Internet TV | Main / IONTV

ION is an aggregator/player for video, audio and photo content. On their site they refer to it as a "media browser." http://iondb.com/player/. You can browse their "channels" which will bring you to meefedia: http://mefeedia.com/feeds/, or you can plug in any rss feeds for video/audio or photos into the browser and stream them.

Another product out there that is very similar to ION is the democracy player- http://www.getdemocracy.com/. While the democracy interface is better looking than ION, I think ION has two major components that make it better than Democracy overall. The most important one is streaming. Democracy doesn't offer streaming- if you want to watch something, you have to download it, while ION lets you stream content from the source, and decide later if you'd like to download it and save it. The second feature which is really compelling, is the playlist feature. I went to an NY tech meet-up and saw the two creators of ION present. When they presented their "playlist" feature the whole crowd ooohed and ahhhed. ION lets you create playlists of content you like (like iTunes and many other media management software), but the great part is that once you create a playlist, you have the option to "share" it. If you hit "share" ION dynamically creates a web page of your content. Now you can share this content with others simply by sending them your new playlist page URL. People who view the page do not need to have the ION player to watch the videos, a small flash player will open up everytime a video is clicked-- so you never have to leave the playlist page to watch the videos, a really nice feature.

Right now, I would speculate that the main audience for ION and Democracy players would be tech geeks. Most people aren't familiar with RSS, and you do have to be a bit tech savvy to use this player. I think there is potential for these "media browsers" like ION and Democracy to become widespread. ION isn't all that different from the iTunes experience of searching for media (once you have the RSS feeds plugged in...).

At the tech meet-up I asked the ION creators if they had plans to bridge this player over to TV, and they said they were already working on it. I think the ION player is a peek into what our TV viewing experience will be in the future-- aggregating content you have personally selected, options to download or stream, and of course sharing "playlists" of your content with others.