Video podcasts a top 10 tech trend for 2006

Video podcasts are a top 10 tech trend for 2006 according to the San Jose Mercury News, a highly respected source for leading technology news.

It has already achieved a level of Internet cult status.

Like podcasts, which exploded in popularity in the past year, anyone can subscribe to vlogs to have the latest installments automatically delivered to the computer desktop (and transferred to a portable player, such as the video iPod).

Sites such as Break.com bring together collections of amateur, short-form videos (mostly aimed at guys who never tire of seeing scantily clad women and videos that would qualify as outtakes from the movie “Jackass”). Blinkx, meanwhile, lets you search through more than 1 million hours of mainstream newscasts from Bloomb.

Can we move from scantily clad women to lawyer videos? The coming year will tell.