Many people have now heard of the term PodCasting but broadcasting audio to your iPod is just the beginning. The next wave of content will be brought to your TV, on demand. The new underground word of the day is VOD-casting the VOD stands for Video on demand and in the next 5 years it stands to change the way TV networks oporate.
Traditionally cable operators and station owners have to be convinced that there is enough interest in a particular show to make the show worth having on the air. TV networks rutinly cancel shows, because the interest levels aren't high enough. In today's world the number of shows is limited to a set of channels and networks.
If I'm an independent producer who wants to create a witty sitcom I need to get the nod from a major network to have a chance of any viewership. If I'm Garth making Wayne's World in my basement and I'm fortunate enough to get air-time on my public access channel I have no way to have my message heard around the world.
Vod-casting can change all that. Vodcasting takes power away from show programmers and puts it in the hands of the people. Any one can make a TV show with a world-wide audience.
Vod-casting works by publishing a TV show online with an RSS feed. The feed document describes the show and the location of the video file online. Anyone with a website can publish a show. The missing piece that will soon be available is the aggregater, or player. For music and podcasting this was Apple's iTunes. The logical partner for TV content would be Tivo. There is an opportunity that won't last long for Tivo to take the lead and allow people to view Vod-cast content directly on their TV. This is the missing piece that can make traditional networks change the way they think about programming content.