America Online is set to introduce a free, ad-supported video service, CNET News.com has learned, in a move to diversify its business and seize on a burgeoning sector of online advertising.
The Internet service provider, a unit of Time Warner, will open AOL Video to the public in the coming weeks, Tom Bosco, AOL's director of broadband sales development, said in an interview Thursday. It also will debut Netscape Video, an on-demand video entertainment service, before the end of the year. The moves will follow last month's launch of video programming on AOL Instant Messenger.
The new services will feature on-demand video entertainment, with advertising spots similar to those on broadcast television. Some clips will be freely accessible over the Web, while others will be available only to AOL members. Bosco said AOL expects to create an audience of 100 million or more per month for all three video services together.
"Natural challenges with finalizing all the key features and localization issues across worldwide territories have led to the difficult choice of pushing back the release date," SCEA said in a statement, "in order to ensure that Gran Turismo 4 lives up to the exacting standards of the 36 million-plus fans worldwide that have purchased previous versions."
The delay leaves egg on the face of Sony, who only last week held a high profile party in Tokyo to celebrate the "completion" of the game, and which previously removed the much-vaunted online functionality from the title in order to ensure that it came out in time for Christmas.
There's some speculation that this fresh delay - which may also have a knock-on impact on the launch date of the European version, which had already been delayed into Q1 2005 - will give the firm time to reintegrate the online component, but Sony has so far not commented on this possibility, and is still officially planning to launch a separate online-enabled Gran Turismo product later next year.
The Internet service provider, a unit of Time Warner, will open AOL Video to the public in the coming weeks, Tom Bosco, AOL's director of broadband sales development, said in an interview Thursday. It also will debut Netscape Video, an on-demand video entertainment service, before the end of the year. The moves will follow last month's launch of video programming on AOL Instant Messenger.
The new services will feature on-demand video entertainment, with advertising spots similar to those on broadcast television. Some clips will be freely accessible over the Web, while others will be available only to AOL members. Bosco said AOL expects to create an audience of 100 million or more per month for all three video services together.
Cont...
"Natural challenges with finalizing all the key features and localization issues across worldwide territories have led to the difficult choice of pushing back the release date," SCEA said in a statement, "in order to ensure that Gran Turismo 4 lives up to the exacting standards of the 36 million-plus fans worldwide that have purchased previous versions."
The delay leaves egg on the face of Sony, who only last week held a high profile party in Tokyo to celebrate the "completion" of the game, and which previously removed the much-vaunted online functionality from the title in order to ensure that it came out in time for Christmas.
There's some speculation that this fresh delay - which may also have a knock-on impact on the launch date of the European version, which had already been delayed into Q1 2005 - will give the firm time to reintegrate the online component, but Sony has so far not commented on this possibility, and is still officially planning to launch a separate online-enabled Gran Turismo product later next year.