Channel Break is yet another streaming TV aggregation site similar to Streamick, FreeTube, Channel Chooser and many others. Interestingly, they offer the same channel line-up and the same number of channels (70) that Channel Chooser does which makes me wonder if these sites are related. They may just be different landing pages using the same back end infrastructure.
From my perspective these sites are flashes in the pan that are simply taking advantage of the relatively new phenomenon of streaming video on the net enabled by widespread adoption of broadband Internet connections. There is almost no differentiation among competitors. The content is niche oriented with very little content that is interesting to a broad audience. These sites appear to be simply a platform for serving ads to visitors.
My theory is that most visitors to these sites go to watch the adult channels. It is a relatively easy way for those that would like to watch adult movies to do it at a “respectable” site without the fear of getting caught or unknowingly allowing malicious software to infect their computers.
Tags: channel break, channel chooser, freetube, streamick, streaming, tv video** Download the Best Videos on the Web for your iPod - Free! **
Nice post, but I disagree that they are owned by the same people. Simple whois reveals all. Streamick is owned by some Italian guy, while ChannelChooser is owned by some company in the Netherlands - you are right on the landing pads though. Channelchooser also has another site in Dutch or some other language that is exactly the same page only in Dutch and with Netherland related ads.
Channelbreak is pretty crappy, it’s a really poor excuse and I think they’re just trying to copy other sites. I found FreeTube and Guba from your site, and have been quite pleased. Guba is good for popular mainstream videos, while Freeetubes seems good for channels and general news. I don’t get CNN with my cable subscription, but I appear to be able to watch it on FreeTubes, so it’s not bad as a compliment to my tv.
Overall I don’t think the internet will be able to replace my TV, it’s there when I want it and regardless of the ads, I can always find something to watch. I think of all the sites you’ve reviewed this one is by far the worst, while FreeTubes definately takes the cake but has a bit of a way to go before it can replace my TV.
Sidonis - I agree that it will be quite some time before Internet TV competes with regular TV (for the reasons you stated above). I think Web TV is something of a novelty right now. I do believe that it will all converge as IPTV which will deliver nearly unlimited content on demand, but the vast majority of people will watch it all on their TV’s. I do believe that the mobile market will be huge when the bandwidth issues have been solved.
I think unlimited on-demand content anywhere on many different devices (PDAs, iPod like devices, mobile phones, etc) is very compelling as most of us spend 50% of our day away from home, commuting, working, etc.
I disagree, PDAs and the likes aren’t economically affordable to the masses. Televisions go for a faction of the cost of a PDA or digital messenging device. You can get a color Television for as little $100 USD, even less if you don’t care about the brand. Digital devices, like say a PDA go for about $200+ USD and that will most likely get you the most minimum and bare PDA possible. Cell phones will never be expanded on since people had no interest in Video Phones that offered TV service, no demand=no research & development = no further expansion in that area. And we all know how badly the TV phones did, despite media pundits predicting high demand for them.
Your theory on the porn channels is a little far fetched, I think people would just visit porn sites directly than hide in the cover of a legitimate front site to watch pornography. As for the capitalism aspect of it, I quite agree but almost everything on the web is put up to reel in cash. Even this very blog is an attempt to make money, I see you have linksynergy banners/links on your site (right side). The entire Internet is commodified in this manner, so I wouldn’t expect more or less from these sites, or blogs for that matter
. To solve those problems, we’d have to seriously reconstruct society and its notions of capitalism.