When we last left Steve Hofstetter, last100’s favorite digital comedian, Steve had offered up his latest album using the pay-what-you-want-model.

So how did that work out for him?

Not bad. Not bad at all.

In addition to making more “take-home” money on this album than the previous two, Hofstetter has landed a spot on “The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson,” his first late-night appearance. Hofstetter’s segment, taped at the end of July, will air the night of Sept. 3 (check local listings for airtime).

Hofstetter’s recent success doesn’t end there. Hofstetter, a small, independent artist far from the superstar status of Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails, embraced digital distribution and alternative business models, and they’ve embraced him.

Just last month, iTunes picked Hofstetter’s second album, “Cure for the Cable Guy,” as a staff pick and one of its top 15 favorite comedy albums of the past five years. “And it’s not even my favorite,” Hofstetter says.

Hofstetter continues to prove that indie artists of all sorts can build impressive careers using alternative distribution methods and business models, social media, and social networks like MySpace and Facebook. In addition to “The Late Late Show” and iTunes, Hofstetter has two scripts in the works — one for a sitcom, the other for a sports comedy show — that are getting attention.

Continue reading “Hofstetter proves digital distribution works for indie comedians; lands spot on late-night TV” »

No matter what the shortcomings of TheWB.com are, it’s always nice to see more free, legal TV on the Web.

Warner Brothers announced it was resurrecting its defunct WB television brand as TheWB.com back in April. It will be available for all to see Wednesday after an extensive beta period.

At the time we liked the fact that a TV exec, Bruce Rosenblum, got the whole TV-on-the-Web thing. “We can’t stick out head in the sand and not acknowledge that there’s an evolution taking place,” he said in April.

TheWB.com is rich on content if you like older programs such as “Friends,” “The OC,” “Veronica Mars,” “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” and “Angel.” It even has full shows of “Friends,” “Gilmore Girls,” and “Veronica Mars” that cannot be found on Hulu, the joint-venture online video site from the NBC and Fox networks that will compete with TheWB.com for viewer attention.

Continue reading “Warner Brothers to turn on TheWB.com; watch Veronica and Buffy for free on the Web” »

ESPN and Major League Baseball Advanced Media announced today that they have extended their new-media rights deal, allowing ESPN to stream live games on the Internet and add baseball content onto a number of platforms and devices.

But that news didn’t catch my eye. Buried deep was a little tidbit about ESPN also developing interactive television programming around baseball content.

Ding! Ding! Ding! What the heck does that mean?

Continue reading “Hmm. ESPN developing “interactive television programming” around baseball content” »

Yahoo and Intel today announced they are working together to bring dynamic Web content to your television set through the use of widgets. It’s an interesting idea.

As many pundits have noted, companies large and small have attempted to bring Web content to the TV for years. All the efforts have failed for a variety of reasons: navigation issues, trying to replicate an entire Web page on the TV during programming, the introduction of the browser, keyboard, and mouse in the living room, and so on.

Yahoo thinks it may have the answer with the Widget Channel, which will allow developers to create small mini-programs (or widgets) that will be displayed on the bottom of a TV screen. These widgets offer on-screen access to everything from your pictures on Flickr, to interactions with friends on Twitter or Facebook, real-time sports scores, weather updates, stock prices, online movie rentals, and so on.

Not a bad idea.

Continue reading “Yahoo, Intel attempt to solve Web content on television with “Widget Channel”” »

There were many skeptics, myself included, when Hulu first launched in March. But since then, the online video site owned by Fox and NBC has continued to impress and gain viewers.

According to new stats from Nielsen [via paidContent], Hulu now ranks No. 8 among the Top 10 online video sites, generating more than 105 million streams to more than 3.2 million unique viewers during July.

Continue reading “Moving to No. 8, Hulu continues to impress and gain viewers” »

There’s an old adage in basketball that says you can’t be afraid to mix it up with the big boys under the basket. Clearly, the NBA is ready for a showdown with cable operators and regional sports networks.

In a first for any major U.S. sports league, the NBA wants to stream live games on the Internet in local markets. Yes, you read that right: local markets.

The NBA is hoping to secure deals with the league’s 30 teams and cable operators to broadcast local games live on the Web in time for the 2008-2009 season, which will be starting soon [via Sports Business Journal].

“We hope to have a model in place this season,” NBA general counsel Bill Koenig said. “We believe that if we can draw more people to the interactive features, it will help bring in new [fans] and keep [fans] for a longer period of time.”

Currently no major U.S. sports leagues streams live local games. Major League Baseball offers a streaming package for out-of-market games, and the National Football League will be streaming games broadcast by NBC this season.

Streaming live games, especially ones targeted at a local market, is one of the most volatile issues leagues face as teams are trying to broaden their reach and broadcasters want to protect the rights to some of their most expensive programming.

