Online Entertainment

Many online entertainment services are available to anyone on the web. Online entertainment has boomed in the last few years with the increased advances in Internet viewing and increased machine speed's mean that people can watch or interact with things with better quality, than ever before.

One thing that has came out of this is the online TV Catch-up service, with Channel 4 starting it off with 4oD, and then the BBC, with iPlayer, and ITV, with ITV catch-up, jumping on the band waggon, it now means that people no longer have to pick between many different programs on all at the same times. I myself use many of these catch-up services, mainly iPlayer and 4oD, and they are an revolutionary idea. The main limitations to this would be copyright laws, this means that the BBC, for example, cant post a movie on there site, unless they have brought the rights to.

Another major thing to come of the internet is Online Gaming. This includes both Online gaming, where you play it as an application on your computer, and online gaming where a games console is connected to the web via a network. Millions of people are drawn to play online games every year, with some of the major players making huge profit margins from the sale of exclusive, yet virtual, items. Corporations such as Nexon and Blizzard making up to 85% profits up on last year.

The other major aspect of online gaming is consoles. Where people hook up there consoles to the web and play against or with people on there chosen game. This has taken off most successfully on the X-Box 360, X-Box Live, mainly because of its ease of use and social structure. PS3 launched its version of X-Box Live, but was not nearly as successful as they would have hoped. The major limitations of this sort of gaming is that, the users connection speed dictates how much they enjoy it.

At the moment these online services do not meet there maximum potential in that there will be many advances in the future that will massively increase these services, capability, and enjoyability.