Greetings from a very cold Washington DC!

It’s been a busy week for all of us here at WebsEdge. This week we’ve been broadcasting from the American Colleges and Universities conference here in Washington. Despite all the usual running around - and even catching a Washington Wizards basketball game - it’s given us a fascinating insight into how Colleges are starting to use web based video to get their messages across to what’s now a very wide and diverse audience.

Once again the focus is on the consumer. There’s been a lot of talk recently about people watching video on mobile devices. But to most of us this has remained just talk. But I heard an interesting statistic this week. AT&T tell us that people who own Apple’s iPhone are now twice as likely to view data - including video - on their phones than they were before.

The message is clear - once you give people the right tools they’ll figure the rest out for themselves. Which brings me back to business. The problem here is that consumers are getting way ahead of the curve. We’re starting to see an explosion of interest in web based television in 2008. Both AT@T and BT are announcing rapid growth in IPTV roll out. And again the number of video aggregators has risen dramatically. All a testament to the demand for video over IP. But right now the business model just isn’t there. Too many people are relying on advertising income or worse still have no real idea where the income is going to come from. And until we figure that out this surge forward in our industry just won’t be sustained.

Just to wish you all a very happy and prosperous new year.

Are you sticking to your new years resolutions? One of the things we’re sure of here at WebsEdge is that 2008 is going to be a transformational year for IPTV and we’re resolved to stay at the heart of that. Another of our resolutions is to serve the global comunity we work in. So I thought I would take this opportunity to post some of the pictures from the Isibindi project we support in South Africa’s Eastern Cape. Technology is certainly bringing the world closer together and that puts obligations on us all. But do you know what, meeting those can be a whole lot of fun!

December 2007 was a landmark month for the Queen. Exactly fifty years after her first-ever televised Christmas broadcast in 1957, The Queen appeared on YouTube to host her first IPTV-based seasonal greeting. This video is a segment in the launch of “The Royal Channel”, the Monarchy’s YouTube video portal which is being used to connect to a “younger people and those in other countries ”.

Other world leaders have similarly found a place on YouTube: this year marked the first time the Japanese PM used the site to address his nation for a New Year’s greeting as well as Australia’s outgoing PM addressing voters through YouTube .

It’s great that we are starting to see IPTV mature into a more functional utility of communication than just a portal of viral entertainment. As the year progresses and the general public accepts the growing popularity of professionally-generated content emerging online, we’re going to see more and more government officials taking their messages to the web.

IPTV is on its way to reaching its full potential, though The Queen’s Christmas broadcast and the Japanese PM’s New Year’s Greeting combined have less than half the views of the backwards singing guy …