Jaman Almost Out of Beta, Launches Version .99

On the heels of Joost’s announced intent to offer live TV, I spoke with the CEO of online video distributor Jaman – a company taking a very different approach to delivering content. Jaman has gotten attention from some of the big wigs both for its focus on indie and international films and for its ability … Read more

Gotuit Good News

I got an email from Gotuit the other day about the latest enhanced video site they’re enabling. In this case the news is about a Luke Bryan video remix site (apparently he’s a singer with EMI’s Capitol Records Nashville), but the press release was highly reminiscent of several other Gotuit announcements. In other words, not very interesting, except for the fact that it piles on one more example of Gotuit’s latest success. In September the company announced a deal with the FOX Reality Channel and with Sports Illustrated for the 2007 Heisman Watch site.

Using the announcement as an excuse to revisit the Gotuit website, I found that behind the scenes they appears to be making changes. The company site has been completely revamped to target business customers only, not consumers. Smart. It’s a lot cleaner and quite slick looking. I don’t know anything about the company’s financials, but focusing on a B2B audience has always seemed its most promising route. Rather than fight the consumer video wars, Gotuit is establishing itself as a trusted content delivery system at a time when the business world is just starting to scratch the service of online video applications. I see huge growth potential.

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TV Guide Evolves

Last100 put a post up yesterday on TV Guide’s new online video guide, so I decided to check it out myself. Given all of the video search sites available, I didn’t have high expectations for something novel, but I was suitably impressed. TV Guide’s layout is fantastically simple and gave me exactly the information I … Read more

When an Apple TV Falls Far from the Tree

Seriously, what is up with Apple TV? It’s been such a spectacular commercial failure (in my opinion), that I now have to wonder (in paranoid fashion) if there’s a master plan we the public are simply not aware of. Since the Apple TV launched earlier this year, it’s been heavily eclipsed by other online video … Read more

Another Joost Launch

Joost opens to the public today and NewTeeVee has a video interview with CEO Mike Volpi. The company started handing out beta invites many months ago and brilliantly enlisted the help of tech bloggers (ZNF included) to broaden the invitation process while still making it look exclusive. Then the much-hyped, TV-on-the-Internet application started getting some … Read more

Sling and DirecTV Stream the NFL with Supercast

There’s news out of Sling Media today, and since I don’t work for the company (unlike Dave), I feel perfectly justified in covering it. :) Sling is collaborating with DirecTV on a new offering called Supercast, which brings online streams of NFL games to the Web every Sunday. Subscribers to the DirecTV/NFL SuperFan package can … Read more

Gizmodo Gets Scoop on New ReplayTV Gadget

I have a soft spot for ReplayTV, having gotten an early Panasonic version of the company’s hardware back in 2001. However, there’s been virtually no word of the DVR pioneer since ReplayTV moved to a software-only business model last year. Now Gizmodo reports that the company is launching a new product – an HD/DVR tuner … Read more

Web-Only “Quarterlife” to Debut November 11th

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This is what I’ve been waiting for. Something good to watch on the Web. Seriously, with the amount of bad television churned out by the networks these days, I’m all for having a few professionals take the plunge to produce for an online-only audience. Last week, MySpace announced that producers Ed Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz (Thirty Something and My So-Called Life) will debut Quarterlife on its site on November 11th. The show will not be seen on regular networks, only online.

While I don’t know if Quarterlife will live up to my TV-watching criteria (it doesn’t have Timothy Busfield after all), I’m extremely happy that professional producers are willing to give Internet-only distribution a try. Zwick and Herskovitz are almost sure to lose money, but they have a chance to convert some key TV-watchers to the Web and make the platform viable for other producers in the future. I could care less about watching TV online per se, but I’d do almost anything for good content, and it’s clear that producing quality TV for the networks is getting harder and harder.

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