Cable and IPTV network operators can offer customers an unprecedented navigation experience on television that includes simultaneous live views of multiple channels and Web-like personalization with the live deployment of the revolutionary P:Mosaic from ICTV.

P:Mosaic breaks new ground in viewer navigation by creating a dynamic environment that combines full viewer engagement with the high quality and immediate responsiveness of television. By deploying P:Mosaic, network operators can for the first time enable subscribers to build personalized menus from the hundreds of available channels according to individual preferences, manage preferences from Web-connected devices, view and preview television channels simultaneously and interact with targeted, auditable and actionable advertising.

Churchill Downs Incorporated announces that its new advance deposit wagering service, TwinSpires, will launch on Wednesday, May 2, at 9 a.m. EDT, to accept wagers on the 2007 Spring Meet at Churchill Downs racetrack, and the 133rd renewals of the Grade I Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands on May 5 and the Kentucky Oaks on May 4.

Beginning May 2 at 9 a.m. EDT, customer can register for the new account-wagering service by visiting the TwinSpires Web site and clicking on the “Register Now” button on the home page. Registration is subject to applicable rules and restrictions. The TwinSpires Web site will activate at 9 a.m. EDT on May 2. Player Services Representatives will be available to assist customers beginning at 9 a.m. EDT / 6 a.m. EDT on May 2. Customers may contact the TwinSpires Player Services Center at 1-877-SPIRES-1 for assistance.

ITV unveils the new ITV.com as the most comprehensive commercial website offered by any major broadcaster in the world. The new site, which will go live to consumers within weeks, will offer:

• Live streaming of ITV’s channels
• 30 day catch-up service
• ‘Best of ITV’ archive
• Exclusive behind the scenes content
• Made for broadband commissions
• User-generated content and news services
• Broadband games, and much more

The site will have industry leading functionality with ‘click and watch’ technology and instant free access, with no complicated software downloads.

The BBC Trust has issued its final approval of the BBC Executive's proposals for new on-demand services, with some modifications. The on-demand proposals are the first to go through a Public Value Test.

The Trust's provisional conclusions were subject to an open consultation. A remarkable 10,500 individuals and organisations responded. In the light of those responses, and after careful consideration of all relevant issues, the Trust has amended two of the conditions of its provisional approval.

Swisscom is adding more TV channels to the basic Bluewin TV package, including the English-language BBC Prime. Bluewin TV's basic package already covers a wide range of English-language channels which are no longer broadcast in analog format by some cable TV operators. To date, more than 40,000 customers have signed up for Bluewin TV.

Bluewin TV offers television over the telephone line. Launched by Swisscom in early November 2006, the service now offers more than 120 TV channels and more than 80 radio stations, over 500 top films (video on demand), live sport and up to 30 Teleclub channels. All that's needed is a telephone connection and broadband Internet access from Swisscom. Bluewin TV works without a cable network connection. Basic range of English-language channels to be expanded.

Market News First has selected Akamai to power the delivery of its 24/7 financial news broadcast. The Akamai Media Delivery solution will provide streaming services for Market News First's live broadcasts, available via www.mn1.com.

Market News First chose Akamai as its exclusive streaming service provider due to the consistently superior performance of the Akamai global distribution platform. Akamai beat out four other streaming providers in a head-to-head performance test for the Market News First win. In comparative testing, Akamai's streaming services demonstrated less buffering and faster start-up times resulting in a heightened viewing experience.

Narrowstep has been chosen by Virgin Media to power their online video offering, comprising a range of factual and entertainment content, sports and movies. Narrowstep currently powers more than 150 TV-over-IP channels, including Go Beyond TV for Land Rover, London TV, RomeReports TV, and ITV Local.

Virgin Media uses Narrowstep's TelvOS internet TV technology platform and services to co-ordinate and enable the management and play-out of their recently-launched internet TV offering which can be accessed at http://www.virginmedia.com/ by clicking on one of five genre-themed on-screen buttons: Gaming, Knowledge, Movies, Sport and TV. Content includes a mix of entertainment from Virgin Media Television channels such as LIVINGtv, Bravo, Challenge and Trouble.

Marshall Eubanks, CTO of Destiny Conferencing until its recent sale to Polycom, and Mike Smith, member of the Angel Capital Association and head of his own business development firm, MSBD, have created Broadband Advertisements to leverage the recent boom in Web advertising. The company’s first client is AmericaFree.TV - a free Web entertainment and streaming content portal.

Broadband Advertisements will generate ad revenue through placements into streaming media and download video sites, and also by providing Flash videos, banners or hyperlinks on movie and entertainment Web sites. Mid-sized companies and smaller retailers who want a simple way to automate the posting of ads and direct marketing will look to Broadband Advertisements, say the new owners.

Med1a is launching 'View TV Local', a platform of IPTV channels which enables content owners, marketers and publishers to provide TV on the Internet to local towns and communities. Some of the first channels to launch using the 'View TV Local' platform include Chester TV, Tamworth TV and Redditch TV.

Med1a's 'View TV Local' portal consists of web site technology, video footage and User Generated Content (UGC) that can be used to communicate news and information, business events, weather reports and tourist information to local towns and communities almost instantly. All channels are received via broadband and are available via a PC using a standard web browser pointed at www.viewtvlocal.com or a dedicated web address.

thePlatform announced that it has signed a deal to provide content publishing and distribution services for the Internet video venture to be launched by NBC-Universal and News Corp. The joint venture will include thousands of hours of full-length, premium content from major networks and film studios that will be distributed to hundreds of millions of consumers via some of the biggest portals on the Web.

