBC Direct: Here are some of the limitations that [...]

Al Gore’s two year-old cable channel, Current, relaunched its website on Monday to better incorporate user generated content and better target an 18-34 demographic. The updated site supports all the major “Web 2.0″ bells and whistles, including photo and video sharing, comments and discussion forums on upcoming stories. The site also now appears to be [...]

This year, it’s looking more and more like the major broadcast networks are going to be taking baby steps into Internet media, experimenting with a variety of different methods of delivery while trying to protect their traditional business model: Fox plans to offer the season premiere episodes of seven programs for free through Apple’s iTunes [...]

NBC has announced a new service, NBC Direct, which will let you download and view NBC’s primetime and late-night programming to Windows PCs to watch for up to a week after the shows are broadcast. The service, which will begin beta testing in October, promises to let you download full-length episodes of Heroes, The Office, [...]

Apple today announced that it will not be selling NBC television shows for the upcoming television season at the iTunes Store. According to Apple, the move is a result of disagreements over per episode pricing, which NBC wanted to increase from $1.99 to $4.99. “We are disappointed to see NBC leave iTunes because we would [...]

Akamai Technologies, a leading provider of Internet content delivery services, has announced that it is offering services to help customers deliver the HD Web. Akamai’s content delivery network works by distributing requests for files over a worldwide network of servers. That way, when you click on a link to play an Akamai-hosted video, you get [...]

The Hollywood Reporter has an article today looking at the baby steps that major networks are taking towards putting their new shows on the Internet. All the networks except ABC are putting out at least some of their pilots on the Web, while ABC is limiting sampling opportunities to large screening events: NBC is offering downloads of the [...]

AOL has launched an update to its AOL Video portal. New features include: A redesigned main page that makes it easier for consumers to discover, search for and find millions of videos from across the Web; A redesigned video search experience that leverages Truveo video search technology and features better presentation of Web search results [...]

U.S. video rental spending is well off its 2001 peak of $10.3 billion, but revenue from online subscriptions is beginning to put some steam back into the rental industry, according to Adams Media Research (AMR). AMR projects online subscription spending to increase by 41% to $1.9 billion in 2007. “The five-year decline in the video [...]

Internet television company Veoh has announced the beta launch of VeohTV – a free application that acts as a specialized video browser and DVR (digital video recorder) for discovering, viewing and managing online video. VeohTV is designed to combine the breadth of the Internet with the simplicity of traditional TV. It featues a smart recommendation [...]