ReadWriteWeb

Forrester recently released a report titled "Channel Models In The Era Of Cloud." Forrester found that as vendors are taking advantage of cloud computing, channel partners are becoming increasingly nervous about being left behind by. According to the report, more than 60% of tech industry revenue is generated by channel partners, "often by serving customers deemed otherwise unreachable by tech vendors." The firm cites the following as examples of channel companies: distributors, value-added resellers (VARs), direct market resellers (DMRs), managed service providers (MSPs), application hosting providers, and systems integrators (SIs) in the tech industry.

SlideShare just announced that it now offers businesses the ability to create their own custom channels on the popular document sharing service. These channels allow businesses and enterprises to share their presentations, e-books and whitepapers with a wider audience. Microsoft, Ogilvy, Adobe and Razorfish Marketing are among today's launch partners. The White House also now uses a SlideShare channel to share over 1,000 documents with the public. In addition, you can also find a our own custom ReadWriteWeb channel here.

Word has it there's a secret link available on YouTube's site right now that will give you access to their new top-secret Channels beta testing program. Some YouTube users received notification of the beta via an email message from YouTube, but others discovered it on their own.

So what's this all about? It seems that, in the coming weeks, YouTube plans to launch a brand-new user interface for their Channels section and if you click the secret link, you can be a part of the group that helps test it and provide feedback.