Overthinking IPTV

Sometimes innovators can overthink things. At a trade show in 2007, I remember a vendor presentation demonstrating an IPTV app in which a viewer watching a NASCAR race who happened to admire a pair of sunglasses worn by a driver could “select” the glasses on his TV screen, push a button and order them through the TV. I remember getting particularly excited about that app because whenever I’m watching NASCAR, I always think to myself: “I want to wear what those people are wearing. They’re clearly at the cusp of a fashion trend.”

Of course, the technological difficulty inherent in delivering such an app is pretty staggering (especially for a live sporting event). And anyway, it turns out that what consumers really want — what they often want — is not a new-fangled thing but just a simpler way to get what they already like. Thus, when polled by The Diffusion Group, the most popular interactive IPTV app TV watchers asked for was just the ability to watch shows they’d missed. Second most popular was watching shows from major networks. Weather and other simple but timely local information — which is available these days on just about every consumer device except the toothbrush — was third. And fourth was watching TV shows that are no longer on the air.

Not too demanding is it -- re-runs? Imagine if you ran a grocery store and your customers asked you to keep selling milk after its expiration date. IPTV providers are so constantly aware that they’re no longer in the age of Milton Berle that they fail to realize they could make money selling actual episodes of Milton Berle.

I know: Consumers can’t say they want something if they don’t know it’s possible. Still, some technology visionaries would have us believe that we should build highly sophisticated artificial intelligence systems to interface with our cars, our mobile devices and the Web so that when traffic threatens to make us late for an appointment, our machines can intervene to suggest we call ahead and tell our friends we’ll be late to meet them. And some folks at Microsoft thought we would all appreciate an annoying personified paperclip cartoon frequently butting into our lives to suggest we needed help writing a letter.

A better model of success is, of course, the digital video recorder, which didn’t break much new ground in terms of functionality but instead made something we already did (with VCRs) much simpler. It’s not the only opportunity out there, but it’s a good start on which to build. If I’m running late to meet a friend, I don’t mind calling him myself to let him know, but machine-to-machine communication that automatically takes photos off my handheld and stores them in the network without me having to transfer them or back them up? Now you’re talking. As for those sunglasses — hey, I’m watching a race, not a fashion show; how can you make that experience better?

Read more about the latest insights into interactive TV models and technologies in Sarah Reedy’s excellent six-part series on the subject.

E-mail me at ed.gubbins@penton.com.