Does it often feel like a waste of time to download something just to watch it once and then delete it? Then Don't. Use Put.io. Put simply, Put.io fetches files from the Internet and allows you to either store them there or immediately stream them.

While the immediate question is one of legality, we do want to mention that, aside from pirated movies and television shows, there actually are a lot of videos out there available for download by bittorrent and other means. Beyond that, Put.io addresses the issue of legality and the DMCA, saying that "It is our policy to respond to notices of alleged infringement that comply with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA") and other applicable intellectual property laws. Responses may include disabling access for all users to the material claimed to be the subject of infringing activity and/or terminating submitters of the material ability to use the Put.io service at all."

We gave the service a shot and it downloaded a 750 megabyte torrent in less then a minute. Although the service wasn't able to stream the MKV format directly on the site (and we had the wrong DiVX player version), we gave it another shot with an AVI torrent and we had streaming video in under a minute. And Put.io stores the files so you can come back and access them again and again.

Currently, beta testers get 50 gigs of storage with 150 gigs of bandwidth. The bandwidth is not counted when downloading the files to the service, but instead when you access them - so repeated watching of a large file could surely reach that limit.

In addition to the basic functionality, you can share files and folders with friends and access files from anything that supports a browser, from your iPhone to your PS3. In addition to a mobile version, the service is planning to release an API as well as a Boxee plugin. The site is still in public beta, but Put.io is offering 300 invites to our readers. Simply visit this site and get an invite.

As time has gone on, we've found fewer and fewer reasons to actually download music and ExtensionFM gives us one less.

Kantor pre-released the music plugin just over two weeks ago with little to-do, but we can't get enough of it. ExtensionFM runs quietly in the background as you browse, collecting any and all tracks and archiving them. If you decide you'd like to listen as you go, you can simply click on the icon and play individual songs, queue songs, or play or queue them all. If you decide that you like a song enough to own it, you can simply right click on it and chose "Buy", which sends you to the song on Amazon. But even if that were to not work, the program keeps the link to the site where it originally found the song.

Then, when you switch over to the full screen extension, all of the tracks you've discovered while browsing are neatly organized by artist, album, track name and even the site where it was originally discovered, with a link, so you can go back and find out more about tracks you like.

When you first start up ExtensionFM, it has six featured sites, including Spinner, Live Music Archive, Pitchfork, Stereogum, Daytrotter and Tuneage, making it easy to get going.

What's even more, ExtensionFM will let you "scrobble" to Last.fm, which means it will follow along and keep track of your music listening habits and send them to your Last.fm account.

We got in touch with Kantor this afternoon and he told us that he does have plans to make ExtensionFM available as a Firefox add-on at some point in the future, but for now it is only available for Chrome. He also said that right now, music can only be played when the user is online, but that offline playing is another feature they're looking into.

Because we have a supply of just 50 beta invite codes, we've put information on how to get your invite on our Facebook page. Head there now to be one of the lucky few, and if you're so inclined, we'd love it if you added us to your Facebook friends, as well!

Just last Tuesday, Adobe and Wired Magazine announced a partnership, debuting a rather slick print-to-digital adaptation of the magazine. According to the report by the Herald, a senior executive at Adobe received an email from the ABC seeking a similar deal.

The Herald quotes Abigail Thomas, head of strategic development at the ABC, as saying, the iPad will be more appropriate for entertainment than the iPhone.

''It's going to be an entertainment device. Whereas the iPhone is where you might get quick bites of news ... with this [the iPad] you can imagine people sitting back on the sofa and enjoying something longer," she said.

While the iPad has received plenty in the way of criticism, including many seeing the lack of Flash as a huge detractor, it looks like some big names are working to get past this and get their content on the iPad. According the the Herald, a number of other companies, including the New York Times, Vanity Fair, GQ and Sports Illustrated, have also been working to bring their content to tablet devices, a number of which have been released at this week's Mobile World Congress.

Thanks to iPadInsider.com for the tip and lead image.

The news comes on the heels of an announcement yesterday by Warner Music that digital revenue, at $184 million, accounts for 20% of total revenue.

In January, we wrote about a report by analyst firm Forrester that predicted that music industry revenues would continue their slide before evening out in 2013, with digital music sales taking up most of the slack.

"On a constant-currency basis, digital revenue grew 4% sequentially and was up 5% from the prior-year quarter," reads yesterday's report from Warner.

