With faster and faster broadband connections, it’s getting easier to deliver video content over the internet, blurring the lines between television and the web. More and more, we’re living in that blur, and a few recent changes suggest that the trend toward convergence is inevitable. CBS News, though lagging behind its competitors today, seems to get the message that tightly scheduled, broadcast media will soon be a relic of the past. In a bid to stay ahead of the curve (and perhaps, in time, of the competition), CBS News has totally revamped its website into what it calls a “24-hour, on-demand news service, available across many platforms.” There you will find a variety of interactive features, text news from the wires, live radio, RSS feeds, and a podcasting service. You will also find dozens upon dozens of free video segments – the usual television programming, only broken up into bight-sized chunks. From these clips, visitors are invited to “build a newscast,” assembling video segments into a personal playlist. Sooner or later, when other news outlets go the same way, we’ll begin to see RSS video aggregators that automatically pull clips from around the web, the same way feed readers assemble text news today. This is already beginning to happen for video blogs.
But it’s not just the crusty old news networks that are changing. With AOL’s webcast of the the Live 8 concerts, and Amazon’s upcoming 10th Anniversary shindig, where it will be streaming live on its site a concert featuring Bob Dylan and Norah Jones, it seems the TV-web merger is being driven from both sides.
Article: “TV Moves to the Internet”