Russ makes a good point in his posting about the new TiVo features. Basically, the new TiVo software has all kinds of neat features, one of them being the ability to download and play podcasts. I, like Russ, think that it could definitely go farther than just playing an audio podcast -- instead, the next revision should be able to play video podcasts. I think audio podcasts are cool, but listening to a podcast on my TV does not sound that fun. Instead, the ability to get video podcasts would be a killer feature. Video content production has been "flattened" and small home productions can now take on a whole new life -- having episodes of Battlestar Galactica living on the TiVo right next to episodes of the latest home-made video podcasts would be pretty cool. The cost of making professional level home videos is now within the grasps of us "regular" folks and with the right distribution channel, this could explode into a huge media opportunity. I mean, anyone with a decent Mac, iMovie and a DVCam could kick out video content. If someone is really into video as a hobby, then I can see even more investment and better output. A G5, Final Cut Pro, and a 3-CCD HDcam could all be had for less money than a Ferrari. Yea, I know, there are already too many channels on TV and not much good content. The same can be said about the written media, lots of writing and not much substance. Blogs have changed the way that people get news. I am intrigued by the hits to my blog from news.search.yahoo.com. Why? Because that is the experimental news search engine for news.yahoo.com. When someone uses that search engine, blog entries show up right next to the "real" news. It is very interesting to see that people will actually click on a blog entry instead of a news article when they do a search. If someone (like TiVo or some other company) can put together a video search engine that can properly match people with content, I think they have a killer app for a set top box. Once the marriage between the consumer and the producer is made, it would only be as simple as scheduling a daily check for a new video. This is a very interesting idea. I cannot wait to see how things change in the future with video and set top boxes. The revolution will be televised if this all comes together.