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Intertainment is a term combining internet and entertainment, referring to various ways people enjoy internet-based services. Early forms included MOOs and MUDs, while modern forms include streaming TV shows, downloading movies and games, social networking, and online news. The survival of traditional entertainment may depend on adapting to the internet.
Intertainment is a combination of the words internet and entertainment. The term has been in use since the early 1990s and is often thought to have been inspired by the formation of the company INTERTAINMENT Media Concepts & Licensing®. In the modern sense, the word is not restricted to a single company. It refers to multiple ways that people entertain or enjoy Internet-based services. There are so many ways people access entertainment on the internet, it would be hard to list them all, and this field continues to grow with the new development in technology powering the internet.
In the early days of Internet use, some examples of entertainment include MOOs and MUDs. Multi-object, multi-user dungeons or domains were places on the Internet where people could collect and create text-based descriptions of environments. They might then talk to each other, play games like Scrabble®, engage in imaginative and sometimes sexual text-based games. Other examples of early entertainment are the many USENET-based or email-based groups called listserves, where people with common interests can share information, get support, ask questions, or provide insight into a topic.
Modern forms of entertainment are much more sophisticated. Consider the many things a person can do over the Internet. You can catch up on your favorite shows using networks or companies like Hulu®. Live streaming makes many network programs available to people with fairly sophisticated computers. Internet users can also download their favorite TV shows for one price.
It is also possible to download movies to computers or televisions via cable connections or game machines such as the Wii® or PlayStation®. People can also buy online games for these machines or play online games at a number of free or subscription internet gaming sites. Another form of entertainment is access to music; consumers buy millions of songs and albums from sites like the iTunes® store or, alternatively, they can search for videos produced by their favorite artists on sites like YouTube®.
Entertainment includes being able to read a newspaper online, join any type of e-mail or Internet group of interest, or follow or create blogs. Millions of people find daily enjoyment contributing to social networking sites like Facebook®. Also, it should be understood that Internet entertainment doesn’t just happen on a computer screen. People access it on televisions, cell phones, players like Kindle® and iPad®, and even some music players like iTouch®.
There is concern that entertainment will replace traditional entertainment and this may well be true. For example, newspaper sales have dropped dramatically because people can access newspapers online and can take advantage of the many Internet-only news sites like The Huffington Post or Politico. Television networks have similar concerns, but many are learning how to adapt their programming to Internet entertainment environments. The survival of mainstream entertainment likely depends on how well these sources learn to use the Internet to their advantage.
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