The BBC doesn't say when or how this will affect the average person, but when our favorite artists start disappearing from streaming music sites, we'll surely notice.

Update:

We got in touch with Tom Conrad, the CTO of Pandora, who had this to say regarding the effect this would have on the company. He writes:

This all started with Edgar Bronfman's comment on the Warner conference call where he was addressing free on-demand services such as Spotify that are directly licensed. Pandora operates under a different licensing structure and won't be impacted by Warner's apparent decision with respect to free, on-demand services.

30 consecutive hours of music, variety acts, podcasts and other entertainment will raise money for local charity organizations. Will it work? Portland has a deep community of geeks and connections all around the web, so perhaps this group will be able to keep people entertained around the clock.

You can follow the event on Twitter at @30hourday.

One of Orb's best features is the OrbLive iPhone application which connects with your home computer over the internet to provide access to your media library of audio, video, and photos. Through the mobile application, you can access any of your media files and play stream them over either a Wi-Fi or 3G connection. In the Windows version of the software, PC's with TV tuner cards can also connect you to live, streaming TV in addition to the other shared media saved on the PC's hard drive.

To some extent, Orb competes with Apple's own offerings since it provides access to music and video from either a desktop computer or an iPhone. That's why it was somewhat surprising that Apple ever approved the company's iPhone application to begin with. Even more surprising is that they allowed it to function over 3G when similar products - like Slingbox's SlingPlayer for iPhone, another live TV streaming app - are restricted to Wi-Fi only.

No Live TV for Mac Users Yet

Unfortunately, the Mac version is debuting without the live TV streaming functionality. According to Joe Costello, CEO of Orb Networks, support for live TV support will be added in subsequent versions. In the meantime, however, Mac users can install the Orb software to stream music, photos, videos, home movies and webcam feeds stored in iTunes to their iPhones or to any other internet-connected device including netbooks, notebooks, media players, game consoles and more. All that's needed is the new Mac OS X desktop software (works on OS X Intel 10.5 or later).

Those interested in trying out the new Mac version can grab the installer from here: orb.com/en/download_orb. For now, the Mac software is available in English only.

While consumers have been enjoying the service since its launch in 2007, happily watching free TV shows and movies over their PCs and even their TV sets thanks to Media Center plugins and other unofficial hacks, the company itself is still trying to navigate this new online landscape and effectively monetize their content. Now recent statements by a News Corp exec have people wondering: can Hulu make the ad-supported model work? Or does the company have other plans?

One of the primary objectives behind Hulu was to put free programming on the Internet to combat the rampant pirating of TV content that took place on sites like the popular file-sharing destination, The Pirate Bay. As iTunes did with music, the idea is to make using Hulu's service easier than having to go out and seek the illegal downloads.

Although iTunes charges for music on a per-file basis, Hulu, too has a business model that makes you pay - except in their case, you're paying with your eyeballs, not your credit card. Using video ads, Hulu has been attempting to monetize its service, but those efforts have been difficult at times. This spring, for instance, Screen Digest analyst Arash Amel claimed that Hulu had only sold about 60% of its ad inventory. "What we've seen is rapid growth in consumption, but the advertising isn't keeping up," he said.

While these figures, if accurate, could be reason for concern, many feel that the profitability of an online video venture of this nature takes time to develop. Eventually, the ad-supported model would work for Hulu as it has worked for numerous other websites and services, supporters claim.

Besides, more recent deals seem to bode well for the site. Case in point, this month the Publicis Groupe announced a mulit-million dollar ad deal that involved targeted advertising to particular Hulu demographics. The deal is said to represent a "significant increase" in spending on Hulu.

Hulu to Charge?

Despite the promises ad deals like this hold, there is still debate as to whether or not Hulu is going to stick to the ad-supported model or try something new. At a conference last week, News Corp. deputy chairman Chase Carey made a pronouncement regarding this point that raised more than a few eyebrows:

"I think a free model is a very difficult way to capture the value of our content. I think what we need to do is deliver that content to consumers in a way where they will appreciate the value," Carey was quoted as saying by Broadcasting & Cable. "Hulu...needs to evolve to have a meaningful subscription model as part of its business."

This seems to jibe with earlier reports where News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch also hinted at the site's plans to add premium services by saying, "Are we looking at it with a view toward adding subscription services and pay per view? Yes we are."

