All signals

Breaking out of the box

Television has been a staple part of our entertainment diet for the last 50 years, but increasing numbers of viewers are migrating to other media platforms. This doesn't mean an end to television content, but the beginning of a new life for that content. This signal explores how we'll get our telly fix in the post-digital world: what the TV – internet merger will look like and how it will be greater than the sum of its parts.

The New York Times on Search Being Social - Even With Regard to the TV

This article (published today) is mostly about social search on the web, but Tunerfish, a service that enables social viewing (I interviewed the General Manager of the service on our blog not too long ago) on the web and TV finds a mention:

TV watching, often a solitary activity, is an obvious candidate for some social tips. TunerFish shows which programs are gaining in popularity in your online social circle, and what is being watched right now.
Although TunerFish is available only on the Web for now, the company says it could eventually be brought to the TV screen through an application running on a set-top box.
source http://nyti.ms/ccWH47

It's all about the content

Dirk Singer writes about the increasing irrelevance of the TV for younger people, who consume media in different forms, especially online through platforms like the BBC iPlayer. For the older generation though, as one would expect, dependency on the TV and telephone increases with age. A couple of interesting graphs, but what stood out for me was this quote:

The delivery mechanism of TV is increasingly irrelevant, but the content itself is not.

source http://bit.ly/ds8rFd

Meta Mirror

Meta Mirror is a platform that 'delivers an enhanced television experience without disrupting the conventional expectations of home entertainment.' It is a project by Dublin-based design and brand consultancy Notion. 

From their website:

Meta-Mirror is a concept based on joining the dots between the organic way in which television-watching behaviors have developed, and the technologies which are permeating the industry. It challenges the status quo of traditional television advertising, creating new opportunities for next-generation product placement and targeted, relevant marketing. At the same time it enriches the viewers experience of watching TV. Overall, it enhances rather than interrupts.

As an example, during a footy match for example, this is how it would work:

For sports the main screen is dedicated to the game/match in question. Real time statistics of the game, together with twitter updates and other scores of the viewers choice are all overlayed on the device running MetaMirror. In addition, new forms of online betting / merchandising / purchasing are enabled.

Sounds very exciting.

source http://bit.ly/dnr5w8

Top 10 TVs of the future

It's always useful for a signal such as this to keep tabs on what the key players in the space are doing. At consumer electronics convention IFA in Berlin recently, features such as 'magic' remote controls that understands gestures, massive plasma and widescreen TVs, low-powered LED screens and the world's first Android TV were unveiled in products from Samsung, Philips, Swedish brand People of Lava, Philips and Sharp, amongst others. Some of these look like something out of science fiction movies, but they really do exist! Or they will, come 2011 and 2012. They're certain to leave a huge dent in your pockets though.

source http://bit.ly/bLkf4l

Battle for your TV: the big TV smackdown at SXSW

Author: James Higgs

I made bad choices for the first two time-slots at SXSW, so I had high hopes for the third, PayTV vs Internet – The Battle For Your TV, featuring Mark Cuban of HDNet and Avner Rosen of Boxee.

It was good to see a debate between two people who genuinely disagree by 180º on how the future of TV will pan out, even if some of the argument was basically dick-swinging.

Cuban believes that the future of TV is basically the same as the present: subscription services over cable or satellite, with a light dash of so-called ‘Interactive TV’. Rosen believes, as I do, that the future of TV is on the web. To be clear: everyone sane accepts that we will continue to have a dedicated large screen in our houses on which we watch video. I just don’t believe that broadcast TV has a future that looks anything like the present, if it has one at all.

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The TV of the future

Author: James Higgs

Mike’s post on Apps for Telly inspired me to write about something I’ve been thinking about for a long time: my ideal TV of the future.

It’s pretty clear that, with a few very specific exceptions, broadcast TV will become a thing of the past very soon. Other than ‘event telly’, things that need to be watched live, such as the World Cup, the Olympics and (shudder) X Factor, I either watch shows on DVD or record them on my PVR, the excellent EyeTV for Mac.

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Apps for telly

Author: Mike Laurie

Last week, the BBC Trust gingerly announced provisional approval of the BBC’s Project Canvas. 

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The aim of Project Canvas is to define a set of standards for set-top boxes that will allow integration of web and TV. Although, it isn’t clear exactly what the standards will consist of and what Project Canvas’ vision of IPTV really is.

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