Please remember that Google search statistics are not a measure of the truth but how many people are writing about something on the web. Comparing the number of hits for "successful mergers" with "failed mergers" just proves at best that more people like writing about the number of failed mergers and does not give you a ratio of failures to successes. ( But I won't be expressing that to the person sitting next to me on the train.)

What is needed to make web and TV merge.

As we see more and more entertainment sites on the internet showing videos, podcasts, photos, movies, news clips and the like; what we are missing is the link that makes all these usable from your sofa.

Democracy player (leaving aside the cheesy name) is an interesting concept and combined with something like elisa, a full screen media center, you are getting there. Allowing people to sit back on the sofa and browse content that has been brought to them may at last change how we watch TV.

The player and application is only part of it. The ability to discover new content is a major factor. What would be nice is that if when browsing the web I find a site with some interesting TV type content I could added it to my TV player for watching later. If while watching a news download on my TV player they mention another site I would want to be able to visit that site or story. We need an option to pop up that says something like "Move to this story or download this for later" together with more options like "Subscribe to all stories from this site" or "Find me stuff like this". I think the technologies are all out there it just requires somebody to put it all together.

It needs to be done soon or else the big commercial interests will move in and lock it all down "to stop those troublesome pirates" oh and limit what and when you can view for maximum profit for the network. In the end most people will wait until SKY or Fox are ready to sell them a box that they think gives them greater choice but just allows them to be better targeted for advertising.