Feedback Wanted: Whole-House Internet Video, Audio, and Telephony Solutions

There is no doubt that Internet-based services have transformed our worlds of entertainment and commmunications especially in the last 10 years. Many folks have come to rely on voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) solutions from providers such as Vonage and cable companies like Comcast. iTunes and digital music have become the mainstream, and new digital audio streamers such as Sonos have grown in popularity and value. Home networking has made much of this possible, now that folks are very comfortable setting up wireless networks in their homes without much thought as to what makes it all tick.

Now we are seeing the world of Internet video go through a similar transformation, perhaps even more dramatic than the revolutions in the telephony and audio worlds. Most people are just beginning to realize that much of what they can get through traditional broadcast/cable TV is now available online from the major networks such at sites like abc.com, nbc.com, cbs.com, and fox.com. And aggregation sites and applications have evolved beyond the pioneer Joost to hugely popular sites like Hulu.com. New devices are making it easier to stream this content to the preferred viewing screens in your homes (um, that would be that 50-inch LCD you put on the wall). Devices such as the newly launched ZvBox (full disclosure: I spent the better part of this past year working as VP Marketing launching this company to the market) and SlingCatcher have joined the ranks over early leader AppleTV to provide some combination of internet video services/content with home devices to enable them. I won't go into the ins and outs of the various methods right now (I'll save that for a later post), but I wanted to hear from you readers and fellow Trenders about what interest, usage, and devices you are investigating/experiencing in your homes to enable Internet-based video, audio and all other forms of media.

This is a facinating area of research that will drive many peripheral service and device industries for a long time, and will also likely transform how we watch/listen/learn/interact within our homes. If you are relatively unfamiliar with what is going on in this space, I posted a few demo videos (right sidebar) to help you quickly familiarize yourself. Please provide your feedback through your blogs or comments and please respond to my poll here on my page.

Thanks!