[denphone]

http://apps.facebook.com/theguardian...yb-internet-tv

BSkyB's internet TV plan is brilliant, a rare example of perfect timing

In essence, Sky is doing with its television output what Amazon does with the Kindle, taking ownership of the conduit




On the internet, it's always better to jump before you're pushed. That's the clear lesson from John Naughton's new book, From Gutenberg to Zuckerberg, which points out – among other things – that "on the internet, disruption is a feature, not a bug". In other words: change just keeps on coming; and if you wait to be pushed rather than leaping into the flood of change, you'll generally find yourself face down in the mud with people running over your back.

Equally, though, timing matters. Ten years ago I recall mobile phone companies that had just spend billions on 3G bids demonstrating to journalists how the latest handsets could stream TV direct to their mobiles. It was great, if you wanted to watch something that looked like the first moon landing viewed on a TV across a road. TV on mobiles didn't take off; music did.

But now we have the bandwidth and processing power to give us video capability all over the place. And what I think is the most impressive case of jumping before being pushed in the media ecosystem recently: BSkyB's announcement that it's going to launch an internet TV service that will let you get content from it on an ad hoc basis, no matter whether you use Sky's broadband or pay for Sky in your home.

In essence, Sky is doing with its TV output what Amazon does with the Kindle: saying "we don't mind how you view our content. We just want to be the conduit so we benefit from your attention." Video-on-demand (VoD) for anyone prepared to pay, not just existing users of its pay TV service