Interactivity: The next TV challenge

TV service as we knew it has been evolving at an ever-faster pace since the 1970s, when pay TV — via cable and later, satellite — was introduced, bringing HBO and CNN, initially, and then, over the decades, hundreds of specialty channels. The videocassette recorder hit in the early 1980s, enabling us to not only record content, but also to buy it at retailers. TiVO added time-shifting, Slingbox factored in place-shifting, and digital video recorders and on-demand services made it possible for almost anyone to see almost anything at almost any time. Internet video took the family room experience and shrunk it to one person at a PC. Mobile video will make that one person on a smartphone.

So what’s next? Get ready, couch potatoes, for interactive TV. Why watch a TV show when you can watch and Twitter at the same time with people watching the same show? Why bother answering the phone during “Dancing with the Stars” when you can see from the caller ID on the TV set that it’s just your mother-in-law calling for the third time this week? If watching football is good, then seeing how all your fantasy team players are doing at the same time is even better right?

Gosh, I hope so. Certainly for the generation who grew up on video games, quickly adopted cell phones and can text-message at blazing speeds on tiny keyboards, interactive TV will be a no-brainer — almost second nature. Interactivity might drive up their TV viewing.

I’m hoping, however, that for the rest of us, interactive TV will be easy to use — and easy to ignore. Verizon, which is promising new and interesting interactive features as early as this year, has been beta-testing its new services on real-world customers and discovering that simpler is often better.

As Joe Ambeault, director of product development for Consumer TV for Verizon, said, giving fantasy football freaks the ability to manage their teams using their TV remotes proved wildly unpopular among beta users because of how hard it was to do using just four arrow buttons and the “Okay” key.

Other TV providers, such as ZillionTV, have addressed that complexity by using a free-space, motion-sensitive air mouse and more graphic-rich displays, developed by Hillcrest Labs. Many agree that the user interface can make or break interactive applications. 

I don’t see anything to prevent interactivity from being the next big change to the way we watch TV — and potentially a positive change as well. But the services that get us passive TV viewers engaged will need to be compelling, personal and, most of all, easy to use.

E-mail me at cwilson3@telephonyonline.com