Apparently, the dam has finally burst and the camel's back has broke - Netflix has begun offering a streaming-only option to its U.S. users. The plan, which will match Hulu's recently-introduced $7.99 streaming video price point, will offer unlimited streaming of TV episodes and movies via any Netflix-enabled device, without the envelopes and mailboxes.
Previously, the cheapest Netflix plan was $8.99 for unlimited streaming with one DVD out at a time. This is no longer available and instead, users can sign up for the new $7.99 streaming-only plan, or for $2 more can get one DVD sent to them at a time.
2010 has been a watershed year for the next version of HTML, the markup language that all web pages are written in. The reason for the emerging popularity of HTML5 strikes at the heart of a company by the name of Adobe: interactivity. Adobe's near ubiquitous Flash technology has been the default way to add interactivity to web pages since the dot com era. But in 2010, that began to change. HTML5 enables much the same type of functionality as Flash (and Microsoft's Silverlight for that matter). Using HTML5, developers can add features like video, animations and drag-and-drop.
Another reason for the emergence of HTML5 is the Mobile Web. Using HTML5, mobile developers can create browser-based mobile sites that have a similar sophistication to native mobile apps. Let's look back at the past year of HTML5 innovation...
The world's largest Internet retailer Amazon.com is known for many things besides shopping - Kindle eBook readers, for example, or its cloud computing infrastructure known as Amazon Web Services - but Amazon as a movie studio? That one seemed to come out of left field, didn't it?
Well, it's true - kind of. Amazon is indeed getting into the movie-making business with the launch of a new portal called Amazon Studios, but it's not a traditional studio by any means.
Having just emerged from private beta earlier this month, online video hub Hulu is now lowering the price for its premium service "Hulu Plus" in an effort to lure in more users. Previously, Hulu Plus was $9.99 per month, but today it's dropping to $7.99 per month. Current customers who had been paying the higher rate will get a refund for the difference on their next billing cycle, the company says.
In addition, Hulu Plus is now also available on the Roku brand of media center devices, which start at $59.99. Subscribers will also pay the new $7.99 rate if they want to stream Hulu content via Roku to their television sets.
While there has been a lot of talk about cord cutting lately - that is, cancelling your cable subscription in favor of going Internet TV-only - a new study by Nielsen, commissioned by the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing (CTAM) found that only 11% of the U.S. population currently watches "some TV shows and movies from the Internet on their TV sets." The vast majority of these Internet TV viewers (84%) say that they are still watching the same amount of traditional TV as before and have no plans to cancel their current cable subscriptions.
According to a study of over 16,000 mobile YouTube users conducted by Google, 75% of respondents said that mobile is their primary way of accessing YouTube. At first glance, that figure may come as no surprise - after all, how shocking is at that a survey of mobile users finds that they watch a lot of YouTube Mobile? However, it's actually a rather telling number.
For some of us, watching YouTube on a mobile device is an additional way to watch video, not the primary way. But as it turns out, for a large majority of mobile video users, it's completely the opposite.
It's been just a handful of days now that I've had this Logitech Revue Google TV unit sitting in my bedroom and, if anything, it's making me wish I had cable. I was expecting the unit to show up and explode the universe of Internet video onto my television, but instead I see a multitude of subscription services with a few freebies intermingled.
Google TV Product Manager Rishi Chandra's warning that "Cord-cutting is not happening anytime soon" is right on the money, because right now you not only need to buy the cow but even then, the milk isn't free.
If watching the game live on TV was the only thing stopping you from cutting cable, you might start considering looking into Internet TV. Live-streaming games, highlight reels and interactive stats are coming to Internet TV devices meaning you sports fans have one less reason to stick with the old media guard.
This week, Roku announced that it would begin live broadcasting NHL games this winter, while Boxee said that it would be upgrading its NHL app to add even more in the way of interactive stats, news and highlights.
If there was any doubt that Netflix would begin moving toward a streaming-only offering, a quote resurfaced this morning from the company's quarterly report makes it all too clear that Netflix will embrace the "net" of its moniker.
According to the report, Netflix has become predominantly streaming, with a majority of its users watching more content streamed online than on DVD.
Watching TV is becoming a more interactive experience - at least that's what a number of companies building interactive TVs and media center products are hoping. From Apple CEO Steve Jobs' "hobby" project, Apple TV, to media center startups like Boxee, there are new ways to "watch" TV that involve more choices, more content and sometimes, even remotes with a keyboard. Is this a "Web TV" rebirth or something entirely new?
Below are two of the more notable ventures to watch in the connected TV space.
