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LikeTelevision.com may specialize in TV's past, but it may represent the future of broadcasting. This polished and professional-looking Web site delivers old television programs over the Internet, offering everything from Betty Boop cartoons to Perry Mason.
All the programs in its extensive catalog are available all the time, for a price. Many TV viewers around the world have become accustomed to paying for the delivery system, either via cable or satellite, and LikeTelevision follows that model with annual and monthly subscription rates.
The Web site's streaming video library features thousands of old TV programs, movies, cartoons and even vintage TV commercials. The Premium Membership category allows access to a video download library of more than 250 titles. And LikeTelevision is obviously in touch with its viewers' needs, because all these offerings are "…encoded at a whopping 1248 kps, perfect for Full Screen Viewing and Burning to CD!"
The system is not for everyone. Users need a broadband connection --
T-1 line, DSL, satellite or cable modem -- to watch in real time. The computer must utilize at least a Pentium III, AMD Athlon or Apple G4 or better processor, and the site also recommends a fast video card and updated drivers.
In its pitch to ad agencies, the company says, "LikeTelevision has brought the power of Video Advertising online -- and made it better." LikeTelevision only insert video advertising anywhere in its programming and direct it towards specific audiences. These commercials can be 'clickable', taking potential purchasers right into online ordering systems.
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Money and time are no barriers to putting up a Web site. Using free Web page hosting services, almost anyone can have a site up and running in minutes. The look can be as professional as HTML-writing skills might make it and the cost can be nothing at all. Financed by advertising on each page, these services allow anyone with access to a browser to 'get a presence on the Internet'.
Of course, the domain name will be long and clumsy, like: http://www.homestead.com/ozarkriders/index.html, for example, or http://www.geocities.com/ndpilots/index.html. As well, the pages are often slow to load and sometimes not available at all. On the other hand, templates and online page creation tools allow novice Web site builders to quickly assemble text; background colors and patterns; graphics; sound; video; and, even e-commerce applications, just the way they want them.
Some of the big names in free page hosting are providers such as Homestead, Geocities, Angelfire and Tripod. People who create free pages with these long-established services can be pretty confident these providers will be in business for a while.
At most sites, the free service is a bare-bones offering, designed to whet the user's appetite for paid services. For a few dollars, the company will remove the paid advertising from each page. A little more money and the users site can offer more features and occupy more space. Possibly most expensive of all, the hosting providers want users to use their domain name registration services to get their own personalized Web address and become regular Web hosting customers rather than non-paying guests.
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| The Great Firewall of China |
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In China, the government believes the Internet poses a threat to its control over information, so it routinely blocks access to news sites based in the western world. Technically, it's easy enough to close off the feed from BBC.com or MSNBC.com but that doesn't mean the news cannot get through. Now, for better or worse, Weblogs are providing an unstoppable source for Chinese hungry to read information about the outside world.
Weblogs, or blogs as they are more often known, are simply Web sites where bloggers can post anything they have to say quickly and easily. Available from services like Blogger.com, Livejournal.com and Diaryland.com, these instant Web sites can publish original journalism or re-post any news from western sources that their 'publishers' consider relevant or important. If the Chinese government decided to block a particular Weblog, it could and probably would be available under a similar, but just slightly different name as quickly as a few minutes later.
In the United States, one of the first journalistic blogs was the Drudge Report by self-invented online 'journalist' Matt Drudge. Like it or not, his free-wheeling, unattributed brand of instant reporting transformed how people saw the news potential of the World Wide Web.
Weblogs, created to serve an individualistic and even egotistical audience, may well grow to become an important political instrument in countries like China where control over information has been key to maintaining power.
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