But "looking at" and "doing" are two very different things - where does Hulu stand now? Has their core philosophy - that is, their belief in the ad-supported model - changed?

According to AdWeek, it has not. In the article, the company claims their ad-supported free service is still the one that "resonates with the largest group of users" and that any additional models would just serve to complement that.

However, when we reached out to Hulu to ask about their plans regarding charging for content, the company wouldn't go on record with any such statement.

Why So Cagey?

Hulu's current decision to clam up could be taken in a few different ways. Perhaps they simply haven't decided what they're going to do about adding new premium services to Hulu and therefore don't want to discuss it at all.

Yet the quote they provided to AdWeek seems innocuous enough - so why not just stick with it? Why now choose to say nothing at all? Maybe they're hoping that with no quote, there is no story, and that will allow them to quell the impending panic among some users who are worried about Hulu's plans to make customers pay. Because some people are so opposed to paying for online content, just hearing reports that Hulu might change to a pay-to-stream model could dissuade them from continuing to use the service.

Then again, it could be that the opposite is true. Hulu wants to keep everyone wondering about what's coming next, generating excitement without providing any details. This means people can speculate wildly and give their opinions, allowing Hulu to tap into that online conversation about what people want before making any official decisions or announcements.

What We Think: Hulu Will Launch Value-Added Services

Despite any official confirmations from the company, we think it's pretty clear that Hulu has intentions to launch value-added services on top of its free, ad-supported model in the coming months. These may include pay-per-view options and some sort of subscription model. However, that subscription model would be there to provide users with value-added services that you couldn't get from the free model alone. Perhaps behind the scenes interviews? Sneak peeks? Actor interviews? Who knows...but the possibilities are endless.

As to why we think that, it comes down to simple math. We've now seen three different statements about these premium services: Carey's recent remarks, Murdoch's quote from earlier this year, and anonymous sources quoted by Dan Rayburn who hinted that Hulu's iPhone app won't launch until "Hulu rolls out a subscription based service."

...And They'll be Tied to the iPhone

The iPhone app, in fact, may be the real secret the company is trying to hide. Imagine if the much-rumored and highly anticipated application was linked to a subscription-based model. That could downright revolutionize the way people watch TV. Providing streaming content over the popular Apple smartphone would easily bring in additional revenue and that new source could quickly outperform the profits made by the ad-supported model.

Yet launching a Hulu iPhone app would be a challenge, as the company is undoubtedly aware. And, of course, Hulu wouldn't want to say anything about it, especially considering how difficult Apple is when it comes to applications that compete with their core services. Apple may not even approve such an application, claiming (rightly so) that it competes with iTunes.

However, Apple may be loosening up on that front, with no small thanks going to the FCC who recently questioned the company's rejection of the Google Voice application - a VoIP dialer that Apple rejected because it competed with what the iPhone does natively. (Apple claims they're "still reviewing" it, but no one really buys that.) Since the FCC's involvement, however, Apple has gone on to approve a streaming music app called Spotify, an application that many had feared would be rejected because it, even more so than Google Voice, competed with iTunes. That leaves us hopeful that a similar application launched by Hulu could also make it through the approval process.

Still, we wouldn't blame Hulu if they wanted to keep that extremely quiet. And that would certainly explain why Hulu won't comment on their plans.

Of course, this is all just speculation at this point, but we hope it turns out to be true.

In total, the average viewer watched about 135 video clips. While full-length shows are becoming more popular, it is still important to note that the average video is only 3.7 minutes long. Hulu, which focuses on full-length TV shows, also recorded its best month yet, with 457 million views.

Another Record-Breaking Month

June, according to comScore, already broke most records, but at that time, the company credited the surge to the large number of high-profile events (including the death of Michael Jackson and the elections in Iran). ComScore argues that TV viewers are turning to the Internet right now because most of the shows on TV are currently on summer hiatus. While this probably plays some role in this current growth in interest in online video, we would also argue that a lot of viewers are simply changing their viewing habits and have moved away from watching shows on traditional TV and cable networks. Instead, they are watching popular clips on YouTube and full-length shows on Hulu.

