Media companies are turning to the internet as a distribution avenue more and more as each month passes, whether it works or not. Sony (NYSE:SNE) will release "Angel of Death" online and hope that this somehow drives DVD sales.

The way the release will be done is clearly set up to alienate consumers and will only drive resentment. According to The Wall Street Journal, "The series will be released online eight minutes at a time, over 10 weeks." After that, the DVD of the program will come out. It will not appear in theaters or on TV.

Imagine how annoying it will be for potential viewers to have to go to websites over and over again before they can get the all of the "Angel of Death" content. Many people will simply abandon trying to collect all of the installments.

Sony will probably get plenty of hate mail.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 2 47wallst.com

The Wall Street Journal reports (subscription required) that Live Gamer Inc. is working with massive multiplayer online game makers to create a platform to allow players to trade virtual gear online -- for real money,.

According to the Journal, "Within fantasy games like "World of Warcraft" and Sony's "Everquest II," players can achieve status and advancement for their in-game characters by acquiring powerful weapons, armor and game currency. But many people prefer to purchase those virtual assets with real money instead of putting in the long hours of game playing required to earn them."

Industry estimates peg the amount of money consumers spend on virtual gear in online games at $2 billion per year.

Live Gamer is hoping to help legitimize a niche that has been rife with fraud for years -- gamers buying stuff and then not receiving it. Game companies receive complaints about these rip-offs but are powerless to do much because they had nothing to do with the transaction.

I predict great success for Live Gamer. But don't we already have a market for people to trade cool-sounding stuff that doesn't really exist?

Maybe virtual weapons should be sold on the Pink Sheets -- They're a lot more real than a lot of what people trade there now. For a few examples, check out this excellent piece from the Rocky Mountain News.

News Corp (NYSE: NWS)'s MySpace is getting into the online game business in the hopes of attracting and keeping more users. The largest social networking website will announce a deal with online game company Oberon, which provides games to a number of large web properties including Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO).

According to The Wall Street Journal, "the companies plan to incorporate features into the MySpace games area that allow users to socialize by inviting friends to participate in multiplayer games and to chat while they are playing." This kind of online activity is much smaller than playing games on video consoles, but it is growing more quickly.

What appears to be happening here is that MySpace is beginning to turn itself into a portal not terribly different from Yahoo! or MSN. It already offers video and music services. It also has instant messaging and other communications features like a partnership with Skype.

The movement into the portal space is smart. The bear case on social networks is that it is hard to pin down the activities and demographics of their audiences, making marketing on the sites difficult. Offering services that provide magnets which draw MySpace users to one activity makes it easier for advertisers to push messages to those users based on their behavior.

Being a portal may not be the business that it used to be. But it still appears to be better than being a social network, at least from an advertiser's viewpoint.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor of 247wallst.com

Take-Two Interactive (NASDAQ: TTWO) is a creepy company in a lot of ways: extremely violent video games, scandals over hidden nudity, accounting and options investigations, and constant management turnover.

Now we can add another item to the list. Take-Two's All-Pro Football 2K8 features O.J. Simpson as one of 240 former NFL legends. A judge has ordered Simpson to hand over any money that he makes from the licensing deal to the Goldman family to satisfy the civil judgment they received in a wrongful death suit.

It's obvious that the judge did the right thing, although it seems unlikely that there was that much money involved. Simpson is hopefully not enough of a selling point to draw a huge amount of money for his likeness in a video game.

But why would Take-Two management want as putrid a person as O.J. in a game? Can a game featuring someone who was found liable for 2 deaths really be rated "E for Everyone"?

Take-Two has never had any problem with acting in poor taste, and that trend continues.