The Internet is being asked to do many things for which it was not originally intended. Voice-over-IP (VoIP), for example, is one of the more dynamic growth areas in the current Internet scene. Streaming audio and, to a lesser extent, video has been common for a few years now, and continues to grow through concepts such as podcasting and vblogs. Music downloads have been a major story for some years now, and the idea of video downloads are now starting to upset movie executives in the way Napster et al. upset record execs (often the very same people).

Now, Internet Protocol-based Television (IPTV) is starting to provide content for the latest chapter in this saga. A recent Business Week article noted the problems SBC may be having with Disney to deploy the hit movie "The Incredibles" on IPTV, despite the two companies' grinning friendliness and marketing cooperation during this megahit movie's traditional release. The problem is not one of technology - IPTV uses Internet Protocol, but streams the signal on dedicated lines rather than using IP's traditional fragmented routing to ensure a clean, unbroken signal - but one of money. Or rather, money and conservatism.

Major creative producers have proven themselves to be very uncreative when it comes to distribution. They view their unbreakable hold on distribution as a cornerstone of profitibility and viability. So the idea of college kids cherrypicking their favorite songs for free was felonious to record producers because it subverted the traditional music delivery method of charging $15 to $20 for a CD that cost pennies to produce.

The concept that these kids might actually buy more music in the long run because of being able to listen to some of it for free is simply not part of the music industry's thinking. This idea runs as counter to this way of thinking as the idea to church leaders in the 15th century that the printing press might make people more religious once they could actually read, in their own language, what the church had been teaching verbally for centuries in Latin.

Those of us from the 20th century remember when movie execs and most influential critics decried the emergence of VHS and ubiquitous movie rental as something that would kill the movie industry. Why would anyone spend all that money to go to a theater if they could rent the same thing and view it at home at a fraction of the cost? Yet the industry found that rentals actually represent a new revenue stream, and one that actually saves the fortunes of a lot of movies that have limited box-office success.

It's been reported that SBC, Verizon, and BellSouth are all planning IPTV deployments this year. The usual nervousness over whether anyone will subscribe, what will be available, how well the services will function technically will accompany these rollouts.

A slightly more subversive idea has been announced by Microsoft and its MSN Video group, which is teaming with IFILM to deliver video clips through Redmon?s free steraming service. This content includes access to what MSN describes as IFILM's "infamous" Viral Video channel. The official Microsoft quote read in part, "MSN Video actively seeks the best content partners in the industry," according to Andy Beers, director of MSN Video at Microsoft Corp. "And IFILM is one of the largest entertainment streaming video sites on the Internet, with some of the most cutting-edge footage."

Meanwhile, a number of media companies are aggressively launching their own original content via online TV. Forbes and some technical media sites are experimenting with it, and this magazine's parent company, SYS-CON Media, is doing so as well.

SYS-CON.TV has broadcast live from show floors, live from its headquarters studio in New Jersey, and offered a number of taped segments of industry executives as well. This reporter has participated in some of these webcasts and has found it to be a powerful way to connect some very influential technical leaders in direct fashion with an audience that wants to hear what they say.

IPTV may be The Next Big Thing for telcos and Hollywood, or it may not. Industry conservatism hampers technological progress, and it may also hamper economic growth in the entertainment sector. Meanwhile, projects like SYS-CON.TV may in the long run prove to be more influential by providing direct contact among the people who are developing the tools and applications that make the likes of IPTV possible.