As a video content producer in New England, I’d gotten a pretty good sense that something special was going on in Boston over the last couple of years when it comes to Internet/TV convergence.  After all, innovators like Brightcove, PermissionTV, and Maven Networks are all right here in our back yards, along with Akemai, the parent of one of the most important enabling technologies.

But an article this morning in the online newsletter Xconomy by Wade Rousch (click for “The Greater Boston Internet Video Cluster”) really brought it home by attempting to list all the companies providing platforms, tools, and enabling technologies in this space.  In Rousch’s words:

Boston may take a back seat to Los Angeles and New York as a locus for TV, film, and video production, but it’s front and center when it comes to the array of technologies that go into publishing and monetizing video content on the Internet.

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Now an increasing fraction of traditional TV and movie content—along with a huge tidal wave of brand-new content, much of it generated by consumers themselves—is available over the Internet.

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It turns out that a lot of the companies building this technology are right here in Boston.

Because it’s so central to the future of media, this is an industry cluster that deserves to be spotlighted.

Rousch’s list — which he openly admits is a work in progress — identifies 28 Boston-area companies involved in the internet TV space, and I can think of a half-dozen more whose business plans and prototypes I’ve seen but are still operating in “stealth mode”.

This is exciting news for both us as content producers and for our clients, as there will be lots of opportunities to try new technologies to engage, inform, and activate viewers and customers.  And once again it’s great to see Boston re-establishing itself as a hub in a very important new domain.