In our increasingly wired world digital video is beginning to make it's mark on our society. Being of the generation that has watch the personal computer grow from the Commodore 64 of the eighties to the powerhouse machines of today, it is interesting to watch how the internet, and particularly online media is changing the way we entertain ourselves.

It is estimated that close to fifty percent of people below the age of 33 watch videos online at least once a week. Many of them turn to the internet more often than that for their viewing needs. This push towards online video is changing the way people watch movies, television, and the way they stay up to date with current events. It is also changing the way companies advertise and the media industry as a whole. It is estimated that online video advertising, a $121 million market in 2004, could become a $2.9 billion industry by 2010.

With these changes have come issues with copyrights, bandwidth, even internet addition has become a problem for some in the wired world of today. It is all a part of our changing society. With any change there comes problems, but it is looking towards the future that everything starts to come together.

What is the future for online video?

I think that over the next couple decades we are going to see the media world push all video media online. Cable television will become a thing of the past, and your video signal will come through your internet connection. Most likely to your wireless flat panel screen that is on your living room wall. The technology for a lot of it is already developed or under development.

Products like the Nintendo Wii which, along with being a gaming device, allow users to connect to the internet are already beginning to move us forward. Instead of watching the nightly news you can now choose which news you want to watch on your television using the Wii and devices like it. One of Apples new creations, Apple TV, allows users to wirelessly send purchased movies or television shows to their TV from their digital video collection on their PC. It is with technology like this that we begin to move towards the future of media consumption.

Last year some big players in the movie industry started a digital rental/purchase website. The site Movielink -- a joint venture including some of the biggest names in the movie world -- offers users digital rentals or purchase of a huge selection of movies. It isn't the first site of it's kind (and probably not even the best), but because of who owns it, it shows how the media industry is beginning to accept that traditional media delivery is no longer enough.

With the explosion in popularity of online, video fueled by websites like YouTube, it will be interesting to see what is to come. In the next few years I think we are going to see even more change than that which has taken place with online video thus far.