The Observer reports that Google is in secret talks with Simon Fuller, the British entertainment guru behind the Spice Girls and American Idol, about a joint venture that “could change the way TV is watched over the Internet.” According to the report, Google execs have been in discussions with Fuller for about a year. Although […]

NBC Direct, a video download service that lets you view recent episodes of popular shows, is now live in beta mode. We have seen the future, though, and it is not NBC Direct. They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Here’s a picture of NBC Direct: Here are some of the limitations that […]

YouTube announced today changes to its service that will make it a better option for people using to host video podcasts, video blogs and other Internet videos. They’ve upped the files size limit for videos to 1GB and released software that lets Windows bulk-upload videos. Here’s the text of their announcement: Have a hard drive […]

Major League Baseball (MLB) has struck out with at least one baseball mega-fan, author and blogger Allan Wood. He got thrown a curve ball when MLB changed their online video service, dumping their DRM provider and rendering fans’ older video purchases unplayable. Wood’s a vocal, major-league fan of baseball. He’s written a book about Babe […]

NPR and 12 NPR Member stations recognized for music programming have launched NPR Music, a new, free, comprehensive multimedia music discovery Web site. The site features on-air and online content aggregated from NPR and the participating stations as well as original-to-NPR Music materials such as interviews, reviews, blogs and live performances. The site is already […]

Australian vocalist Kylie Minogue appears to be the first mega-diva to launch her own social networking site. KylieKonnect.com lets fans blog, upload images and video and interact with other users. By letting fans blog and post videos, the site has the potential to be the locus of attention for Kylie fans. Currently the site is […]

Ze Frank offers his take on the writer’s strike….

A reader, Graham Pollard, wrote us, wondering why podcasting hasn’t seemed to reach Apple’s UK stores. Pollard is a big fan of podcasts, and dropped by the Apple store recently on a visit to London, so he could check out the latest iPods. He writes: “I was quite surprised to find that at the nano […]

Hollywood’s film and television writers are on strike, after negotiations broke down between the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Association of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) and major television networks. At the core of the disagreement between writers and studios is the issue of writes for new media. Issues the WGA wants […]

A funny thing happened today. Pretty much everyone that’s been roasting NBC for yanking their content off of YouTube and iTunes is eating their words, now that they’ve seen Hulu, NBC’s new video site: “I was busy sharpening up the knives at BoomTown HQ to prepare for the debut of Hulu this week,” admits Kara […]