INTERACTIVE TELEVISION PREDICTIONS -- 5 years ago....as many of you faithful Hollywood2020 blog readers know this blogger Joyce Schwarz, is an author/analyst and emerging media & tech consultant who has written hundreds of articles about the future of television and media. Lately, a few of my pals have been asking where they can find these articles. Well...the latest White Paper from Google (see my blog note below earlier today June 18).
So I've decided since the only place many of these articles reside now are in my own digital files, I would reprint some of them on my blog. Here's one that seems especially relevant on ITV & the future:
ITV—Getting Closer? by Joyce A. Schwarz (originally published 09/12/2000
So, will it be TV/PCs or PC/TVs? For the past decade or more, that has been the chicken and the egg question. Last Thursday, when CBS Television and Microsoft WebTV announced an agreement to deliver interactive television programming, the network’s exec-in-charge, David Katz, was quoted as saying, “When you think of it, television is a broadband viewing experience.”
BROADBAND CONVERGENCE MAY BE SAVIOR OF DOTCOMS!
It’s been a long time waiting for the networks to wake up to that simple fact. Now, in promoting the upcoming eTV World, in New York September 19 to 21, ibreakfast.com suggests that broadband convergence may be the deliverance of the dot-coms. “Broadband is more than the Internet on speed—an entire industry waits in the wings to take advantage of an on-demand, rich media world,” they maintain. So what’s all the fuss about?
The most frequently asked question I get when I mention interactive or enhanced TV to Internet, telecommunications experts and even my friends and family is–-just what is it? What does interactive television look like?
My quick answer is—well imagine watching the TV show “Friends” and then having an Internet Web page overlaid on top of one of the scenes that allows you to find out more about the characters, the clothes they’re wearing, the soundtrack playing in the background and even the sports scores of your favorite ballgame playing on another channel.
CLICK TO GET MORE INFO:
Now, that won’t work with my mom or dad who don’t use the Internet often enough to visualize what a Web page looks like. So for them I just say—well it’s regular TV with little symbols or “buttons” that allow you to click and get more information—you know, Dad, you can watch your favorite golf tournament and click on a blue golf ball to find out more stats on how Tiger did on this hole in a previous game.
Bottomline, it’s not easy to explain....not easy enough...yet....
Way back in 1992 at the Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas, Jack Koehler, president of IBM said, “In the eyes of the consumer, we’re both consumer electronics and computers—not separate industries anymore.” But a decade later these are still two different industries with the new medium of the Internet thrown in to further confuse everyone in TV land out there.
TV ANSWER -- GIVE THE BOXES AWAY FOR FREE!
Years ago, I sat in the audience at the Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles, and saw a demo of still another early interactive TV system then called TV Answer. It’s proprietors talked about how “everyone” was going to be ordering pizza from their TV very soon.
I raised my hand and boldly said—the only way they will order the pizza from your box is if you get Coke or Pepsi to stamp their logo on it and to give the box away for free. He responded by saying, you mean—give the soft drinks for free when they use the box! And I said, nope—the other way around. Give the boxes for free.
BIG -- BOXES IN THE GARAGE SYNDROME:
You see even then, we were beginning to suffer from BIG syndrome—“boxes in garages”. Who doesn’t have at least one black box and a bundle of adapters in the garage or in the closet? Is it a Pong box?
Is it an old cable box left from the last move? Frankly, most of us don’t even know when we see the black wires twisted around the dusty thing. We either bought it or someone gave it to us or we still didn’t return it to the cable company who has us on their little “black list” somewhere.
Now, finally, in the UK they’re going to give the boxes away. Yes, they realize they can cash in on a multi-million or possibly even billion dollar market if they give away the hardware.
COMPARE ITV RESPONSE TO BANNER ADS:
Sitting up in the Bay area recently with Richard Fisher, RespondTV’s president, I had to chuckle when he talked about last summer’s (1999) RespondTV market trial with national advertiser Domino’s Pizza and it’s 23 percent response rate, “demonstrating the consumer appetite for instant purchasing”. The fact that almost 1 out of 5 KBHK viewers took some action was spectacular.But even better was the reaction they got when RespondTV and KBHK teamed up to provide Melissa Etheridge concert viewers with a CDNOW coupon campaign that they say got a 46 percent total response. Compare THAT with 1/2 of 1 percent of a typical online banner ad response rate.
CAN CABLE OPERATORS MAKE MONEY USING ENHANCED TV SERVICES?
It really seems like cable operators could make money using enhanced TV service offerings such . Of course, the real proof is coming not from the United States but from Europe where leaders such as BSkyB, Open, Canal Plus and others are proving that viewers don’t want to just be “couch potatoes”.
EWALLETS/TRANSACTIONAL TV -- IS IT HERE YET?
Television friendly e-wallets, shopping carts, merchant systems, and order trackinglast month will make a big difference by providing a seamless interactive TV experience that generates additional revenue streams for most of the players involved including the cable system, the advertisers, the networks and yes, even the show producers.
SYNCHRONOUS PROGRAMMING:
Agencies and production companies are joining together in the new land race for real estate on the TV/PC screen. IXL, J. Walter Thompson, the Weather Channel, Razorfish, R/GA, Home & Garden (HGTV), PBS, and more are being joined by major networks who realize “synchronous” programming—an elegant layer of interaction that’s designed to complement and let you do business and then go away—might be the right way to go.
Me—I like my little icons on my desktop that let me get my schedule, the time of day, email and my weather in one click. When I launched one of the first PC/TV’s called DISC (Digital Interactive System Corporation) in 1994 at Summer CES, it was enough just to be able to play the “Grandma and Me” CD on a TV set to gather a crowd by our booth. Okay, okay so an even bigger group gathered when we put on the R-rated stuff, but you knew that already.
TV ON THE MOBILE?
The next chicken and egg question? With more wireless devices than televisions by the year 2002, how many people will want to sit in a living room and watch even enhanced TV/PC? Or when more people end up telecommuting, how many will turn to their PC/TV not the “thumb” compu/TV in their hand for their sports updates or stock quotes? The Lucent/Packet TV broadband deal is only a hint at what is to come in the great wide, wide broadband wireless world. Now, when did you say I can get AOL/TV on my mobile? (Blogger note 2006 -- it only took 5 years :)) js.
Joyce A. Schwarz is an analyst, author and consultant on emerging technology. http://www.joycecom.com/ or contact her in somewhat real time at [email protected].
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