Online streaming is the wave of the future for all types of media, from music in the cloud to streaming video services. Netflix, a company which has built a great business on old-fashioned physical media…not to mention snail mail, sees its own business moving in this direction at an accelerated rate. 

The annual E3 conference for the video game industry recently took place in Los Angeles. As has been the custom at these kinds of events, lots of manufacturers of hardware, games and accessories announced new product rollouts. Here are some of the highlights, starting with Microsoft’s news:

• They introduced Kinect, a new motion-sending gaming system. The new system goes on sale in North America on November 4^th.
• Microsoft’s other announcement on the hardware side was a new smaller Xbox system with a 250GB hard drive, set to retail for $299.
• Finally, they previewed several upcoming Xbox 360 games, including “Metal Gear Solid: Rising,” “Call of Duty: Black Ops,” “Gears of War 3,” “Halo: Reach,” and “Crytek: Codename Kingdoms.”

At the recent NARM (National Association of Record Merchants) convention, Nielsen Soundscan revealed figures that show just how tough the music business is from the artist’s point of view. Here are the basic figures for 2009, showing how long the odds are for any artist to be successful:

The same week that the Library of Congress announced its intention to archive every public tweet, Twitter announced its long-awaited advertising platform. The new ad platform is called “Promoted Tweets.” These will be normal tweets from participating companies that show up on screen for those following the brands involved. They will be labeled, “Promoted Tweet,” but they will disappear if users don’t interact with them by replying, favoriting or retweeting them.

The latest Pew study on online media habits shows that comedy has surpassed news when it comes to viewing videos online. Another top line result shows online video reaching a major milestone. 52% of all US adults (69% of adult Internet users) have watched or downloaded video on the Internet. Here are some other key findings among the group of adult Internet users, showing the rapid rise in video viewing:

Check out our New Music Preview for June, featuring:

• Arcade Fire
• Kanye West
• Carrie Underwood
• Sleigh Bells
• Jason DeRulo
• Ane more!

To check out the full preview, click here.

AT&T announced that it will be ending its unlimited mobile data plans, going forward. We predicted this move recently after noting levels of data usage. Among AT&T customers, iPhone users, in particular, use an enormous amount of data, all out of proportion to other smartphone users. But it’s not just iPhone users who are causing the long-term problem. The rapid proliferation of all kinds of smartphones has put a strain on the nation’s mobile networks.

Coda Research Consultancy, a media research firm, predicts that mobile data traffic will grow by a factor of 40in the next 5 years. If this comes to pass, that would mean that, without significant infrastructure improvements, smartphones and other new devices like Apple’s iPad could swamp existing cellular networks. Providers are trying to avoid (or at least forestall) these problems by rolling out faster 4G networks across the country.

HBO is reportedly very happy with the early test results of its new on-demand service, “TV Everywhere,” (also called “HBO Go”), which we discussed in this space a few weeks ago. Initial trials have been held in conjunction with Comcast and Verizon’s FiOS systems. HBO executives told Broadcasting and Cable magazine in late March that they’re looking at expanding the service, possibly later this year. Through the HBO Go site, customers of Comcast and FiOS can log on and access over 600 hours of HBO programming. This is the first wide trial of the “authentication” system for distributing digital content that we talked about last year. 

To read the full "Tech Trends" for the week of 5/24/10, click here.

Check out this great mix of some of the hottest songs from some the hottest blogs compiled by our friends over at DailyBeatz.com. Click here to stream and download:

http://dailybeatz.com/2010/05/19/one-year-anniversary-blogwave-summer-mixtape/