It seems like an eternity that I sat through SXSW Interactive panels to hear how Ultimate TV, TiVo, Respond TV, and other Interactive TV products would change how we watch television forever. The future is now! Tomorrow is today! Jump on the bandwagon or be lost in the static, was the recurring message. At this year’s SXSW Interactive Conference, I found myself once again attending panels on the future of Interactive TV and other convergent media. This year, the tone was calmer and more subdued. A lot has changed since those earlier panels. The economy has plunged, dot-coms died like cheap corsages, and if that wasn’t ugly enough, 9/11 happened. It’s been a hard year all around. However, the overall tone of the Interactive TV (ITV) panelists was still optimistic, but with the wisdom that surviving rocky times brings. So, what happened to ITV? Why hasn’t it taken off? How come it’s not as ubiquitous as a baby monitor? And if not now, when?
“ITV is still in its infancy,” said Dan Lee Vogler of WireHead Electronics. “The technology is in place, but the big hurdle for the industry is standards. Right now, players operate independently. We need to standardize for ITV to take off in a critical mass.”
This was the mantra not only of the ITV panels (there were three), but of all the industry/trends panels I attended. In the flurry of invention, new companies hit the market with the best products to woo customers. The only problem is, all those products operate in their own universe. Now, the remaining players realize that coming up with a common infrastructure is the only way that the industry as a whole is going to evolve. But what’s so great about ITV and other convergent media?
“Up to now, convergence was thought of as how to allow viewers to buy swimsuits while watching Baywatch,” said Glenn Thomas of Smashing Ideas, which creates Internet TV programming. “But do people really want to do that? No. The focus needs to be on what’s good for the user, to help them solve a problem or get information, instead of how to make money by throwing a product at them.”
This “pull” approach to viewers flies in the face of the traditional broadcast TV’s approach to audiences, which is to insert ads (i.e., push) products onto viewers in hopes that something will stick. “The future and success of convergence has to be the seamless integration of what the Internet does really well with other media,” Thomas said. “The strong points of the Internet are information sharing, connecting people, and the formation of communities. The big media companies are guided by money instead of letting interactivity evolve naturally.” The most successful convergence models occur in sports, cartoon, game show, and educational networks, whose accompanying Web sites encourage interactivity either by offering “play along” features, supplemental information, or chat rooms for viewers to share ideas. The History Channel, the Game Show Network, the Cartoon Network, and PBS are networks that several panelists suggested were on the right track.
What does this mean for the viewer? Fewer commercials — in the traditional sense. Instead, viewers may be able to select the type of commercials they’re willing to watch. If you’re in the market for a new car, you could program your TiVo service (to use one example) to collect and show those commercials along with your selected programming. In addition, viewers will be able to watch what they want, when they want it, making prime time a thing of the past — something traditional broadcast TV dreads. Their ad sales are based on anticipated number of viewers with prime time being their priciest ad time. This does not mean that commercials are a thing of the past. TiVo, the forerunner and ongoing survivor in ITV, is often cited as the creator of product placement as their service allows viewers to bypass commercials altogether, prompting broadcast TV to come up with new ways to get products in front of viewers’ eyes.
In addition to a common infrastructure, affordability and ease of use will continue to be factors in the future of ITV. But when will this happen? As always, stay tuned.
Good to Know
Austin City Limits airs “Stevie Ray Vaughan: A Retrospective” March 23 at 8:20pm, featuring clips from Vaughan’s past ACL performances… Down From the Mountain, the D.A. Pennebaker documentary featuring music from O Brother, Where Art Thou?, airs March 24, 6pm. Both programs air on KLRU… A yearlong campaign to release Star Trek: The Next Generation on DVD begins March 26. Season one features seven discs with all 26 episodes and extras like commentary from production staff, cast members, and creators. A new season will be released every two months. For more information go to www.startrek.com… Ten episodes of SpongeBob SquarePants were released on VHS and DVD last week. Woo hoo!… Missed the Xena: Warrior Princess series finale (“A Friend in Need”)? Not to worry, it appears in video stores on March 26… Early birds who can’t stay up to see Last Call With Carson Daly can catch the previous night’s episode on E! at 6pm.This article appears in March 22 • 2002.