Do you make a habit of watching online video on your PC? I mean regularly, not those rare occasions where your trying to catch something at work or while traveling. I ran across a new site the other day that I thought was pretty cool that is great for those people that do.

www.ffwd.com is a mix of Web 2.0 social interaction and a internet video portal. When you sign up, you can add channels to your selection of stuff to watch. Most of the channels available to you are your typical web video podcast, such as Diggnation and the Totally Rad show. But there are some channels from regular television, well shows from regular television that you can add. The combination of the 2 media sources work really well. Most of the video can be found online at the various source’s websites but what www.ffwd.com does is give you a central location so that you don’t have to do a lot of website hoping to see that media.

Like I said, there is a social aspect (isn’t there always). You can subscribe to other people’s channels, see what your buddies like and share and/or comment on the things available.

Its a nice mashup but it makes me ask the question that I hinted at in the first paragraph. How much of this online video do I actually watch online? I’m guessing many sit in front of their PC and watch a lot of what is available online. But for the longer shows, I usually watch them on my TV, via whatever media extender style device I have at the time.

Video podcast are usually downloaded and watched on my TV and other TV shows and movies are usually streamed or watched on my TV also. Like I said, there are occasional times where I have no choice (or just 2 lazy to set it up) and watch media on my notebook, but for me it isnt the norm.

The media extender market right now is not where it should be, unless you know how to hack and configure you way to making one work or you. and I think that is a market that needs a breakthrough. Too bad all of the companies that are putting out devices, such as Apple Tv leave the device so crippled because they are protecting thier online market. the ones that arent protecting anything are just beyond the normal ease of use, and require you to beable to mess with firmware and hidden configurations to get the most out of it.