ON Networks - in support of....

I watch a heckuva lot of online video in a day, and I have to say that most of it - I'm talking at least 80-90% of it - really should self destruct in 30 seconds like the piece of paper Inspector Gadget's mission was written on (remember Chief Quimby? Hunh).

So when I stumbled across the ON Networks portal, I was pretty slow to watch the shows they represent. Once bitten, twice shy and I was justifiably skeptical.

But then pleasantly, pleasantly surprised. And again. And again.

ON Networks houses about 25 original shows, in various lengths ranging from about 3mins up to 10 mins (ten minutes, you say? Well yeah, it is on the looooong side, but the show in question is a really vibrant string of musical interludes called 'Dinner with the Band', and the minutes do fly by...)

Among my favorites are Proper Ollie (where a foppish Brit propounds on such important modern issues as cellphone etiquette as he sips tea):

Backpack Picnic (the 'let's kill science' erm... killed me)

and Searchin' USA (a funny show about the quirky things we search for on the internet)


Check it. Seriously. And tell me whatcha reckon. It seems like a pretty viable alternative to the plethora of destination sites that keep cropping up, and the quality control on their shows is high. Compared even to a babelgum or joost it rates pretty well (at least you don't have to download an entire application to your desktop and then keep updating it - duh!), and is definitely a time saving alternative to daily doses of black20 or any other number of limited release programming by small providers who lack the scale and the infrastructure to keep increasing appetites afloat...

the other players in the space worthy of note are heavy and next new networks - both of whom have a pretty different approach to content and to merchandising. But more of that later.