Evolution of Dance on my 42" Plasma - Thanks, Verizon!

Verizon introduced YouTube and streaming music access to FiOS TV customers yesterday. They have screen shots and video available for a closer look.

Verizon's Internet Radio and Internet Videos services are both accessible via Media Manager, which already allows subscribers to search and view on their TVs user-generated content from online video-sharing sites blip.tv, Dailymotion and Veoh. In addition, Verizon has expanded the Media Manager service, making it available to all FiOS TV HD customers. Previously, it was available only to DVR customers.

We gave YouTube a try yesterday evening, and it was a fun diversion. I introduced the wife and the four-year-old to "Evolution of Dance." In all, I found the YouTube experience quite good - Verizon has a nice interface, and it was easy to figure out how to use my universal remote controller to get a full screen view of the videos. Searching is an area where I still think these PC-on-TV type of services are going to get stuck. We keep hearing how consumers don't want full-sized keyboards in their living room, but doing one-letter-at-a-time searching for YouTube content is an arduous process. I think that these online services on the TV - Facebook, streaming music, etc. - are fun distractions, but I honestly don't know how many times we'll use the service beyond the introduction last night.