Continue reading “Taking next step: NBA wants its teams to stream live local games” »

It looks like we jumped the gun in our praise of PlayTV, Sony’s forthcoming DVR add-on for the PlayStation 3. The feature we liked the best, the ability to transfer recordings onto the PlayStation Portable (PSP) or any device that supports MPEG2 playback, appears to have been dropped at the last minute. Instead, users are restricted to streaming live TV or recordings to a PSP over a local network or the Internet, SlingBox-style. And while this is still a neat feature in itself, it renders the device nearly useless for watching recordings on-the-go since the Remote Play functionality of the PSP requires Wi-Fi access.

“With regards to PlayTV, you can not transfer content to your PSP, PC, or memory sticks” a Sony spokeswoman tells The Register.

Continue reading “PlayTV: Sony cripples portable features of its PS3 DVR” »

As if porn wasn’t enough to differentiate itself from competitors, this time Vudu (see our early review) has cheapened its set-top box movie service in the right way by offering heavily discounted rentals through its newly launched “99 for 99″ movie channel.

As the name suggests, 99 movies will be on offer priced at just 99 cents per rental. Titles will be “personally” chosen by Vudu’s “in-house movie expert” Steven Horn, and will include both recent releases and “classics”, with selections rotated each week.

Continue reading “Vudu now offering 99c rentals” »

We promissed you a first look at the upcoming Mac version of Livestation, so here it is.

A quick recap: Livestation is a desktop app developed by UK startup Skinkers which utilizes peer-to-peer technology to deliverer live TV to a user’s PC (currently Windows-only). Content-wise, Livestation focuses on 24 hour news stations such as Al Jazeera, BBC World News, Bloomberg Television and EuroNews. The software has been developed by UK startup Skinkers.

The new Mac version, which is very much a pre-release, is ahead of the version for Windows on a number of features including:

A visual carousel to choose channels

Continue reading “Exclusive first look: Livestation on Mac (screenshots)” »

We just got word that a Mac version of the Internet TV service Livestation could be released to the public as early as next month. For those that don’t know, Livestation is a desktop app built on Microsoft’s Silverlight front-end that utilizes peer-to-peer technology to deliverer live TV to a user’s PC (currently Windows-only). The software has been developed by UK startup, Skinkers, and is in-part based on additional technology licensed from Microsoft Research (who got a small amount of equity in return).

Continue reading “Livestation coming to Mac next month” »

There is no shortage of media streamers for your living room, with AppleTV, Vudu, and the relatively new Netflix set-top box by Roku being some of the more popular. Iomega, already a player in this space, enters again with a novel product.

Unlike its ScreenPlay HD, which comes with a 500 GB drive, Iomega’s ScreenPlay TV Link includes no storage. It just allows users to attach ScreenPlay TV to a standard or high definition TV, then add storage from flash drives, external hard drives, or one of Iomega’s storage products via USB to play high quality movies, music, and photos anywhere in the house.

What makes the ScreenPlay TV Link intriguing is its size: The little box is 3.26 inches wide by 3.07 inches deep by .78 inches tall and comes with a credit card-sized remote. It can be slipped into a pocket or thrown into a bag for use at a friend’s house. Unlike other media streamers, ScreenPlay TV can be easily moved from the living room to the bedroom.

Continue reading “ScreenPlay TV Link is super-small bridge between your media content and television” »

Pornography has always been a technology trendsetter — it stood on the VHS side of the videotape wars, was an innovator in streaming video content over the Internet, and was responsible for early breakthroughs for using credit cards as payment for Web transactions.

But no matter pornography’s contribution to technology, it’s mostly been relegated to the back room, out of sight, and rarely seen mingling with traditional, less “blue” content on mainstream devices.

That’s changing as Vudu, the set-top box that connects to a television and enables you to download and watch video content using a broadband connection, has signed a partnership deal with AVN Media Network.

Vudu owners can download content from a new AVN channel — the first stand-along content channel on Vudu. The AVN Channel will feature standard and high-definition content from well-known adult video studios such as Wicked, Vivid, and Hustler.

Standard definition movies can be rented for $6.99 and purchased for $19.99. High definition content costs $8.99 to rent, $29.99 to buy.

Adult video content has been included alongside mainstream content on hotel-room set-top boxes and on cable or satellite TV pay-per-view channels. There’s even a dedicated set-top box for the adult industry from FyreTV.

But the Vudu-AVN partnership has the potential to bring into the home, on the same device the family watches the latest Hollywood movies, a stunning amount of adult content in maybe too much detail.

Good thing there’s a slew of parental controls. You wouldn’t want little Johnny stumbling upon “Red Hot Chili Sex” and think it’s a movie about the Red Hot Chili Peppers.