Webware

Video delivery platform provider GridNetworks on Monday announced that it has launched its GridCast TV service, which allows content distributors to stream online video to a viewer's TV.

GridCast TV is currently capable of reaching 35 million homes across the United States, thanks to the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Internet-enabled high-definition TVs.

According to GridNetworks, the service doesn't require the use of a set-top box or any other additional hardware, but it is a CDN overlay technology that requires to two main components: software embedded into set-top boxes, as well as the installation of the Grid Network Control center on a publisher's hardware to manage videos.

So far, popular IPTV network Revision3 has started working with GridNetworks, along with IndieFlix and HavocTV.

"Our goal is to help video distributors capture more viewers, differentiate themselves from their competitors and, above all, make more money," GridNetworks CEO Tony Naughtin said in a statement. "What makes this new service different is that it combines the reach of TV with the high CPM rates associated with targeted Internet audiences."

Streaming online videos to the HDTV is the next major frontier in entertainment, but GridNetworks may be a little late. Apple has already made streaming IPTV shows to HDTVs simple, with the help of the Apple TV. That said, GridNetworks isn't tied to one product, and it wants to bring its service to other devices to expand its footprint in the market.

GridCast TV is operational now, but pricing is available only after contacting the company with inquiries.

You probably already know that you can take that desktop computer you leave on all the time and use its spare computing power to look for extraterrestrial intelligence or a cure for cancer. Swell. But suppose you're not so much into saving the world? Suppose you want to just save your data? Or make a few bucks? Check out these three services that use your PC's storage and bandwidth to serve you--not the world.

Wuala. This is a cloud storage service that you can use to save files for backup or sharing. But on Wuala, the cloud is made up of the hard disk on your PC plus those on other Wuala users' computers. Data on the Wuala network is distributed in tiny, encrypted, redundant slices among users, so no one can see another person's data. The more space you set aside on your PC for Wuala storage, the more free storage you get on the Wuala network. You can buy your way in if you don't want to share. Although I am very skeptical about relying on the "social grid" for storage, the price can't be beat. We covered the company during its closed testing period; the service is opening up to the public today.

CrashPlan. This is another storage play, but with a strong focus on backup. Unlike services like Mozy and Carbonite, where you pay a fee for access to centralized backup servers, with Crashplan your backup exists on the PC of someone you know (and vice versa; you can back up your mom at your house and set her machine to back up on yours). Since the Crashplan company doesn't have to pay for either storage or bandwidth, it can offer a lower-cost service: a $50 one-time license sets you up; most online backup services charge a monthly fee. Since our previous coverage, CrashPlan has added new features like Web access to your files, business accounts, and a "seeded backup" option: you do your first backup on a spare drive on your local machine, then install the drive on a friend's computer across town, after which only file additions and changes need to be transmitted.

Gomez. Unlike the previous two products, which employ your unused hard disk capacity, Gomez pays you for borrowing your bandwidth. The company evaluates response times and performance of major Web sites, which are its clients, using real-world computers on real consumer Internet connections. To do this, it installs software on end users' machines, and when these users are not using their PCs, the software on them hits the test servers and reports on the speed of access. Users don't get to see the data, and Gomez has no access to users' traffic (or so the company says). The big benefit: Cash. The testing happens when you're not using your PC--like when you're asleep--and you get paid for the bandwidth rental. Company spokespeople say most people make only a few bucks a month but some earn up to $45 a month from the service. Could be a good way to repay yourself for your Internet connection. (I'm going to see if it will work on my always-on Windows Home Server.) Note that if the Gomez network already has enough users in your area, your PC might not get much test work, and you won't make a lot of money.

From the save-the-planet perspective, I'm not sure it makes good sense to leave a computer on just so you can use services like these that use up your idle resources. But if you have computers you're going to leave on anyway, your math may show that it is more cost-effective to pay the added electricity bill in exchange for a lower cost of online storage, or income from the test service.

SAN FRANCISCO--Here at the Structure conference, everything is cloud, cloud, cloud. No one wants to own their own Web hardware anymore, it seems, and the company representatives speaking here are happy to provide the software and virtual services to replace the hardware.

One of those is GoGrid, which is shooting for the same cloud-computing market that Amazon.com is making a run at with its EC2, or Elastic Compute Cloud, service and related Web services.

The GoGrid pitch: We're cheaper. And easier.

GoGrid CEO John Keagy told me that, at volume, his services undercut Amazon's. He charges 8 cents a gigabyte-hour for compute services, compared to EC2's 10 cents. Also, data storage is associated with compute servers, and if a server goes offline, when it comes back, the storage will still be there.

At Structure on Wednesday, Amazon CTO Werner Vogels pitched "persistent storage" as a new offering from Amazon.

Keagy also said GoGrid has a graphical user interface-based control panel for its customers, allowing them to quickly set up their compute environment in a simpler manner than Amazon's service allows.

I can't do a hands-on with these two cloud services, but there are a few other points that I found interesting. First, GoGrid offers virtual Windows services, as well as Linux, and about 50 percent of its installations are for Windows processes. Some popular Web 2.0 services, like CommunityServer, are still Windows-only.

Also, GoGrid has never had a system-wide outage, as Amazon has. Keagy is realistic, though: "We're in beta. It will happen to us too." But, he says, with well-designed systems, recovery can be swift.

One thing GoGrid certainly doesn't have is Amazon's scale. Although the company is a division of the well-established ServePath, its single 20,000 square-foot facility can't hold a generator to Amazon's massive distributed infrastructure. Keagy did say he is building out distribution for GoGrid, using more of ServePath's locations.

Like the new Mosso cloud-based storage service, GoGrid is accessible through REST (representational state transfer) application programming interfaces.

The underappreciated Web spreadsheet EditGrid is getting a useful and cool new feature: built-in lookups to online resources. For example, if you want your online spreadsheet to display the current stock price of a company, or maybe its site's Alexa rank, you can now easily code that into your formulas.

Other functions give you data from the CIA World Factbook (natural gas reserves in Thailand, anyone?), baseball stats via Strikeiron, TechCrunch's Crunchbase company database, and other interesting info. If you want to get fancy, there are also functions to pull data straight from Web pages.

EditGrid has a new collection of functions that pull live data from various online sources.

All the data you pull in from these functions can serve as input to other formulas, which opens up interesting analysis possibilities. Say you're trying to get a read on a start-up you're thinking of investing in, and efficiency in getting eyeballs to the site matters to you. A simple formula of monthly page views (from Compete) and number of employees (from Crunchbase) might do that for you. Assuming you trust those data sources, of course.

I did find the menu of data sources a bit limiting outside the realms of financial information and Web analytics, but the concept of adding online data sources directly into a spreadsheet's function library is spot on, and EditGrid spokespeople confirm that more sources will added to the lineup shortly. I hope EditGrid also opens up the application programming interface so people at other sites can mash their online data into the EditGrid libraries.

Google Docs has a subset of these functions, but not the breadth of data that EditGrid now offers.

Previous review: EditGrid: A nice competitor to Google Spreadsheets.