This new agreement builds upon thePlatform's existing relationship with NBBC, supporting its broadband video marketplace. thePlatform currently manages and publishes online video for ABC News, Amp'd Mobile, CNBC, College Sports TV, Court TV, Comcast, E!, Hearst, the Oxygen Network, PRIMEDIA, Scripps, Sony/BMG Music, Ruckus, Vongo, Telstra, Verizon Wireless and dozens of other companies.

GlobeCast WorldTV and SIVOO announce that content from more than 60 of GlobeCast's WorldTV channels will be carried by SIVOO when the service becomes available in June.

Under the terms of the agreement, GlobeCast WorldTV will license a wide range of programming to SIVOO. The premier television packages will be distributed via SIVOO's Internet TV network. Content will be available in high-demand languages including Chinese, Russian, Tagalog, Korean, Italian, French, Arabic, Tamil, Malaylam, Telegu, Persian, Cambodian, Bosnian, Serbian, Macedonian, Bengali and Romanian.

Jeff Zucker, President of NBC Universal and Peter Chernin, President of News Corporation officially announced and described their grandiose vision of what they claim will be the largest Internet video distribution network.

The site will debut this summer with thousands of hours of full-length programming, movies and clips, representing content from a dozen networks and two major film studios. The site will offer free long- and short-form video from shows, including Heroes, 24, House, My Name Is Earl, Saturday Night Live, Friday Night Lights, The Riches, 30 Rock, The Simpsons, The Tonight Show, Prison Break, Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader and Top Chef, plus hits from the studios' television libraries.

The site will also include films like Borat, Little Miss Sunshine, Devil Wears Prada, The Bourne Identity and Bourne Supremacy with bonus materials and movie trailers. Post-launch, plans will be considered for acquiring additional content as well as producing and licensing original programming for the new site's audience.

The content will be available free, on an ad-supported basis. Charter advertisers include Cadbury Schweppes, Cisco, Esurance, Intel and General Motors.

"This is a game changer for Internet video," said Peter Chernin, President and Chief Operating Officer of News Corporation. "We'll have access to just about the entire U.S. Internet audience at launch. And for the first time, consumers will get what they want -- professionally produced video delivered on the sites where they live. We're excited about the potential for this alliance and we're looking forward to working with any content provider or distributor who wants to take advantage of this extraordinary opportunity."

"Anyone who believes in the value of ubiquitous distribution will find this announcement incredibly exciting," said Jeff Zucker, President and CEO of NBC Universal. "This venture supercharges our distribution of protected, quality content to fans everywhere. Consumers get a hugely attractive aggregation of a wide range of content, and marketers get a novel way to connect with a large and highly engaged audience."

As for the social networking aspect, the new site will include personalized video playlists, mashups, online communities and video search.

AOL, MSN, MySpace and Yahoo! will be the new site's initial distribution partners. What's this you ask? Well it appears that a lot of the details haven't been worked out by the remarks made below but according to the news, each distribution partner will feature the site's content in an embedded player customized with a look and feel consistent with each site.

Here's what Microsoft, Yahoo, and MySpace all had to say. Notably, many of them put in their 2 cents about how the new site will "protect intellectual property."

It has been speculated for some time that a handful of major media giants were discussing the possibility of creating their own video sharing site to challenge the likes of YouTube. That appears to no longer be speculation as the Los Angeles Times is reporting today that News Corp. and NBC Universal are likely to announce their plans on creating such a site as soon as today.

The LA Times reports that the new website could be up by as early as this summer and would offer content from their top TV shows including "The Office", "24", and "Heroes". Many of these are not even available from their current Internet TV offerings.

We'll keep an eye out for more details as they emerge.

From our perspective, this all seems like a lot of hype as we can't see how any venture like this will detract from the popularity of YouTube or any other video sharing site. The appeal of user-generated sites is quite different than that of major broadcasters. Regardless, we will be interested to see how they incorporate the social networking aspect into their offering.

Annelise Berendt has a commentary on Ovum on what Internet TV means to IPTV and whether Internet TV services could actually compete with and impact future IPTV services. Annelise's viewpoint is that the two will end up complementing each other and we will see IPTV providers opening up their walled gardens to accommodate Internet TV products and services. Other viewpoints are that neither one really steps on the others territory due to different audiences and other factors such as quality.

What's your viewpoint? Will these two face off in the future or will IPTV providers embrace Internet TV in one form or another?

If you weren't already getting enough spam in your inbox, you can now expect it via your daily video site. The Wall Street Journal has an interesting write-up about growing signs that video spam has arrived. In the article, they cite an example where a video titled "Hot Blonde Tells You How She Wants to..." received 500,000 views and achieved the 6th slot in Google Video's Top 10. (The video is still in the Top 10 at #9.) The video contains a list of misleading keywords including sexually explicit terms, "Harry Potter", and "Pirates of the Caribbean". The woman in the video then directs users to a site that explains "How to Make Buckets of Cash". (Big surprise. Maybe this video would have been a better fit for how-to site VideoJug.)

According to the article, a YouTube spokesman said that video spam is not a problem, however, AOL's Tim Tuttle, a vice president at AOL Video and a co-founder of the Truveo video search engine feels differently, "Without a doubt, we've noticed an increase in the past six months."

Sapna Satagopan, an analyst at JupiterResearch said, "Marketers are starting to ask about it."