With all of the advances in technology and new ideas to make the customer do less work, some of our ways of entertaining ourselves have changed in the last few years. One of the biggest advances is how we watch television and video.

No longer is regular cable our only choice. We now have television shows, music videos and more at our fingertips with options like On-Demand, Tivo and YouTube. No longer do we even have to leave our house to rent a video. We can order them online and have them delivered straight to our mailbox, or watch them off of our PC with services like Netflix.

Since music television channels like MTV and VH1 don’t play music videos as much as reality shows, many have ventured to other ways of watching music videos such as YouTube.

Justin Timberlake even voiced his opinion about this at the Video Music Awards recently.

“Play more damn videos,“ he said.

MTV launched in 1981. The channel started off showing mostly videos, but in the early ‘90s “The Real World” was introduced. With the success of that show, MTV put a stronger focus on reality and pop culture shows and by the early 2000s only showed music videos a few hours a day.

With the success of shows like “Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County,“ “My Super Sweet 16,“ and “The Hills,“ it doesn’t look like music videos are making much of a comeback.

And VH1 hasn’t resolved the problem. Created in 1985, VH1, is a sister channel to MTV. VH1’s goal was to focus on the softer side of music to appeal to a slightly older audience. But the channel had success with shows like “Behind the Music,“ and also started focusing more on television shows. Several years ago, they introduced “CelebReality” with shows like “The Surreal Life,“ and “Flavor of Love” and with such huge popularity, it seems there’s no looking back.

So,YouTube has provided an easy way to access music videos. The Web site announce in August of 2006 that it plans to host “every music video ever created” within 18 months.

YouTube was created in February 2005 by three former PayPal employees. The service uses Adobe Flash technology to display everything from movie clips, TV clips and music videos, to amateur content such as videoblogging and short original videos.

Auburn resident Jennifer Pane said she uses the video service frequently.
“I love YouTube,“ she said. “Any type of video you want to see, whether it’s television shows, music videos or whatever ... it’s on YouTube.“

According to Wikipedia.com, during the summer of 2006, YouTube was one of the fastest growing Web sites on the Web. It was ranked the fifth most popular Web site on Alexa, outpacing even MySpace’s rate of growth.
On-Demand is a service that gives users instant gratification. It is usually offered as a “pay as you go” service, but often cable providers offer this service as a plan available each month.

Different types of On-Demand include video, computing and even print.
With On-Demand video, users can access new movies, television shows and more.
On-Demand computing frequently refers to a type of service where the software is presented to the user with a subscription. The software is usually accessed through the Internet.

On-Demand print, or publishing on demand, is a type of publishing method used by some book publishers. This way, authors have their materials available for print without paying for publication.

Obviously, the most popular, and the one most people have at least heard of, is video On-Demand.

Aron Ellis said he loves On-Demand.

“On-Demand is more convenient,“ he said. “I don’t have to work around tv, it works around me.“

Auburn resident Josh Hilyer agreed.

“I like it because it gives free previews of shows before they come out,“ he said. “I can watch it before it comes on tv.“

Even recording television has made headway.

TiVo has lead the way in this technology. TiVo is a device which allows users to capture television programming to an internal hard disk for later viewing. TiVo, Inc., was incorporated in August of 1997 as Teleworld, Inc. by Jim Barton and Mike Ramsay of Silicon Graphics and Time Warner’s Full Service Network digital video system. It was originally intending to be a home network device, and was later developed to record video on a hard disk.
TiVo even has a search engine to find and record shows that match your interests based on the shows you’re recording.

Auburn resident Stacey Kent said she has used TiVo for several years now.
“I’m really into reality television,“ she said. “Since there’s so much of it I’d have to schedule my entire life around it if I didn’t have TiVo.“
Even renting videos has become easier. With services like Neftlix, Intelliflix and Blockbuster Total Access, you can now rent videos from your couch.

NetFlix invented the online DVD rental service back in 1999 and is still the most popular. But Intelliflix is catching up by offering video game rentals as well. Blockbuster Total Access is also popular. All of these provide a monthly flat-fee service for rentals, with no late fees. A subscriber creates an ordered list, called a rental queue, of DVDs to rent and they are mailed to the customer.

Auburn resident Kelly Williams said she uses Netflix because it’s easy.
“I use Netflix because I can put movies in the mailbox and be done,“ she said. “I’m just lazy like that.“

So, whether it’s because we like more variety, we want immediate gratification or we’ve just gotten lazier, companies are keeping up with our needs and wants by letting us live our lives On-Demand.