As you’ve no doubt heard by now, Arrested Development is back, with Season 4 made exclusively for Netflix. The whole season is now available for subscribers to stream, and it’s well worth watching. Take my word for it. But is Arrested Development, alongside other original Netflix series, enough to disrupt the television industry?

Arrested Development Season 4 Review

I have to say I really enjoyed Season 4 of Arrested Development. The first few episodes are confusing and not all that funny, but that’s because of the way the season is edited so that the lives of the Bluth clan intertwine with each other throughout the 15 episodes.

This season looks and feels as good as the previous seasons, with no drop-off in terms of budget or performance. Having individual episodes devoted to particular characters works, but with some more than others.

In the end this season of Arrested Development is a different animal than the previous seasons, with a story arc which takes seven hours to be fully realized. In this way it has more in common with Mad Men, another show that gives its characters room to breathe.

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Nintendo has, in its infinite wisdom, decided to declare war on the fans who dare to post videos of themselves playing Nintendo games. Not only is this a terrible decision in terms of a rich corporation making money off its fans, it may not have any basis in copyright law.

Let’s Play! Or Not

People have been posting videos of themselves playing video games for since the dawn of online video. Some people even play games for others to watch live on the likes of TwitchTV. And they get viewers watching regularly.

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As was rumored for some time, YouTube has started charging for content, with paid channels making their debut. The pilot scheme gives qualifying partners the opportunity to erect paywalls, but will viewers pay in the numbers needed to make this worthwhile?

Paid YouTube Channels

YouTube has rolled out its first paid content, with a pilot scheme which sees 50 channels offering subscriptions costing $0.99 per month. All offer a 14-day free trial, and there are discounts for longer subscriptions.

The pilot scheme includes channels as diverse as Jim Henson Family TV, UFC Select, and GayDirect. In the coming months YouTube is promising a wider rollout which will see partners able to set up their own paid offerings.

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For one week in May YouTube is going to (try to) be the funniest website on the planet. The Google-owned property already boasts a multitude of funny clips, but YouTube Comedy Week is something altogether more ambitious. This represents the changing face of YouTube; from a site where anything goes to one which brings together the best people in a particular genre, whether they’re famous or not.

YouTube Originals

YouTube is fighting hard to change its reputation from being an online destination full of short clips of random people (and pets) doing funny things, to something more professional, more serious, more like network television.

It’s a tough sell, but it has already managed to shake off its reputation as a place where piracy reigns supreme. And now it’s trying to straddle the line between longform and short-form, professional and user-generated.

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After many years of sticking their heads in the sand and ignoring how the world was changing around them, the big media companies are finally realizing the Internet is here to stay. As are the opportunities it provides to make money from old content repackaged in a shiny new box marked “Streaming.“

Warner Archive Instant

Warner Bros. is taking on the likes of Netflix and Amazon with Warner Archive Instant, which has now gone live. The site contains streaming video versions of classic movies and television shows that Warner claims are “rare or hard-to-find.“

Movies offered through the service include Mummy from 1959 and Cat People from 1982. TV shows currently offered include Gilligan’s Island and the original Adventures of Superman from the 1950s.

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After a lot of lobbying to get the law changed and an equal amount of political wrangling, Netflix has finally brought social sharing features to its streaming service in the U.S. But it’s far from perfect at this early stage of the game.

No Sharing Please, We’re American

In 1988 a law was passed which prevented the release of records pertaining to “prerecorded video cassette tapes or similar audio visual material.”

This was the Video Privacy Protection Act, which came about as a result of a newspaper disclosing the rental records of Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork. The problem is that the while this law was good for consumers in 1988, the world has changed since then.

The emergence of streaming services alongside social networks means that people are now willingly sharing their data in order to be part of the ecosystem. Hence when Netflix launched Facebook integration in 2011, it was switched on in every country other than the U.S.

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Unless you actively block or are able to tune them out, you’ll see ads everywhere you go online. HitBliss hopes to use this fact to attract consumers and advertisers to a new way of working together.

A Necessary Evil

No one really likes advertising, whether it’s online, at the cinema, or merely watching television at home. Instead they are a necessary evil, there to provide income for the providers who can then plow it back into producing more content we want to see.

This system works well for websites, few of which charge for content. It also works for some streaming services, which will play ads before, during, and/or after a video to make ends meet. Could it work on a grander scale, where people earn money which they can then use to purchase new movies and episodes of current TV shows?

We’ll find out when HitBliss launches comes out of beta.

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