The company just raised its first round of venture capital funding last November, but when we talked to Boxee's CEO Avner Ronen yesterday, he stressed that the company thinks this is the right time to expand. Ronen noted that Boxee will use the money to grow its development team to about 20 people, as it sees a chance to become a major player on connected TVs and set-top boxes. These devices are only now starting to gain a foothold in people's living rooms and will give Boxee a chance to go mainstream.

Currently, the software runs on Macs, Windows, Linux, and Apple TV, but while it is getting easier to connect a PC to a large TV set in the living room, this is definitely still a niche market. In order to reach a larger audience, Boxee will have to get its software onto TVs, game consoles, and set-top boxes directly. The company is already talking to a number of manufacturers, though Ronen wasn't ready to announce any partnerships yet.

Ronen also told us that the company plans to offer a platform for content producers and doesn't want to get into the content business itself. Instead, Boxee will give media companies and independent producers options to sell subscriptions to their content or give users access to content on an a la carte basis. Major League Baseball started to offer access to its content to its Premium subscribers on Boxee last month.

In the U.S., Livestation also began offering Al Jazeera English Live (iTunes link) last month, a live TV application built using the same technology. As with BBC News, the live TV channel is available over both Wi-Fi and 3G. Around the corner, NASA may also be launching a live TV streaming application using Livestation's technology. Already a content partner, NASA's iPhone app has a description that reads: "Update Coming that adds Live NASA Public TV streaming to your device."

While both of these news applications offer TV streams from stations that Livestation is already partners with by way of their live TV desktop application, the company's iPhone streaming solution represents "just the tip of the iceberg," claims Livestation CEO Matteo Berlucchi. "Once other broadcasters see the immediate business benefits of the revenue model we are offering... we expect usage to increase."

The revenue model he is referring to is the one where iPhone and iPod Touch users purchase the mobile applications built using the Livestation iPhone technology platform in the iTunes App Store. They can then also serve ads within the app itself, if the broadcaster so chooses. Those ads don't have to be simple text or image links, either - they can be video ads, too, much like what you would see on TV. In addition, Berlucchi says that paid-for content that goes beyond that of the app's initial purchase price is also a possibility in the future.

According to Livestation's website, the iPhone solution uses the company's own streaming protocol to deliver the TV streams. However, they note that they plan to support the native Apple Streaming protocol as soon as it becomes available. That seems to confirm our suspicions from earlier this year about live streaming on the iPhone, which came about when we uncovered Apple's IETF submission for a live streaming protocol.

Livestation is not the only company to provide a means of watching TV on your iPhone, but the current crop of iPhone applications like SlingPlayer, Live TV, and Orb require a set-top box, a TV tuner, and/or software installed on your computer. Livestation's apps, on the other hand, simply require an iPhone.

To see the technology in action, you can watch this video on Vimeo, where the BBC News application is demonstrated.

Today, Joost announced that it is mostly abandoning its original strategy and that the company will focus on offering white label video solutions for media companies and distributors instead.

As Mike Volpi points out on the Joost blog, the company will also downsize its staff in New York and London, and shut down its development center in the Netherlands. Joost will continue to host content on Joost.com, however, and keep the portal running for the time being. The focus of Joost, however, will be on the white label platform, which the company describes as a "cost-effective, end-to-end solution for media companies to publish video under their own brands."

Volpi also announced that he is stepping down as Joost's CEO. Matt Zelesko, Joost's current SVP of engineering, will replace Volpi as CEO.

Lots of Competition

Joost is entering a pretty crowded market, with Brightcove, Viddler, EdgeCast and many others vying for customers. There can be no doubt that Joost will be able to deliver the technology, but we will have to wait and see if Joost can make this transition and attract enough customers for its white label solution.

No Growth

It's important to note, though, that Seesmic plans to keep its video service running for the time being, but unless we see a major shift in how users perceive 'video conversations,' we have to wonder if this kind of service has any real future, especially given the asynchronous nature of Seesmic in a time where real-time conversations and video streaming, even from mobile devices, are becoming the norm. In his video, Le Meur also notes that other Twitter-based video services aren't growing right now either, though he hopes that video will be ready to grow again at some point in the future.

Service Still Up, But Completely Deemphasized

We definitely have to give Le Meur credit for keeping the community informed, though. Unlike imeem, which is shutting down parts of its service in the next few days, Seesmic is keeping its service up and running, and the team is communicating with the Seesmic community.

Note: tip of the hat to Allen Stern, who first noticed these changes.