A deal between HBO and Apple to get content on to iTunes has been rumoured for a few days now, but has finally been announced and already begun in a joint statement by both companies.

The deal sees some of the most popular HBO shows, including The Sopranos, Sex and the City, Deadwood and Rome, Flight of the Conchords and The Wire appear on iTunes from today.

Sex and the City Promo

The first show to become available through the service is Sex and the City, with all 94 episodes, or six seasons now open to purchase in anticipation of the movie version of the now cancelled show starring Sarah Jessica Parker coming out on May 30th.

None of the programmes will become available through iTunes until after they have been released on DVD, which is HBO’s way of protecting their home video profit.

Continue Reading…

FORA.tv is a video sharing site which describes itself as YouTube for thinkers. The San Francisco start-up company concentrates on intellectual content.

This content varies from politics, science, culture and business, but it all has a heavy bias towards intelligent, and cogent debate, rather than the more fun and frivolous content you may find at other video sharing sites such as YouTube.

New Venture Funding

The site also organizes videos from think-tanks and symposiums at universities and other highbrow organisations. And now, despite being a very young company, it has secured $4 million in venture funding.

Continue Reading…

Lycos Cinema launched over a year ago, in an effort to compete with YouTube and Joost. It actually has more in common with Hulu, though that site hadn’t even been conceived when Lycos Cinema launched.

The big difference with Lycos Cinema is the chance to watch streaming content with other viewers simultaneously using the company’s patented Simulstream technology.

TV As A Social Activity

The main thrust of the site is the idea that rather than television being a solitary hobby, the fun is derived from watching with other people, and sharing the moment with those around you.

Continue Reading…

Just two days I spoke about StartYourTube, a website which allows you to start your own video sharing service, however niche, to cater for people similar to you.

StartYourTube uses the popularity of YouTube in a number of ways, by mimicking the name, and using the sale of YouTube to Google for $1.6 billion to entice people to sign up.

It’s not the only site to use YouTube to increase its own profile, and one which has done it brilliantly successfully is GodTube, a Christian video sharing site which has just obtained funding to the tune of $30 million. We first spotted this site about a year ago.

$30 Million Investment

Rafat Ali at Paid Content reveals the news of the $30 million injection of cash from investors, on top of the $2.5 million which the site had already secured earlier in its life.

What’s amazing about this level of funding is that the site only launched last summer in Dallas, Texas, but has seen itself become one of the fastest growing websites on the Internet.

Continue Reading…

A few days ago saw Apple announce that new movies would now be available for download from iTunes on the same day that the DVD is released.

The deal, which was with most major movie studios, as well as some independent ones, sees the new films being released for a set price of $14.99.

For that, you get a single movie file, all wrapped up in the dreaded DRM which prevent the film from being transferred or watched on anything other than the PC it’s downloaded to.

Continue Reading…

If you are like me, when you heard that Google had bought YouTube for $1.6 billion back in November 2006, you wondered “Why couldn’t that have been me?”

Well, maybe now it could be, as with the help with StartYourTube, you too can start a video sharing site to mimic YouTube.

Using YouTube

The people behind the website realise that YouTube is by far the most popular video sharing destination on the Internet, and have utilised that popularity to entice people to sign up to the site.

The site even includes the immortal line “YouTube sold for $1.6 billion. How much will you sell yours for?” feeding straight in to the egos of people who think they could be behind the next Web phenomenon.

Continue Reading…

When Google bought YouTube for $1.65 billion in 2006, my guess would be they planned to make some money out of it. So far though, that hasn’t happened.

YouTube has experimented with video advert formats, but overall, the site remains an ad-free, and hence profit-free Web destination.

Eric Schmidt Speaks

It seems that may all be about to change however, after Google CEO Eric Schmidt told CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo in an interview to be screened later today.

Continue Reading…