Sure, blockquoting an article is an easy means to queue up some blog content, but posting clips from last night's The Daily Show, The O'Reilly Factor, or this morning's Today is the real currency of this medium that refuses to die. So when RedLasso arrived — offering free, embeddable bite-size clips of all comment-worthy content — a blogger's wet dream was realized. Then networks like NBC and Fox had to sue the service out of house and home on charges of copyright infringement, leaving underpaid web writers forced to scour TV network websites one at a time to see if there were any gaffes worth highlighting. Now, an alternative.

It's called 1Cast. It's in private beta. And supposedly, it has content licensing agreements — those legal documents that keep it from getting the litigation treatment — from "top broadcasters and cable networks." In the meantime, RedLasso says it's still working on coming to terms with the major networks so it can resume its service — but if 1Cast has offered the NBCs and ABCs of the world a way to spread their content around the web and make some cash (e.g. from pre-roll ads?), there's little reason for them to also play nice with a competing service. You know, aside from Hulu.

[SIA]