It might be time to stop shorting Time Warner.
BetaNews | BitTorrent Signs Deal With Warner Bros.
BitTorrent said Tuesday that it had struck a content deal with Warner Bros. Entertainment to use the network to distribute movies and television shows. It is believed to be the first of its kind between a file-sharing company and the entertainment industry.The service would begin this summer, say BitTorrent executives. Television shows could sell for as litlle as $1, half the price of iTunes video downloads. The company’s technology has sparked the interest of Hollywood as a easy way to distribute digital content, said BitTorrent president Ashwin Navin.
They are the first BIG media company to imbrace P2P as a way to distribute large content. iTunes is prolly OK for your PC but the quality is not good enough play on your TV, assuming you can find a way to get it to you TV in the first place. A Broadcast/DVD (not to mention HD) show or movie, would kill a traditional client-server delivery system.
AOL(link) said Tuesday it will be laying off 1,300 workers in response to the changing needs of its business. Most of the affected employees are in the company’s customer support facilities, and its Jacksonville, Fla., call center would be shut down completely. According to an AOL(link) spokesperson, calls to its help lines have fallen by about 50 percent. The service says the drop in support requests has a lot to do with the increasing sophistication of its users.
While this is bad news for it’s employees. Time Warner finally realize that the value of AOL(link) has always been its content, and Instant Messaging. Now that high value content can be gotten anywhere without having to deal with and with AOL(link), AIM(link) has taken off as a free servers on its own, why pay for the high prices? The security angle I think is good though, but they should have contracted with McAfee or Symantec (Don’t know how their security features stack up with the big boys) but I would get AOL(link) High-Speed if it meant I get free security upgrades of am major security provider.
