A few weeks ago I heard that Netflix had worked a deal with the folks at Nintendo, and was offering it’s streaming video service via the Wii. For those who aren’t aware of it, Netflix, the DVD mail-order rental service, has been connecting to a variety of devices for live streaming of TV Shows and movies. The cost is reasonable — available with the low end $9 per month Netflix service (1 physical movie disk at a time), and so I decided to take advantage of a trial membership and check it out. 

One accesses the service on the Wii using a special disk that Netflix sends you. It obviously requires that your Wii have a broadband connection, but WiFi access to most Wii’s is quickly becoming ubiquitous, so that isn’t a problem for most. Given the nature of the Wii, it isn’t streaming High De, but honestly it is the rare Wii that’s hooked up to a High Def set. 

Once everything is set, the thing works great. It has given us smooth streaming with nary a blip. The selection of movies and programs is somewhat limited, but there are lots of legacy shows that it’s been fun to watch (can anyone say Buffy the Vampire Slayer). In fact, since we got this on Wednesday, no one has watched “regular” TV at all. It’s been great for me because the cheap satellite plan we subscribe to doesn’t include the Discovery Channel, but Netflix has a lot of the programs that I love and miss - The Deadliest Catch and Mythbusters. 

One additional feature is that Netflix also allows streaming to a personal computer, and doesn’t limit the concurrent connections, so at one point this week the girls were watching a show on the Wii while I was watching another show at the same time on the computer. The computer streaming isn’t especially high quality, but it’s not bad and works well enough for me. 

What is interesting is to think about the potential of this. What would be great is to see Netflix work a deal with Hulu to stream Hulu programming via the Wii, which would pretty much kill off my need for satellite service. It certainly paints a picture of the future of internet based television. 

I give the Netflix/Wii streaming service a thumbs up. 

@gavoweb pointed me to this great article on setting up Wordpress for podcasting. The article assumes that you are using your own shared hosting with the Wordpress.org software rather than the hosted Wordpress.com service, which isn’t free but can be obtained very cheaply. Check out this great article.

Google hasn’t yet pushed Buzz to my gmail yet, so I can’t confirm whether this is useful or not, but it does have some interesting possibilities. Here is an overview while we wait.

Gavin offers some good insights on congregational use of Twitter. Enjoy.

Here is another church group using Google Wave, this time in a youth ministry context. Thanks to Gavin for pointing me to this article.

Tony Jones offers a great interview with the folks at Journey in Dallas on their use of Google Wave as a worship preparation tool. Wave is still very new and takes some getting used to, but the potential for group collaboration is great.

Okay, these may not be the hot things in 2010, but they should sound good in a sermon. Click on the title to go the article at Popular Mechanics.

I’ve been a long-time advocate of the Google Groups system for “listserv” e-mail applications. While there are several commercial e-mail blast systems (like Emma, Constant Contact, etc.) Google Groups is free and pretty much does everything I need it to do. What is happening now is that Google Docs, calendars, and other items can be shared with groups, not simply with individuals. Check out the article, for this could be helpful for you and your ministry.

Of course anyone who would be part of the TechnoPastor audience would certainly never need this article, but I include this as a public service for our friends, neighbors, and church secretaries.

We pastors spend way too much time at our desks writing sermons, newsletter articles, and counseling via e-mail. The good folks at Lifehacker have put together a good article on making your space a bit more ergonomically friendly and is worth checking out.