The March issue of Business 2.0 hit the newsstands today and contains their list of 25 startup companies to watch. The Business 2.0 selections are also available via their website.

Who does Business 2.0 believe is best positioned for success in 2007? The winners will be the players that invent new ways to tap into what the Web brings to the party: instant feedback, instant analysis, and the collective wisdom of a billion users. "The losers are likely to be those companies that try to make money by pouring old-media wine into the new Web bottles," the magazine adds.

This will be the second annual edition of the next net. Many of the magazine's choices last year were forward-looking: Digg, Trulia, Technorati, JotSpot, Writely. (The last two were snapped up by Google.) But one of last year's 25 succeeded even beyond the magazine's expectations: YouTube, which was purchased in October by Google for a game-changing $1.65 billion.

BitTorrent finally announced today the launch of its new website, called the BitTorrent Entertainment Network. The new network has been anticipated for some time and includes a library of downloadable digital entertainment from 20th Century Fox, Lions Gate, MTV Networks, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment and BitTorrent's newest partner, MGM.

BitTorrent users can rent movies, purchase television shows and music videos, and publish and share their own content.

BitTorrent has long been famous as a peer-to-peer file sharing system that is commonly associated with illegal file sharing. The company estimates around 135 million BitTorrent clients, which naturally was very appealing when it approached entertainment providers with a secure and protected way to promote their products.

BitTorrent's newest entertainment network partner is MGM, which puts the roster of over 35 content partners. At launch, the network will feature over 5,000 titles of movies, TV shows, PC games and music content, as well as over 40 hours of HD programming.

Verismo Networks has announced the availability of its ViPTV platform, an end-to-end broadcasting system. The new service looks to be a competitor to solutions such as NewLion's iPTV service. Verismo Networks will supply a set-top box (no pricing as of yet) to consumers who can then download content to it over their standard broadband connection or stream video content from websites like Google, YouTube, and Yahoo.

The ViPTV service is completing its beta testing, and Verismo Networks is currently looking for content providers interested in creating IPTV channels via the service. Providers can offer their content for monthly subscriptions and pay per view by the end of March 2007.

Brix Networks has launched a new a new blog devoted to discussion and information sharing regarding quality of experience (QoE) as it relates to next-generation voip, IPTV, data, and mobile services.

The site – www.ServiceAssuranceBlog.com – was created to foster a continuing dialogue and an exchange of ideas among those who are interested in advancing the quality of VoIP, IPTV, and other IP-based services. As these new offerings are increasingly rolled out to consumers and businesses, it has become imperative for service providers to validate performance levels, deliver a positive user experience, reduce subscriber churn, and increase revenue through the use of end-to-end converged service assurance.

We'll be keeping an eye out as to how often Brix Networks keeps the new blog updated and for interesting news bits.

Ericsson announced today a bid to acquire Tandberg Television for NOK 106 (USD 17.32) in cash per share for a total price of approximately SEK 9.8 billion (USD 1.6 billion).

Ericsson's CEO Carl-Henric Svanberg said that a merger would solidify the company's IPTV offering and move the company into a world leadership position in IPTV. "Tandberg's leading TV technology and customer base and our global presence and strong position in IP networks and IMS, will create a leading player in networked media solutions for telecom, cable and satellite operators as well as media companies."

The merger would also expand Ericsson's customer base to include cable and satellite operators as well as broadcasters.

The bid also represents a premium of 10.4 percent or NOK 10 per share to the proposed mixed cash/share offer announced January 15, 2007 by Arris.

5th & 6th June 2007
Grimaldi Forum, Monte Carlo

Take part in the industry’s leading and most prestigious event, ‘MeM’. Taking place on the 5th & 6th June, MeM (the official annual event of MEF) will cater to all your needs. The event has been thoroughly researched with the industry to develop a six track conference agenda addressing the hottest topics, and it will bring high level speakers from the most sought-after organisations to you, not to mention an extensive exhibition showcasing the movers and shakers of mobile entertainment.

Alex Zaharov-Reutt at iTWire has a good write-up on the potential bandwidth costs associated with watching video over Joost.

Most people usually speak to the advantages peer-to-peer offers. However, for those with bandwidth limits, peer-to-peer can suck your quota dry or mean higher bills if you get charged for additional usage. Throw into the mix streaming video at rates Joost suggests (320MB per hour down, 105MB per hour up), and you could have a potential disaster.

