Technology360

Reports of TV's Death Greatly Exaggerated ...

... says emerging media professional Jeremy Lockhorn.  In part 1, he says to go interactive:

... If you're a digital agency or a marketer who's significantly investing in online media, you're already aware of this. It's like expanding banner ads, but on TV. Simply by empowering consumers to interact with your ad, you increase the likelihood they'll remember what you're trying to tell them or take action. We've proven this with ads like the one we built for the launch of Levi's Redwire jeans. ...

Link:  ClickZ.

And, in part 2, he talks about targeting:

... We've used advanced targeting techniques on the Web for years, and many advertisers have benefited from innovations in contextual and behavioral targeting. One of the more powerful targeting strategies is leveraging Atlas targeting capabilities to serve an extremely relevant ad based on what we know about an individual's relationship with the client. We might serve one ad to someone who's never been to a retail site, for example, and a different ad to someone who made a purchase, and yet another ad to a user who made multiple purchases. The process gets really interesting when you start layering dynamically generated creative assets, which can pull in the latest prices, react to such things as current weather conditions, and more.  ¶  The result? Hyper-relevant creative and no need to produce a ton of creative assets. Many of our clients currently employ these approaches for online banner ads. But what if you could apply the same basic thinking to video? ...

Link:  ClickZ.  --Dennis

Why Do You Want Interactive TV?

Interactive TV has turned into the electronic media version of Samuel Beckett's tragicomedy, Waiting for Godot.  Baris Karadogan writes perceptively about why the big media players have never been able to bring it off, even while it's happening on a different platform all around them:

... So while we were waiting for interactive TV, a massively interactive device, your PC, has found its way right next to your PC, and it's game over.  You can get HD content on your laptop.  You can get, or will soon, all kinds of on demand content on your PC, and over time the quality will get better and better and better. ...

Link:  AlwaysOn.  And be sure to read the comment by Ray Podder appended to Karadogan's piece, which includes the following quotable bit of wisdom that goes far beyond this [emphasis added]:

I don't think there is much use for still thinking in terms of "reach" and "consumers".  We are all participants in an increasingly thought-based reality (as opposed to a thing-based reality) who need to express, seek and co-create meaning from our ideas both collectively and individually.  We interact with platforms that keep us connected, keep us relevant, and help us build a stronger sense of self where attention competes with our existence. ...

Thanks to Stephen Hill for the link.

Updates, 16 Feb. 2007:
I emailed this article and Podder's comment to David Liroff who pointed out (thanks) the congruence of this with the work of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and provided a link to a fascinating 1995article on Teilhard de Chardin by Jennifer Cobb Kreisberg, A Globe, Clothing Itself with a Brain.  Link:  Wired.

This post also has a comment (below) from another old friend, Kim Hodgson, who added a link that's partially obscured in the comment space so I've inserted here.  Kim says:

Re video content via the Internet: Better and better, world without end? Maybe not. See this bit in that appeared recently in the Washington Post:  Google and cable firms warn of risks from Web TV. 

The Post article is by Lucas van Grinsven and is worth reading.  --Dennis

Your TV Would Like a Word With You

Lorne Manly writes:

... Grandiose promises of an interactive future circulated for decades, then seemingly died out a few years back. But today more than 25 million homes can engage with their television on something approaching their own terms. The omniscient television programmer symbolized by the opening of “The Outer Limits” — “For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear” — has been humbled.   ¶  Hard-core football fans with DirecTV can arrange for instant alerts about their favorite players. Dish Network subscribers in 12 states can wager on horse races without hauling themselves from their La-Z-Boys. And some Time Warner subscribers can vote for their favorite reality television contestant by simply pressing a button.  ¶  In the coming months, ESPN iZone will allow Dish Network subscribers to get sports news when they want, rather than waiting until “Sports Center” gets around to them. And the Disney Channel Game Zone will offer kids arcade and character-driven games. ...

Link:  New York Times.

