ZillionTV may go around ISPs, take ad-supported streaming video direct to consumers TVs
Hard to say what this means for the "ISP as distribution partner to ad-supported video service" strategy ZillionTV said it would pioneer when originally announced this spring, but today's press release indicates a significant shift in direction. If you've already forgotten about the FCC-inspected ZBar and ZRemote, this is the company planning to offer video on demand over the internet from its library of film and TV partners Hulu-style, but direct to your television. Now the company will consider selling hardware straight to subscribers of ISPs not down with the plan, aside from sliding directly into televisions and various connected hardware as Netflix, VUDU, Amazon and others already have. At the same time, the planned Q4 nationwide launch has morphed into a vague "second half of 2010" promise, from here we'd guess getting ISPs to sell hardware that competes with their own pay-TV services isn't as easy as ZillionTV anticipated.
