TV Revolution
Recently iTunes Music Store launched in Australia, with Apple selling songs for $1.69 each (ouch!). While I haven’t tried the new Music Store, I have downloaded the latest iTunes to test out some of the other features. The podcast integration seems like a good feature, however my initial experience was that it was quite slow and unresponsive.
The tight integration and ease of use of the podcast functionality got me thinking. With the number of quality podcast and IPTV (Internet Protocol TV, sometimes also called a vidcast) shows being made available on the Internet, there is really going to be a opportunity for a shakeup of the way people watch TV. Particularly considering there is a slew of free high quality content (especially Tech shows eg. This Week in Tech, Diggnation, Systm, LUG Radio) with more appearing each day. There is even comedy (Tiki Bar TV!) and sports (The AFL Show), so who knows what will be next!
The way I see it, unless the TV and movie studios react with a online distribution tailored to what people actually want to watch (such as selling more shows on iTunes), they could be left in the dust. Especially considering that 1 million videos were sold in the first 20 days of the iTunes video service. Its no wonder Apple is focusing on increasing the content available! In the mean time though, lets sit back, relax and enjoy some of the content that is available, not forgetting the high quality content thats coming from podcasting and IPTV shows.