We want toys!

Tech toys, that is. We, at SnapStream, have an obsession with shiny new gadgetry. And during the holiday season, our tech-lust gets extreme. Here's what's topping our collective wish list for this year.

By human nature, we all love new things: The rush of adopting the latest technology. The smell of a new car. The opening night at the movies.

The excitement of a new release of SnapStream.

Today we're rolling out 5.7, which expands the scope of recording, searching and managing TV from your Web browser. Schedule your upgrade with our support team to gain access to these useful, new features:

1. Display search results by TV show

A new user-level setting allows you to auto-collapse search results by TV show, creating a macro view of all mentions. In this example, the results are collapsed by TV show, displaying an overview of where the search term Obama appears. Click the arrows to expand the results.

Because TV is our world, we are very excited to exhibit at Content and Communications World, November 14 - 15, at booth #856.

SnapStream enables TV show creatives to easily search TV and incorporate TV clips into their programs. Shows like The Soup, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report all tap into SnapStream's endless supply of up-to-the-minute pop culture and news clips.

This is the time we live in: the "clip culture."

Video clips are suddenly everywhere. They have jumped from the Internet and splattered all over TV. Talk shows, entertainment/comedy shows and even hard-hitting news programs have all added TV clips into the mix of writing and production.

Remember the days when your teacher would roll in a TV cart from the school library?

You knew what that meant. TV in the classroom = awesome. The day's lesson was about to come alive through video.

When we spotted this picture on George Takei's Facebook page the other day, it made us smile, because it represents a significant trend in education. And we put our own little spin on it.

Before I began researching the news comedy programs outside the U.S., I had no idea what the world had in store. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart has inspired so many TV shows and spin-offs worldwide, that the initial query of "who are they?" evolved into a four-part series. (See posts 1, 2 and 3.) Right on key, the Foreign Policy in Focus recently wrote about the Global Stewarts, too.

We have learned that comedy and politics are tightly integrated, not just at home, but abroad. It's been good to pop out of our own "cable TV bubble" and to see how the international crowd entertains, from living rooms in South America to Israel. In today's final batch of shows, you'll see that every nation's comedic style reflects the social and political culture of the population. Comedy is how people make sense of, poke holes in, and cope with the critical, and oftentimes trivial, events gripping their daily lives.

Because laughter is the best medicine, here's your next dosage of satirical TV programs. Today's Rx of "newstainment" shows includes the most hilarious pundits of Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia. British comedy standards run especially high, because they're the ones responsible for television's satire boom in the '60s (as explained in my first post earlier this week.) Writer's warning: Side effects may include side-splitting abdominal pains, acute cackling, involuntary snorting and severe shortness of breath.

Following up on yesterday's post: We're exploring international TV shows equivalent to The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, in terms of their cultural significance and satirical style. To kick off our trip around the world, let's take a look at the funniest fake news TV shows of South America and Italy, where everyone loves Tarantino movies and double entendres. As awesome as descriptions are, it's even more telling to watch the clips!