Call it Open Source Television, Internet of Video, Internet Television or any other name you like, the essence remains the same: a huge amount of openly accessible video content is already becoming available on the Internet.

In spite of big telecoms heavy promotion of supposedly new television approaches offered by the so-called IPTV (Internet Protocol Television), from my point of view, the real innovation and revolution is taking place somewhere else: on the Web.

Photo credit: Erik Dungan

For the first time education could look at television as a new resource, rather than as an enemy and carrier of low-quality, brainless programming. The traditional enemy of culture and learning may be gearing up for a major comeback.

When content production becomes detached from a distribution system based on scarcity, a whole new army of video producers will emerge making available large quantities of news, documentary, reporting, and educationally-valuable content to anyone.

I am just out of the Open Content and Knowledge Sharing international conference sponsored by a number Italian Universities as well as by several other academic groups and organizations.

My presentation at this event focused on providing some vision on how the extended effects of the Long Tail of Video and of other converging forces may indeed bring an unknown new set of opportunities also to the academic and educational world.

The arguments presented pivot around four key issues:

1. What are the ten revolutionary factors creating a revolution in how content, including video and film are produced and consumed?

2. What is The Long Tail of Internet Video and what are the consequences of its existence?

3. What are the key differences, everyone is not talking about, between IPTV and Web-based Internet Television?

4. What are the unique opportunities that the world of education can access by riding this new media revolution?

Here is how I attacked each one: