Recession sends Americans to the World Wide Web

More than two-thirds of American adults -- or 88 percent of U.S. Internet users -- went online for help with recession-induced personal economic issues and to gather information on national economic problems. That's according to a study released by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Researchers say the Internet ranks high among sources of information and advice that people are seeking during hard times, especially when it comes to their personal finances and jobs.

The study found that 34 percent of online economic users have created content and commentary about the recession in places like blogs, social network sites and Twitter. Click here to read the overview and the full report.

Government drops request for telcom data

The federal government has agreed to drop a request for sensitive revenue and Internet speed data from telecommunication providers. The information would have been for a program to map broadband use in U.S. homes and bring high-speed Internet service to more people.

The U.S. Commerce Department said that companies such as Verizon Communications Inc, Comcast Corp, and AT&T Inc do not have to share how much money they make from each Internet subscriber. Nor must they say how fast their Internet connections typically run.

Instead, they will provide data by the block, usually about a dozen homes depending on the size of the block. They also will share the speed of Internet service that they advertise.

Companies do not want to share the specific data because they do not want their competitors to see it.

However, critics of the Commerce Department's decision maintain that failing to make the data public allows the companies to advertise -- and charge for -- something that they often cannot deliver.

Hollywood and ISPs team up to deliver video over the Internet

DVD, DVR and VOD are old school. Now there's ZillionTV. The company, backed by several major Hollywood studios, is an ad-supported video-on-demand system in which commercials are tailored to viewers, who can't fast-forward through them.

ZillionTV enables viewers to choose the categories of advertising that are most interesting to them, and commercials fitting the bill are inserted into TV shows and movies that are streamed via broadband onto TV screens.

Content comes from Warner Bros., Sony Pictures, NBC Universal, 20th Century Fox Television and Disney, all of which are invested in this startup. Forty other partners also supply content, and discussions are under way with Viacom and CBS. ZillionTV is promising 15,000 movie and TV titles by the end of 2009, when such TV shows as 30 Rock and Smallville and movies like The Dark Knight will be available on demand.

The system features a rewards program: The more commercials watched, the more points earned. Users wishing to avoid the ads can buy or rent content in a way similar to iTunes and Apple TV.

ZillionTV, however, is for streaming only. Purchased content is stored via Internet "lockers," not on a hard drive.

ZillionTV hopes to do for the set-top box market what Hulu has done for the PC. If you're like a lot of us, you're trying to keep up with the technology.

Hulu, if you're not familiar with it, is an online video service that offers hit TV shows, movies and clips at Hulu.com and other online destination sites — all for free. The service is available only in the U.S.

Hulu brings together a large selection of videos from more than 130 content providers, including FOX, NBC Universal, MGM, Sony Pictures Television, and Warner Bros. Users can choose from more than 1000 current prime-time TV hits such as The Simpsons, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and The Office the morning after they air; classics like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The A Team; movies like Men in Black and The Karate Kid; and clips from popular shows of the past, such as Friends.

The backers of ZillionTV insist that they're offering a unique product. Once the service is operational, we'll get the opportunity to compare.

Tags: ZillionTV, Video-on-demand, Video, Technology, Internet, TV