The amount of officially sanctioned free television content on the Web is growing rapidly. The problem is: many people don’t yet know of its existence, and those that do, have no way of keeping up with additions, and finding the content easily.

Blinkx has hopefully solved the latter problem with its new Blinkx Remote service. Initially available in the UK, but with a US-centric version to follow, it’s kind of like a Google for free TV content on the Web. It shares similarities with services like tVadio.com and FindInternetTV.com

Blinkx Remote was originally launched in April 2007 but didn’t seem to make good headway and Blinkx is now relaunching a new and improved version of the service.

BBC iPlayer & More

Blinkx Remote filters out all of the illegal content, the spam and falsely tagged material that clogs up the Web to bring a fast and easy way of searching the Web for where you can watch your favourite programmes online in full.

The UK service aggregates all the content from the BBC iPlayer, Channel 4’s 4OD, ITV.com and Demand Five, plus the US networks that allow more than just US viewers to watch content online.

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I remember watching a demonstration of a video phone years ago, only to find that the quality was so poor, the demonstrator may as well have been talking to a bunch of pixels. How times have changed.

Now, thanks to the emergence of VoIP services such as Skype, and affordable-for-all webcams such as the Logitech QuickCam Pro 9000, video chat is finally a very real option.

Perfect For All Occasions

The Pro 9000 has at its core a 2-megapixel image sensor. Combined with smooth-tracking autofocus, Carl Zeiss optics, and RightLight and RightSound technologies, this means you’re almost guaranteed a good result, whatever the situation the webcam is being used in.

While perfect for use on Skype and instant messaging service such as Windows Live Messenger and AIM, the Pro 9000 also comes with HD capabilities.

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Netflix has added another content partner to its increasing roster, and this one combines digital downloads with Blu-ray movies. Good news for the companies involved, the consumers, and digital distribution?

Movie and television content streaming company Netflix seems intent on making its service as accessible to as many people as possible, setting multiple partnerships in an effort to enable its content to be delivered to the maximum number of homes.

Sub-$100 Roku Box

This strategy started back in May when Roku released its new set-top box, which came with the ability to stream Netflix movies. The box may have been derided in some quarters, but at just $100, it opened up digital content to a whole new level of consumers on a budget.

Since then, Roku has announced that the box will expand to include other content partners in time. YouTube, Hulu, and Amazon Unbox were cited as the most obvious candidates, but no names have yet been revealed.

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Google must be regretting its decision to buy YouTube for such a vast sum of money. Not only is it failing to make any serious money from advertising right now, the lawsuits are coming thick and fast.

While the Viacom court case may be the most high profile, it’s certainly not the only case against Google and YouTube. The latest coming from Italian media company, Mediaset.

Illegal Distribution

Mediaset, controlled by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, is suing Google over the “illegal distribution and commercial use of audio and video files’’ owned by the Milan-based company. It is seeking damages of at least 500 million euros ($779 million).

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We all know that Web video is increasing at a mammoth rate month on month. But new research suggests that not only is the Internet being used as an extension to the TV, it could be replacing it at quite a rate.

Computers and the Web are becoming an increasingly important part of how television shows are being distributed. Whether it be via legal methods such as Hulu and Joost, or illegal peer-to-peer sharing of torrents, the trend is on the rise.

Online Video Up

We’ve already seen online video viewing as a whole grow massively over the first half of 2008, with comScore data for May showing 12 billion videos were watched in the US alone.

This figure obviously includes all forms of videos, with YouTube being the highest percentage of views. But even in the niche of episodic content, especially prime time shows such as Lost and Heroes, the figures are stacking up.

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The new Batman movie, The Dark Knight, has been the biggest film release of the year so far by a mile. Warner Bros. has claimed victory in fighting off Piracy during the release of the movie, despite taunting from the torrent site, The Pirate Bay.

Pirate versions of the movie began appearing on The Pirate Bay a few days after the film was publicly released. However, this short piracy free period is apparently very important for the film’s distributor, Warner Bros. With the film being exceptionally popular it is no wonder it was a big target for pirates.

38 Hours = Victory?

It was approximately 38 hours after the film went on general release that The Dark Knight torrent was first spotted on various BitTorrent sites on the Internet. Once it was out, there was little that Warner could do about it, with the film spreading like a virus across the Web.

38 hours may not seem like much, but in this generation of digital distribution, hours are as important as days used to be for the old-school bootleggers on street corners.

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Mobile video is increasing in popularity, but while some consumers are happy to pay for premium content, many are unwilling to shell out cash for the privilege of watching video on the move. This means advertising needs to be present to cover the costs of presenting mobile video. 

In the same way that online video sites are struggling to find the perfect solutions for video advertising with YouTube being the most obvious example, mobile video producers need to find solutions as well. If they get it right, the possibilities could be boundless.

Brands Eager To Exploit Mobile Video

Patrick Maurer is no techie. “I can barely work my toaster”, says the lanky 29 year old sales rep with the self-described “tennis player” hairstyle. But Patrick may represent the most promising aspect of mobile marketing- mobile video advertising. While checking his mobile Yahoo account, Patrick watched a video from Jaguar that eventually led to a dealer test-drive. “I hadn’t really looked at the Jag before that”, he said.

The opportunity for brands to tell their story with sight, sound and motion has agencies and advertisers eager to experiment with mobile video advertising. This nascent sector probably has the necessary technology to grow. What is lacking now are clearly defined business processes.

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