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When it comes to watching television without the aid of a cable subscription or rabbit ears, the Web is pretty accommodating these days. Most popular shows stream new episodes within 24 hours and even many live television events can be streamed online. One of the biggest deal killers for would-be "cord cutters," however has always been live sports. If you're a huge football fan, for example, there's no way around it: you need TV the old fashioned way.

That's still largely the case, but watching the year's biggest sporting event via the Internet just got a whole lot easier. The Super Bowl, which is the most-watched television broadcast in the United States, will be streamed live to computers and smartphones, the NFL announced today.

The soccer World Cup has now ended, with Spain the victor. England was unceremoniously dumped out before the quarter finals - but if there was a World Cup for the Semantic Web, then the BBC may have lifted the trophy for its country. A post on the BBC Internet site explains how the BBC World Cup 2010 website used "dynamic semantic publishing" technology.

It's an impressive demonstration of how a large, mainstream website can have added meaning and structure.

ITV, the oldest commercial television network in the UK, just announced that it will use Twitter as a backchannel for its coverage of the FA Cup final between Chelsea and Everton tomorrow afternoon. The ITV Twitter app was built by thruSITES using Twitterfall, and the ITV team will use Audioboo Pro for moderating the Twitter stream. Given how popular Twitter has become in the U.K., this is definitely a smart move by ITV to use it as a backchannel.

While soccer (or football, for our European readers) might not be your thing, it is interesting to see how many TV networks have now made Twitter a part of their daily routine.

This Sunday, millions of people will tune into watch Super Bowl XLIII, where the Pittsburgh Steelers will meet the Arizona Cardinals in Tampa Bay, Florida (home of ReadWriteWeb's Sarah Perez) to decide who is the best team in professional football - or more correctly, given our international audience, American Football. Whether it's the game, the musical entertainment, or the ads, the Web is sure to be buzzing with information about the big game. But where can you find the best information on the Super Bowl? We did some digging to answer that question.