TV Is Now Interactive, Minus Images, on the Web

Maria Aspan writes:

... in the age of widespread broadband access, iTunes video and video sites like Youtube.com, television viewers are migrating en masse to the Internet, looking not only to watch their favorite shows online but also for ways to discuss and engage with those shows.  ¶  As a result, the blogs, communities like livejournal.com and message boards devoted to television shows are becoming more popular — and mainstream — forums for viewer discussion and feedback. And the people behind the shows have taken note. "As fractured as the media market has become, the Internet has become a great means of rising above the noise," said James Duff, the creator and executive producer of "The Closer" on TNT.  ¶  "The Internet is going to turn television into the equivalent of AM radio," he predicted. "People will be talking about their shows and watching their shows in the same place." ...

Link:  New York Times.

The Future of Television in Canada

Rafat Ali points to the executive summary and PDF of a "green paper" with this title written by the consulting firm, Nordicity Group, Ltd.  The preface:

This green paper is a companion document for the [Banff World Television Festival] Town Hall discussion of the future of Canadian television and Canadian television programming.  ¶   The green paper argues that Canada’s future in television will be determined by its ability to seize opportunities and address challenges presented by technological developments, foreign markets, and by its own domestic strategies and policies. This paper dissects the technology challenge, takes stock of the sector’s position in the international production scene, and then articulates policy choices for addressing its financing gap and competitive challenges. In green paper tradition, there are no recommendations. Instead, we present fact-based logic that should underpin an informed debate on key issues and realistic solutions.

--Dennis

Think the Internet will replace TV ? Think again

Mark Cuban writes:  "Craig Moffet of Bernstein Research was asked to testify before the Senate Commerce Committee on the subject of Net Neutrality.  His comments were of course right on the money. The interesting conclusions that can be drawn from his testimony are just as relevant to the discussion of the future of media on the net as they are to net neutrality.  ¶  Craig sites facts and figures that should make anyone who believes that the net as alternative to TV is just around the corner, or will happen this decade for that matter, rethink their position. ...¶... Craig is right.  The last mile into our homes wont have enough bandwidth to support all that we will want to do via our internet connections at home. There is no Moore's law for bandwidth to the home. There is a huge misconception that bandwidth will just continue to experience unlimited expansion for every broadband household.  Its what we are used to with hard drives, processors, all technology. It gets faster, cheaper, bigger. Thats not the case for the next decade with bandwidth.  ¶  The net result is that TV is going to be TV, delivered like TV for a long time to come. (I consider IPTV to be regular TV).  There won't be enough bandwidth for it to be any other way. ..."  Link:  Blog Maverick.

My standard for posting items to this blog is that they present thoughtful opinions, not necessarily whether I agree with them in whole or in part.  When I disagree with one, I seldom push back, but I'm going to do that here.  I think Cuban and Moffet are missing some elements that make use of much more modest Internet pipes useful to a large number of consumers.

• They don't really distinguish between real time and non-real time use, and their argument holds only if all or most programming is required to be delivered in real time.  Many consumers (users of TiVo and other DVR/PVR devices, Netflix subscribers, cable VOD subscribers) are already proving that non-real time delivery is valuable.  If you think of Netflix as a sort of broadband pipe, it's delivering a 1-2 GB movie in 24-72 hours, depending on where you live and when you order it.  An HD movie would be delivered in the same time.
• They don't consider the impact of storage, which is a linear trade-off with transmission capacity -- and probably much cheaper to capitalize.  Today's 100-GB TiVo should be 1.6 TB in five ticks of Moore's law (ca. 2012) and 51 TB in ten ticks (ca. 2020).  Compression technology will continue to make that space more efficient.  Although too young to be proven successful, Moviebeam has the right idea -- a big hard drive, preloaded with movies, that is "trickle charged" with a few new movies over an extremely modest connection (sub-dialup spead over analog television datacasting).
• Finally, they don't consider the impact of advanced (P2P) networking technology.  In P2P systems, the more nodes that store a given file, the faster the download and therefore the cheaper the network that can support it.  Popular television programming and movies are at the core of their argument about capacity problems, yet these files, which are at the fat end of the Long Tail, will by definition reside a lot of places and should be ideal for the benefits of P2P networking.

