Al Gore’s Current TV Becomes Current.com

Current TV, the media pet project of former Vice President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore, has undergone a strategic makeover, turning their web site into the cornerstone of the Gore media empire's growth strategy. Launched in 2005, Current has been a cable TV channel that gives documentarians, aspiring filmmakers and reporters the opportunity to submit short clips of their reports and films, to get them on television. And I mean "traditional cable" television, NOT web/iTV.



Interestingly (and confusingly), it already had the format of a "free-wheeling, round-the-clock news mashup," designed for the Web, not TV. Yet it was offered on cable. Heeding the call for a more interactive experience, Current launched Current.com on October 15. It borrows heavily from Digg.com's model of letting users post comments and vote on the best stories. The ones with the most votes will air on the site.

The new interactive site aims to create a potentially lasting relationship between the users and the content that's produced. For example, if you are into these kind of things, you can produce commercials that might make it to “real” TV.

I understand all this, What I do NOT get is the switch from dot tv to dot com. Am I missing something here?