You may or may not have heard of Fred, but it doesn’t really matter, as many people have. In fact, Fred is probably the hottest thing on YouTube right now, with the possible exception of Avril Lavigne who is about to overtake The Evolution Of Dance as most watched video ever.

Which is pretty amazing seeing as Fred is just the 6-year-old alter-ego of a 14-year-old kid from Nebraska. And all he does is speak in a squeaky voice and mug to camera.

Who, What, Why?

So why the success? And where has it come from all of a sudden? Fred is one of those Internet phenomenons that seem to come from nowhere and blind side you with their sudden and unexplained appearance.

The annual tennis championships at Wimbledon in London, England yesterday, and for the third year in a row, all the action is available online to either stream live or download later.

Unfortunately it isn’t free. The cost is £12.90 for UK residents or $24.99 for those elsewhere. This does however buy you an all access pass to every match and all the highlights for the duration of the tournament.

Windows Only Yet Again

Once again though, Apple Mac and Linux users miss out, with a computer running a Windows OS among the system requirements for the service. This is obviously down to the DRM issues involved.

The last few weeks have seen a rash of opinions being expressed over the ability of YouTube ever making money. The question remains whether the site is a money making machine in waiting or just a financial black hole for Google.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt has already admitted the problems the company faces in making any money from the site, no matter how many millions of page views it receives, and how large a proportion of Web video that the site accounts for.

Kill Or Cure?

This lead CNET’s Don Reisinger to ask the question that dared not be asked: whether Google should just cut their losses and kill the site, despite the pain of losing that $1.65 billion investment it ploughed in just two years ago.

Since then we have seen the debate rage on, and some movement on Google’s part to at least experiment with different ways to make some money from YouTube.

ABC has been maybe the American television network most-resistant to fully embracing the Web. But that is now changing, with the network signing a deal with Veoh.

The deal, as revealed by the New York Times, sees ABC shows such as Lost, Desperate Housewives and Ugly Betty being made available on Veoh, as well as game highlights and clips from ESPN.

Veoh Expanding Output

Veoh started out in the same way as YouTube, offering short user-submitted clips, but has of late been attempting to integrate more material from large media companies such as CBS and MTV.

This latest deal with ABC sees shows being streamed for free with an advertising revenue model on the website, although interestingly, ABC is still not open to the idea of embeds, so videos will have to be viewed in a separate window instead.

The television industry has a chance to embrace the Web, the emergence of new technology and new ways of distribution in a way that the music industry has so far failed to, and continues to refuse to.

While the music industry has rallied against anything that isn’t wholly in their grasp and under control, and instead fought to continue along the path of a dead business model, television doesn’t have to make the same mistake.

Without Accepting File-sharing

Of course, the industry isn’t going to roll over and capitulate in the face of illegal file-sharing of its television programmes, but there are ways and means of getting onside without annoying every single customer you once had.

We’ve seen from the recent debate over Google’s ability to make YouTube profitable, how hard it is to make money from Web video, especially the free-to-watch, ad-supported variety.

John Malone, the billionaire media mogul and chairman of Liberty Media and DirecTV has spoken to The FT about how moves by US networks to put their content online for free may prove to be a bad move in the long-term.

Beijing Olympics Live Online

He drew particular attention to NBC’s plans to offer hundreds of hours of coverage of this summer’s Beijing Olympics online for free, a risk seeing as the network paid $2.3bn for US broadcast rights for the games a few years back.

Instant messaging has been with us for many years now, with clients such as MSN Messenger, Skype, Yahoo and AIM amongst the most popular.

Things have moved on a bit since the days of good old fashioned text chats though, and video is now all the rage. Lucky then that there are some brilliant, yet affordable webcams on the market made for just that purpose.

Microsoft Lifecam VX-3000

The Microsoft LifeCam VX-3000 is one such contender, and comes from a brand you can trust (assuming you haven’t suffered an Xbox 360 Red Ring of Death of course) in Microsoft.

These cameras are currently being sold on Amazon either separately or as a pair, with the idea of the twin pack being to enable friends and family members to each own one and be able to stay in contact wherever they are around the world.