8×8

There is a lot of hype over Internet TV services theses days. Joost, Bablegum and the list goes on and on. An important point to remember is that this is really a race for who gets to control the distribution of the video content. However there is an alternative to having the future of digital video being controlled by corporations, Miro. It’s a great service that I just tried out today. As they say:

“Miro is a free, open-source software project led by a non-profit organization. It’s a platform that benefits everyone by keeping online video open. Our organization isn’t controlled by venture capitalists or stockholders, which means we always put our users first.

Open video will only have a real impact if it can reach a mass audience. Your ideas and efforts work better than any paid marketing campaign, because it comes from somewhere real.”

Now this really gets me excited. Even better, I run Ubuntu and they already have a Linux version which is more than can be said about the other InternetTV applications. I gave it a try and it’s really quite cool.

1. You can search and download video from YouTube, Veoh, and others.

2. You can collect video RSS feeds of your favourite programs in the player. So it’s like a video version of Google Reader in some ways. (It came with a feed of Democracy Now! installed which give the Miro people an extra point in my books :-)).

Looking forward to using it regularly!