TELEVISION as we know it, will be changing considerably in the next few years.
This revolution has started with youtube.com.
As I previously wrote in one of my columns, youtube.com is a social networking tool that enables people from all over the world to easily share videos with their friends and anyone who would like to view it.
The distribution of video content online in an easy and effective way has been difficult due to the large amounts of bandwidth that is needed to distribute high quality video. Video files need to be large to ensure a high quality image for you to watch.
High network speeds are also needed as you do not want to wait weeks just to view one file.
Luckily, worldwide, the cost of bandwidth is dropping and speeds are picking up.
We can only hope that this trend will also be one to catch on in South Africa.
The creators of Skype.com and Kazaa.com, two hugely successful internet services, have now taken on the task of finding a way to distribute huge video files effectively. The tech community speculate that this may just be the guys to do it. They launched the project under the name The Venice Project and last week the name changed to www.joost.com.
If this project is successful we will soon be able to watch movies and television shows online just like we watch television.
I must point out that they are still in Beta and it will probably take a year or two before a high quality video image is delivered, but at least the right guys are on the job.
We can expect to see great things from joost.com in the next few years.