• TechCrunch UK, Monday, October 1, 2007 12:45 PM

TechCrunch UK has an interesting profile on UK-based Tape it Off The Internet, which it calls "Facebook meets TV on-demand." Sort of. TIOTI indexes professionally produced TV content, but doesn't wade into the murky waters of hosting it at the site. Instead, the startup sends users who click to watch a show to the primary source. So far, the site contains 75,000-plus TV shows and more than 500,000 episodes. Each show gets its own page, allowing users to discuss, rate, recommend, and add to or edit the information about the cast and episode. It also provides gossip and trivia with photos and videos added from Flickr and YouTube.

In addition to these Wikipedia-type tools, users receive a "Friends and Episode" tracker that lets them see how many episodes of a given show they and their friends have seen, and what shows each are watching. The company, which has offices in London and Seattle, says it's in "advanced talks" with investors for funding. It also claims that a potential deal with a "large UK media company" recently fell through.

It's no surprise that a big media company would shy away from this kind of thing--especially one that owns a network. Networks are notorious for being into walled gardens, and now that they're competing with everyone else for Internet eyeballs, they want their own offerings to be as sticky as possible, too.

Read the whole story at TechCrunch UK »