The Xbox 360 is winning the fight for consoles to become important cogs in the online video sector. And a set of new Netflix features rolled out on the Xbox 360 have coincided with a promise that Netflix will not be coming to PS3 or Wii any time soon.

Netflix On Xbox 360

Xbox 360 owners gained access to Netflix’s ‘Watch Instantly’ video-on-demand streaming service last November with the roll-out of the long-awaited New Xbox Experience. This gave Xbox Live subscribers access to the 12,000-plus movies and television episodes Netflix gives away to its subscribers.

This was just the latest step in the evolution of video games consoles from being meant just for games to becoming true multimedia devices designed as living room entertainment hubs.

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Live chat, online video, and social networking are three very popular sectors of the Internet. So, why not combine them all to create a platform for people to watch videos together, while chatting and getting to know each other? Which is where Watchitoo comes in.

Social Online Video Viewing

The idea of social viewing for online video has been around for a while now. Lycos lets people watch movies together, while PalTalk allows video chat to be integrated into rooms with multiple users. Then in October 2008, CBS introduced social viewing rooms to its Web site, which allows groups of people to watch CBS shows online together in the same way they would in a living room.

That’s the key to this whole idea; moving the real-life living room to the virtual world. Because online video viewing is usually a solitary pastime, with even the best clips only being shared either by embedding or linking rather than watching together with other people in real-time. But Watchitoo changes all that.

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Barely a month goes by where one of the big name competitors in the live video streaming sector doesn’t introduce a new feature, unveil a redesign, or evolve in another way. Justin.tv is currently doing all those and more in an effort to forge ahead of its rivals.

Live Video Streaming

The live video streaming sector is one of the most competitive across the whole online video market. Big names such as Justin.tv, Ustream, and Mogulus continue to evolve and improve in their efforts to become the number one brand and recognized in the same breath as Google, eBay, Amazon, and YouTube.

Mogulus recently rebranded itself to LiveStream, buying the frankly worth its weight in gold domain name to go with it. While Ustream underwent a radical redesign this time last year and then again in April of this year. Now, Justin.tv, the current traffic leader, has done the same. As well as a complete redesign of the site there are also a number of new features being added to the mix.

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The social side of online video is becoming an increasingly important tool in demonstrating the divergence between traditional broadcasts and Web-only broadcasts. Facebook is now taking advantage of this sector of the market with its new Live Stream Box. Ustream is the first company to take advantage of the Facebook Connect feature.

Social Networking Features

Recent months have brought news of a couple of innovations in the field of matching up online video and social networking. The new Xbox 360 Sky Player will allow fans to watch football matches together using on-screen avatars. While both Joost and Hulu have recently unveiled new elements to their services which are designed to increase user interaction during programs. And CBS Interactive introduced Social Viewing Rooms to bring the idea of sitting around watching TV together in a living room to the Web.

Live Stream Box

Now comes a new feature which brings a similar concept to Facebook, the world’s largest social network with in excess of 200 million members. It’s called Live Stream Box and it enables Facebook users to watch a streaming video event, comment and chat while it is happening, and see their messages appearing both alongside the video and on their Facebook profile.

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Facebook is becoming a much bigger player in online video than it has previously. Already a haven for user-generated content, it could now be eyeing up the likes of Skype and Gmail with an intention to launch live video chat soon. Possibly.

Facebook Is Huge

Facebook is, at its heart, all about communication. The social network, now the biggest one in the world, even beating the giant that is MySpace, allow you to make friends and share your life with them. This sharing takes many forms, from messaging, to sharing photos, and of course, sharing video clips.

Facebook currently offers two forms of video interaction – the linking and embedding of external clips such as those from YouTube, Hulu, and the like; and the uploading of personal clips. This latter variety, which is 100 percent user-generated content, has seen Facebook steadily climb the video viewer charts until it is now banging on the door of the top ten.

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Reddit is one of the most popular social bookmarking sites along with Digg, Mixx, and StumbleUpon. After years of keeping everything simple, the site has now launched a new video site. It seems Reddit has found its multimedia muscle at long last.

Multimedia Maneuver

I like Reddit for many reasons. It may not be as huge or well-populated as Digg, be as clever as StumbleUpon, or have the glitzy new Web 2.0 elements Mixx has, but it’s simple and very easy-to-use. The clean lines and no-fuss interface is fine but it does mean multimedia such as photos and video are kind of shunned to the background.

But no longer. Today saw Reddit launch Reddit.tv, a separate entity from the main site which shows videos being voted for in a continuous stream. It’s an idea that isn’t particularly original, having already been done by Stumble Video and Twitmatic, but it’s great nonetheless.

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Twitter is growing at an incredible rate of knots, by allowing anyone with half a brain to become a blogger of sorts, or at least a micro-blogger. And there is also a video alternative, with 12seconds providing an easy-to-use platform for micro-video bloggers everywhere.

Video Blogging

Video blogging, or vlogging, has been around for quite a while now. Video blogs, either as a counterpart, or as a separate entity, from a written blog, can work extremely well. The only problem is finding things to say on them, and then videoing yourself and uploading it to the Web.

12seconds

12seconds solves both of those problems in one fell swoop. Users of the site are limited to posting 12 seconds worth of video at a time. This isn’t much time, but it’s enough to enable those who want to, to get their point across and say what they want to say.

Once having joined the site, which is a simple process that require very few details, an Adobe Flash recorder allows anyone with a Webcam to record their thoughts for posterity.

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