On back to back days I have started hearing tons about online delivery of video. Most of the buzz has revolved around Universal and some deals they are striking. According to The Tennessesan (my local Nashville Paper), Universal has struck a deal with MSN to stream videos online. Likewise, according to Cnet.com, AOL (and soon Yahoo!) have also stuck a similar deal with them.
The articles claim that accordng to AccuStream iMedia Research there were over 5 billion music videos streamed over the internet last year alone.
Now you may be asking, why is Chris bringing this up? The original idea behind podcasting as I understand it (by Adam Curry and Dave Winer) was the automatic downloading of videos, not audio as it is today. While audio may have made podcasting what it is today, and has carved out its own niche, I do believe that video podcasting could be equally as powerful down the road.
I think these deals between companies like Unieversal and Yahoo, AOL and MSN are just opening the gates for larger content distributions from everybody including Warner Bros, BMG, EMI, Sony, etc. Keep your radars on because lots could start happening with on demand audio, video and the like.