ReadWriteWeb

Starting this spring, you won't need to gather the whole family around a 15-inch laptop screen to talk with cousin Joe on the other side of the country. As a matter of fact, you won't even need to get up off the sofa after the evening news, because Skype is coming to the big screen - the big TV screen, that is.

Skype announced today that they have been working with LG and Panasonic to embed Skype in Internet-connected widescreen HDTVs.

Facebook's getting its own movie, Ashton Kutcher is the social web's unpaid spokesman and now NBC is launching a show dedicated to mobile apps.

What's the world coming to? Call me old fashioned, but where I come from, a geek is a geek and a mainstream actor with an iPhone is still just a mainstream actor with an iPhone. The Oprahtization of technology is at least a bit demeaning, from my point of view. Sure, this trend brings exposure to our heroic exploits, but it's often done through stereotypes about geeks and an air of naïveté about how technology really works. What do you think? Am I being a curmudgeon? Is all this mainstream-tech integration really a good thing?

Not long ago it was considered revolutionary to do all of your holiday shopping from your computer. Amazon and other companies on ReadWriteWeb's List of Geek Shopping Sites make it possible for busy (and lazy) consumers to avoid the department store lines and shopping malls. After looking at what's in store for 2010, we may find our shopping experience transformed even further.

When Heroes actor Greg Grunberg tells you to download an iPhone application, you can't help but listen. Best known as television's mind controlling savant Matt Parkman, Grunberg demoed location-based coupon startup Yowza at today's Under the Radar Mobility Conference. Grunberg's iPhone app offers users deals from nearby stores, restaurants and gyms. Now that Foursquare has begun advertising location-based deals it'll be interesting to see if there will be overlap between the two companies. ReadWriteWeb caught up with Grunberg to find out what's keeping him out of the actor's studio.

Everyone is looking to Hulu as the future of Internet TV. The joint venture between several major networks, Hulu delivers free, ad-supported programming via online streams - an untested model for long-term profitability, at least when it comes to television.

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?

Five years ago it was strange to see TV (a form of entertainment built for at-home consumption) rally people to congregate outside of their homes. Special programming like heavy weight boxing title matches, the Super Bowl and the Oscars could encourage viewers to establish a shared viewing experience, but regular shows rarely commanded the same effort. Today, bar-hosted TV screening parties are as common as beer. In an effort to build on the shared viewing experience, popular HD television site Hulu is expanding beyond its walls. The company launched its Watch Now Facebook App where audiences can watch season premieres and comment in a group setting.

Yesterday, Nielsen announced that they will make their new "Internet Meter" available by year's end to measure the online television viewing audience. Until now, this ever-increasing demographic has been left out of U.S. television ratings as Nielsen currently focuses only on live and time-shifted (i.e. DVR) TV viewings. Says the company, the Internet Meter software will be deployed by the end of 2009 to their "People Meter" households - the chosen few whose TV-viewing habits function as the representative sample for measuring a show's success. This new addition to the ratings game is bound to have a major impact on TV monetization efforts as both networks and advertisers will see, officially, how many viewers have tuned in to watch this "2nd screen."

Last night, something amazing happened: Facebook and Twitter came to my TV. No, I didn't go out and purchase some brand-new internet-enabled "TV of the future," I just received an upgrade to my DVR. Thanks to Verizon FiOS and their new "Widget Bazaar," I can now access Facebook and Twitter using only my remote control. Jealous? You should be. TV will never be the same again.

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From mobile computing to multi-touch, user interfaces continue to evolve, becoming part of our daily lives. As a Web host, it's with great interest that we're also following the "10-foot user experience," an idea that emerged a few years ago and has been much talked about since. But technology now seems to be catching up to this exciting concept, thanks to innovators like Frog Design and the MIT Media Lab's Fluid Interfaces group.

Blip.tv's CEO, Mike Hudack, chatted with us this afternoon about how online video and television are evolving and informing one another. Revenue models, show length and format, distribution, and consumption are all called into question as the web targets increasingly narrow and engaged niche audiences.

As startups such as Blip.tv continue to grow and partner with old-guard media companies for television distribution, what will happen to the major networks, whose current model creates a scarcity of opportunity for revenue while requiring a "least objectionable programming" approach to content? Will network TV survive? Watch and find out what Hudack thinks.