"If you watch 10 one hour shows, that's 3.3Gb you've just downloaded, and 1.5Gb you've uploaded. Watch a single one hour show for 30 days, and that's 9.9Gb. If you're stuck on a 10Gb download limit, you've just used it all up watching a Joost TV show every day," writes Alex.

Optical Entertainment Network (OEN) has launched its FISION Triple Play Plus Services in Houston. OEN's bundle of services includes IPTV services, VoIP and symmetrical broadband Internet services at speeds of up to 10 Mbps. OEN has made this service available to residential customers, multiple dwelling units and business customers starting in the Northwest section of Houston.

OEN boasts a very large channel line up with over 85 premium networks and over 40 HD channels and numerous niche channels. All FISION Triple Play Packages include over 260 channels as well as up to 10 Mbps Ultimate Internet complimented with VoIP. Additionally, OEN has acquired programming agreements for IPTV distribution from television networks in the US, Latin America, South Asia and Europe with programming in 13 foreign languages.

Anevia will supply the French arm of Telecom Italia's Alice service with its latest video on-demand solution.

Alice TV customers will be able to choose and watch, instantaneously, a movie or a show from a selection of 1000 titles, and carry out play, pause, stop, fast forward and rewind through their set-top box.

VeriSign and Entriq have entered into a strategic alliance to combine Entriq's rights-management and commerce solutions with the VeriSign Intelligent Content Delivery Network (CDN). Together, the two look to offer media companies a solution for managing, monetizing, and delivering their media assets online. Entriq's services include customer care, billing, content geographic controls, download controls and support for a wide variety of business models. VeriSign's Intelligent CDN, introduced in December 2006, delivers video over the Internet utilizing patented peer-to-peer technology.

On the Internet, it's true – and will continue to be true for at least another year. In 2006, newspaper-run Web sites captured about $81 million in locally spent streaming-video advertising, while local TV broadcasters captured about $32 million. Although it is small potatoes in the $280 billion U.S. advertising industry, it spotlights a fascinating phenomenon: Print media are using the Internet as a crossover platform to tap traditional TV advertisers, just as TV stations (and others) are trying to use the Internet to tap traditional print advertisers.

Online competition between newspapers and broadcast TV stations – the leaders in local advertising – will intensify this year as both sides develop Web-based video products. The clash will focus on automotive advertisers initially, though real estate, health and employment are prime targets as well. The opportunity to deliver 15-second pre-roll ads along with a tantalizing new opportunity for local advertisers - long-form "infomercials" on demand – are becoming antidotes for media companies suffering declines in their core products.

According to Portafolio, UNE-EPM Telecommunications will launch its IPTV service in March, making it the first company to offer IPTV in Colombia.

The service will include a total of 103 TV channels and in August the company will expand the service to include video on-demand and PVR functionality.

New research by Frost & Sullivan discusses the North American market for IPTV-based services and the set-top boxes required to deliver them to consumers. In addition to revenue and unit shipment forecasts for set-top boxes, it profiles major service providers and set-top box vendors. The study also reviews major strategic opportunities for success and analyzes market direction through consideration of challenges, drivers, and restraints that IPTV-based service providers and related vendors are expected to face in the near term. Strategic recommendations are also provided for vendors and service providers.

SeaChange International has secured a new patent for a software application that offers a solution to the challenge of presenting television viewers with the content they want to watch. U.S. Patent 7,155,674 is embodied in SeaChange's Channel Overlay application, which organizes a subscriber's experience according to programs currently being watched.

Triggered by a remote control command, the application overlays video with a menu of hotlinks to relevant on-demand content options and linear broadcast channels.

Applian Technologies released their Replay Media Catcher software, which allows online video and audio recording for streaming Flash and MP3 sites. The software allows users to capture digital reproductions from destinations like ABC.com, NBC.com, MySpace and thousands of others, as well as popular places like YouTube and Google Video. On Applian's website, one can even find how-to guides on recording video and audio from popular sites.

How do content owners feel about this? Recording of this video would easily allow users to then turn around and post these on any popular video site. However, this would go against Applian Technologies' terms of use, which does state, "Applian Technologies recording products are not intended for use in circumventing copy protection mechanisms or for making illegal copies of copyrighted content. Replay Media Catcher can be used for recording for your personal use only."