Added 3/20/2006:  Be sure to read Chris Duncan's thoughtful comments (also posted to Cuban's weblog) below as well as those of some others (including Cuban's reply to Duncan) that have been added to Cuban's original posting.  --Dennis

IPTV and VoD: the great content adventure

Alex Cameron writes:  "... The reason I started Digital TX Ltd was due to hearing this in conversation more times than I care to remember. Time and time again I’ve heard movie studios, broadcasters, TV production companies, record labels and games publishers express to me their deep concern that the enthusiasm shown by ISPs to offer premium content is not tempered by any consideration or understanding for the processes, risks and costs involved in the acquisition of rights to their intellectual property.  ¶  When you have the same conversation with ISPs, the talk is of a highly competitive market where loss-leading products are the norm and margins are forever falling. The landscape never seems to stabilise for a minute, with both regulatory and market forces changing faster than the rate of the technology that is being deployed There is frustration and bewilderment at how time-consuming licensing negotiations are with content owners, indignation at apparent arrogance and pre-paid sales guarantees, and even the most innocent of confusion as to why an industry that could seemingly prosper so effectively from technology seems to regard it with such fear and contempt. ..."  Link:  The Register.

Future of Internet TV Is Coming Into View

Leslie Walker writes:  "... No single company put everything together into a magical product at the Consumer Electronics Show this year, but you didn't need much imagination to connect the booths and see the Internet TV networks of the 21st century struggling to be born.  ¶  The unmistakable theme was how video is moving over the Internet onto home televisions and mobile devices in ways that will finally allow consumers to talk back to their TVs, much as they have been interacting with Web sites for the past decade.  ¶  It wasn't just about time-shifting TV or watching shows on mobile devices, though both were prominently on display. A newer technology known as Internet protocol TV -- IPTV for short -- also made a stir by blending those capabilities while trying to remake regular TV shows into something more dynamic and personal. ..."  Link:  Washington Post.

Also see Beth Snyder Bulik's story, Gadget Expo Opens Window On Media Revolution: Consumer Electronics Show Demonstrates Convergence Becoming Reality.  Link:  AdAge.

Finally, listen to Steve Gillmor's Gillmor Gang podcast for Jan. 6, TV or not TV Gang.  Guests for this podcast were Doc Searls (calling in from CES), Dan Farber, Dana Gardner, Jon Udell and Mike Vizard (mp3, 66 minutes).  Searls:  "... It was kind of an all-out attack on TV as we know it. ..."  Gardner comments on this podcast on his BriefingsDirect weblog, Let's break up the media, broadband, and IT infrastructure companies and build a new world digital Frankenstein . --Dennis

VOD, IPTV white papers

London-based Digital  TX Ltd has posted several white papers of potential interest to the readers of this weblog (there are many others, and you can browse the them here).  Looks like a great resource, but I can't find an RSS feed for the weblog.  I've only had time to read one, but am bring them with me to read as I criss-cross the country over the next few weeks.  --Dennis

Video On-Demand - An Overview
IPTV & Triple Play - The Big Picture
Technical Solution Brief - QoS for Multi-Play Services
VOD and the Case for Content Protection
Video Networks That Pay As You Grow
Video: By Broadcast, or IP?
Triple Play and Competitive Advantage: Lessons from Cable
The Emerging World of On-Demand Entertainment
Raising the Bar for Triple Play with VoD
Requirements for a Home Multimedia Network

Boston's WNDS-TV to Relaunch as "My TV" (WZMY-TV)

Tracy Swedlow writes:  "On September 26th, Boston[*] TV station WNDS-TV will be relaunched as 'My TV' (WZMY-TV). The station says that the rebranding is intended to reflect its plan to give viewers a say in its programming schedule, via its Web site, toll-free phone lines and community events. Viewers will also have the opportunity to appear in the station's programs and station ID's. 'My TV will build a relationship with our viewers by involving them in the station and by delivering entertainment and news that relates to their values and reflects their lifestyles,' Diane Sutter, president and CEO of the station's parent company, ShootingStar, said in a prepared statement. 'Consumers want control of their media, and we are uniquely positioned to give the consumer what he or she wants.' ..."  Link:  ITVT.com. [*] Actually, the city of license for WZMY is Derry, NH.  --Dennis