Verizon Buying "Netflix like" URLs

Back from a couple of great conferences in San Francisco and Frisco, Texas - great content, college faculty, admins and staff from around the country doing some amazing work! I get jealous - there are so many great career choices and opportunities for technology students at community colleges!

It's nice to be home though and get back on more of a regular schedule. I've been watching and talking about a few things at the conferences - one of the biggest things is video, especially in the mobile space. It's hot and it's growing - Morgan Stanley reports that approximately half of all mobile traffic today is video and this is expected to grow to 70% in the next four years.

With the rollout of Internet Protocol (IP)-based 4G services like LTE and the move to smart phones, providers are looking for something to replace revenue specifically from SMS (text messaging designed for cell phones). With the conversion to an all IP infrastructure and smart mobile devices, SMS (and text plans) will be rapidly replaced with free IP-based smart phone services like Apple's iChat.

About a month ago there were  rumors going around about Verizon moving into the online video space. What's lacking when it comes to a company like Verizon offering video? The stuff Netflix is doing - content, streaming  technology and subscription plans. So there were also rumors last month that Verizon was considering a bid for Netflix.

Where's it at today? It's still just rumors but Fusible did report that Verizon registered four new domain names on January 12:

http://whois.domaintools.com/verizoninstantvideo.com
http://whois.domaintools.com/verizoninstantmovies.com
http://whois.domaintools.com/verizoninstantmusic.com
http://whois.domaintools.com/verizoninstanttv.com

It will be interesting to watch where this goes.