At last night’s opening keynote speech for the 2007 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), Jeff Bell, Microsoft’s VP of Marketing for the Xbox, made a number of Internet TV-related announcements. The major, and longed after news, is that Video Market place, which enables users to download paid-for television shows and movies to the XBox 360, will finally launch in Canada and Europe by the end of the year. Bell also revealed that Xbox Live currently has more than 7 million members, and that content sold through the Video Marketplace has brought in $125 million of revenue.

The second big announcement is that, as of today, Disney content will be available on Xbox Live.

TiVo users can now access Amazon Unbox directly from their set-top-box, negating the need to use a PC in order to browse and purchase movies. Although the movie download service has been supported by TiVo devices since March, the feature previously required users to place orders through Amazon’s web site, rather than via a TiVo connected to the TV.

Over at NewTeeVee (a favorite blog of ours), Om Malik questions the logic of streaming live TV over the Internet. Echoing comments made by Business 2.0’s Erick Schonfeld, in reference to LiveStation, Malik writes:

In this age of hyper personalization, where DVRs are at our command, ready to playback the latest escapades of Vinnie Chase & the Boys, who needs live TV. Unless it is live sports extravaganzas, say NBA finals or SuperBowl (or Wimbeldon Tennis), television is no longer what appears on the TV Guide grid or on the hour.

Schonfeld goes even further, writing:

The Internet is the ultimate on-demand television system, where the choices of what to watch and when have no practical limits. The concept of live TV almost makes no sense in that context. Why limit your audience only to those people who can tune in at a certain time? … live TV will be a liability on the Web unless those streams are also stored for later viewing.

Having had Zattoo running on my desktop for the last couple of weeks, I’ve really enjoyed having a live TV stream playing in a small window in the corner of my laptop while at the same time: writing email, Instant Messaging, or blogging. If there is such a thing as background telly, then live TV on the Internet fits perfectly. Mostly I’ve had the BBC’s 24 hour news station playing, or on Sunday, for example, the men’s Wimbeldon tennis final. Proof, you could argue, that Schonfeld and Malik are right when they say that sports and ‘breaking’ news are the exception that proves the rule. However, I see another merit to live TV, over the net or otherwise.

When Al Gore’s series of Live Earth concerts kick off tomorrow, all eyes (on the net at least) will be on MSN. In partnership with Control Room, Microsoft has secured the exclusive Internet streaming rights in 24 countries, and is predicted to pull in 500 million visitors to their dedicated Live Earth site.

Not only is MSN dishing out coverage to more countries than Live8, the last big multinational fund-raising concert, but technically this is also a far more ambitious affair. As well as picking from eight simultaneous streams from various concerts around the globe, visitors to the site will have the option to watch on-demand, as well as — once the event has concluded — search archives by location, artist and song performance.

AOL’s coverage of Live8 was applauded by critics, who accused the TV networks of taking too many commercial breaks and missing key performances.

[poll=5]

Internet TV service, Babelgum, has announced that former Vodafone Global Director of Networks and Service Platforms, Valerio Zingarelli, has been appointed CEO. Zingarelli takes over from co-founder, Erik Lumer, who will remain with the company to focus on “strategic product development”. As part of the announcement, Babelgum also laid out its plans for the next nine to twelve months in which the company will concentrate on acquiring more content, so as to grow its user-base and begin to attract advertisers.

We’re all familiar with the Hollywood-machine consigning movies to the ‘straight to video’ market, bypassing a theatrical release altogether. This week, MGM began to experiment with a new category: straight to download — with “A Dog’s Breakfast”, directed by David Hewlett (star of the sci-fi series, “Stargate Atlantis”), making its debut on Apple’s iTunes and Amazon’s Unbox.

Even though the movie is a low-budget affair (presenting little risk to MGM) it seems that the film’s distribution strategy is being driven by the potential to appeal to an existing Stargate fan-base.