Other than The Sopranos and Toronto Maple Leaf hockey games, I rarely watch TV. If I had a few spare moments, I'm usually on the Web. So how come I'm not a couch potato? As Bruce Springsteen aptly put it on the "Human Touch" album, "there's 57 Channels, and there's nothing on". Sure, HBO has some really good shows, and think "My Name is Earl" is pretty good but TV is mostly crap. So that's why I found a long feature in today's New York Times about "slivercasting" so intriguing because it looks at how niche programming is being delivered over the Internet to small, but enthusiastic, audiences. For example, it leads with a guy named Andy Steward, who wanted to start a sailing channel but balked at the how cost of doing it on the Sky satellite service. Instead, he started sail.tv for a minimal investment a,nd now attracts viewers from around the world. Is this is the new way TV is going to be distributed and consumed? Should traditional broadcasters be worried that upstarts such as Rocketboom - with its three-minute news broadcasts - will make them look like dinosaurs soon? Well, that may be a bit of a stretch but the low-cost delivery of programming to audiences within a specific demographic, community or interest group has exciting possibilities. If you think the 500-channel universe is complicated for advertisers, think about a 100,000 or 1,000,000-channel universe with programming for everyone. If you're an advertiser, how do you approach this new world? Or do you even try to engage it given how fragmented and diverse it can be. And how do traditional broadcasters fit into the "slivercasting" world? Do they adapt their existing programming for TV 2.0 or create new forms of content for the Web? Stayed tuned (no pun intended), this is going to be disruptive.

Blogware did a major upgrade last night to implement a few new bells and whistles, including some much-needed anti-spam tools. Unfortunately, it seems all my comments - and those of my friend Tyler Hamilton and, I suspect, other Blogware users - have  disappeared from public view. Given conversation is what it's all about, I hope they'll come back soon because I miss them.