Al Gore Meets ZED

Current TV, Al Gore's pet telly project, launched itself into the digital cable stratosphere yesterday, empowering disenfranchised youth viewers, and cutting off the Canadian diaspora from their nightly Peter Mansbridge fix. The channel that's taking over Newsworld's slot will be available in approximately twenty million households. But if your house isn't one of those lucky few, the San Francisco-based Current's website is a souped-up ZED for the audience-input generation. You can watch clips, upload content and do the blog thing.

Will it sink or swim? "Some analysts have hailed Current as a potential turning point in the evolution of TV," but hyperbole is everywhere, and the internets are rife with hits and misses. The Al channel's future is in the balance.