I have really been enjoying my new iTouch - can’t get the iPhone here in Canada - it’s not just that music but the other features.

In particular, the YouTube feature. It is very very easy to use and the video comes through on the small screen with almost a TV quality.

Here is I think part of the future - the very small screen is here to stay and producers that offer and iTunes or YouTube delivery will get viewers.

The New York Times had this to say today:

INEXPENSIVE broadband access has done far more for online video than enable the success of services like YouTube and iTunes. By unchaining video watchers from their TV sets, it has opened the floodgates to a generation of TV producers for whom the Internet is their native medium.

And as they shift their focus away from TV to grab us on one of the many other screens in our lives — our computers, cellphones and iPods — the command-and-control economic model of traditional television is being quickly superseded by the market chaos of a freewheeling and open digital network.

According to Move Networks, a company based in Utah that provides online video technologies, more than 100,000 new viewers jump online every 24 hours to watch its clients’ long-form or episodic video. During the first two weeks of November alone, more than twice the number of Americans were watching TV online than in the entire month of August.

The shift is proving quite inspirational to digital media entrepreneurs…….

But what happens to the television industry when the traditional way for content to find its audience becomes obsolete?

“There’s a lot of rewriting of the concept of windows in the TV network world today — the timing of when and where shows appear,” said Allen Weiner, the managing vice president for media and consumer technologies for the Gartner Group in Scottsdale, Ariz.

In the old days, after something appeared on TV, its release to other distribution channels was carefully staged — from the timing of reruns to the DVD release to when it would be available on-demand. “We’re seeing all kinds of new windows occurring, and no one knows what the magic formula will be,” he said. “A lot depends on advertiser reaction and on user behavior.”

One closely watched approach is the new online series “Quarterlife,” by Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick, who produced “My So-Called Life.” Episodes first appear on MySpace TV, then are available the next day on Quarterlife.com, and a week later on YouTube, Facebook and Imeem. There is talk that they may even appear later on network TV — but as the last window, rather than the first.

As far as ON is concerned, Mr. McClanahan intends to put his programs in every single window he can find. Unlike other companies, ON optimizes all its shows for viewing on any video-capable device, a feature he calls “lifestyle distribution.”

That’s why he has deals with partners like iTunes and AT&T’s Television, Broadband and Wireless Services, both of which can deliver video programs to multiple devices, from plasma TVs to computer screens and cellphones.

“You can’t expect to control consumers and force them to come to prime time at 7 p.m. on a Monday night,” said Mr. McClanahan. “If the consumer wants it on their phone at 3 p.m. while they’re on the golf course, then that’s where we have to deliver it.”