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For the next two days, I will be here in Ontario, California for the Podcast and Portable Media Expo. It’s the 2nd annual, and considering the concept of podcasting has only been around for a couple of years, this has been the leading convention in the space since the beginning.

In the past, video distribution has always been a problem, especially with corporate and promotional video. Generally the video was put on tape, you needed a VCR and TV to watch the thing, so it was always a hassle. The videos tended to be used as a sales tool within the context of a presentation, and then left on a shelf somewhere to collect dust. Today, broadband internet is as common as the telephone in business settings, and increasingly common at home. You can watch the video from anywhere in the world with the tools you already have (a web browser). With iPods, now you can download that video and take it with you. Video can now be distributed effectively and at a much lower cost then tape or DVD. To take it a step further, video can be updated continually as a living document, creating your own “television station” on the web and building up a body of work that can be used again and again. What would have taken hundreds of thousands of dollars can now be done for a fraction of the cost.

I’m here to learn all I can about the methods of creation and distribution of video and audio content, delivered on the web. This is going to be a very large and exciting part of our business here at upNext in the coming years, so I want to be up-to-speed on how we can make this happen for our clients as well as our own projects.

This week Apple held their special event where they release the new products that will be out for the Christmas season. There were the usual new iPods and other shiny Apple stuff, but the thing that stands out are the changes made to the iTunes service.

Now, in the US at least, you will be able to download feature-length movies to watch either on your computer, on your iPod on the go, or with an upcoming iTV box that you hook up to your television. The idea being that the day the DVD is released, you’ll be able to watch that movie without going to the video store or buying the disc. Distribution becomes the cost of bandwidth.

Now other companies have been offering this for some time (as Amazon recently has), but there is a certain elegance to the iTunes setup that makes it pretty easy for someone without a lot of technical knowledge to use the technology. It’s no wonder that iTunes is by far the largest seller of online music, it’s just too easy to pay the 99 cents and have the song show up in your iPod. This has forever changed the music business, and video content is next.

Telus is coming out swinging in the war to drop faster broadband on the doorstep of homes in Western Canada. They are planning to spend $800 million to upgrade their broadband network over the next 3 years. They’re talking about bringing fibre closer to the home, but it doesn’t look like at this point they’re talking about fibre on the doorstep (as Verizon is doing in the US), which would give them an immediate leg up on the competition at Shaw.

Their internet access speeds under the plan would rise to 15 to 30 megabits a second, fast enough to allow high-definition TV signals to work with Telus TV.

I say the faster the better for everyone. As faster distribution methods become the norm, there will be greater opportunity for content makers at the end of the day.

Anheuser-Busch is going to be starting a new online television network, known as Bud.TV. The channel will feature humerous webisodes, sports, user-generated news and clips, and of course, beer. It looks like we’re seeing the beginning of larger advertisers trying to capture viewing audiences themselves instead of going through an intermediary such as a television network.

Since the cost of setting up your own Internet broadcast station is quite reasonable, I think we’ll be seeing an explosion of web television outlets trying to zero in on very narrow audiences.

Check out the story here 

It seems that these kind of video glasses continue to pop up on a regular basis. The idea being that you put the glasses on, and you have a big-screen television experience that follows you around. I like the Geordi La Forge look of the glasses, but I still have a splitting headache from the Nintendo Virtual Boy, and that was 10 years ago.

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