A changing AOL set to enter video downloads market

AOL, the global Internet giant, is set to announce today its intention to trial an Internet video service, imaginatively titled AOL Video.

It’s yet another company diving into this kind of high-bandwidth, hard-to-monetise service.

AOL Video ‘aims to be the one-stop shop for online videos and will let users search for videos across the Web, upload their own, or buy or watch for free thousands of TV shows from any one of 45 video-on-demand channels on nearly any device.’

Being a part of Time Warner will help with some of that content, but it’s still quite a claim. How much of the service will be relevant and usable outside the US remains to be seen.

Speculation about AOL is already rife, as they are expected to announce on Wednesday that their email and web services will become free, wholly supported by online advertising.

It will be interesting to see where AOL goes with this, and how successful they will be.

Read