iVillage: Wag the Dog

In what is being touted in some circles as a new interactive television service, the web site iVillage, which already has copious amounts of video, will be going along with live television a few days from now. iVillage is aimed at women, which means we men can go there and see what they're telling women about us.

Why wag the dog? Because this is content that was web first, "television" second. Most television shows have web sites (in fact, I wonder if there is any current TV show without a web site; I'd be surprised).

"The NBC Universal stations are banding together to produce a daytime series with female-skewing Web site iVillage.com, which NBC Universal acquired for $600 million in March, sources close to the production said.

"The project, called 'iVillage Live,' will be produced by the stations, not their corporate supplier of syndicated product, NBC Universal Domestic Television Distribution.

Source: Television Week; 5/15/2006, Vol. 25 Issue 20, p1-34, 2p, 1c

According to Media Week, "If it succeeds, NBCU's plans to launch iVillage Live, the first national multiplatform interactive talk show, could change the business model for daytime TV and reinvigorate the sleepy daypart." MediaWeek; 11/13/2006, Vol. 16 Issue 41, p8.

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The Death of DVRs: Long Live the DVR!

Some refer to a DVR as nothing more than a large hard drive in a computer. ReplayTV, a pioneer in the DVR business, is dumping its hardware in favor of software. That is, ReplayTV is saying good-bye to its own DVR and hello to having your computer double-up as a DVR device. The "ReplayTV PC Edition" was supposed to go on sale in September 2006. A lesson to emerging new media students and scholars: the majority of new product announcements are premature. I've written that the reason for this is that it's easy to see the end-state scenario in which the new product is ready for market, but it's difficult to predict what pitfalls there will be on the road to market. Here we have a small example of that. ReplayTV was not ready with its PC Edition until mid-November 2006.

Back to the business at hand, ReplayTV now sells software that can be loaded onto your PC or laptop that will allow you to record television shows without the monthly charges the cable and satellite industry members as well as TiVo charge. Your computer must have a TV tuner to use this software, however, and few people have added this to their PC even though the technology has been around for years. Of course, it's easy to imagine the large electronics chains like Best Buy and Circuit City pushing the TV tuners on new computer customers (after all, it's the add-ons that hold the profit for computers, not the computers themselves.


Source: replaytv.com accessed 28 November 2006. There is a slideshow of ReplayTV's PC version beginning on http://www.replaytv.com/replaytvway.asp as of 28 November 2006.

Well, the image above, courtesy of ReplayTV, shows a concept that hardly looks new, and it does not show a hint of a television program. However, any PC owner with a TV tuner can download the software and try the service for 30 days free. Given the track record of the immediate bond between TV viewer and new DVR, it would seem Replay TV has set itself up quite nicely, although its potential market today is small (the target appears to be college-age young adults living in dorm rooms or small apartments where the PC screen does not need to be very large to "watch TV" on the PC.

And once again we're sliding into the area of debate about "lean forward" (using a computer) versus "lean back" (watching TV) which I have said many times is a false dichotomy. One example would be having perhaps 25% of your screen display showing that sporting event you wanted to see while, multitasker that you are, you are writing that proposal for bringing peace to the Middle East. Marketing gurus love this kind of terminology, but I once again call it bunk.

As for ReplayTV's market, let's see if I can find out how many TV tuner enabled PCs there are out there (and please note that I generally am always limiting myself to the U.S. which is a complex enough market for understanding interactive television).

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People starting to watch less TV as online video boom grows, suggests BBC News Website survey

There are still 24 hours in a day, and people are awake around 16 or 17 of them. Individuals may watch around 4 hours of television a day, and they may multitask, for example, by having the TV on while surfing the web for fun, profit, entertainment, enlightenment, well, you get the picture. And speaking of pictures, a new study out from the BBC has found that survey respondents say they are watching more online video and less television. This includes people who use web or cell phone video once a week or more (once a week!). 75% say they are watching more non-broadcast TV today than a year ago (not surprising as more video becomes available and broadband availability continues to increase, prices continue to drop, and a whole lot more video is seen on the web. As I have written elsewhere in this blog, most, if not all, major old media company websites now have video on them with more to come.
It's inevitable and has been since Real Audio first introduced "tin-can" sounding audio on the web years ago.

Now, for the less glamorous findings: online video viewers are still in the minority - just 9% said they did so regularly (remember, this is the BBC and I suspect that computer penetration in British homes is smaller than U.S. homes). Another 13% said they watched occasionally, and 10% more said they expected to start in the coming year. However, two-thirds of the population said they did not watch video online and could not envisage starting in the next 12 months. Online video viewers were still in the minority at the time of the study - just 9% said they did so regularly, 13% said occasionally, and another 10% said they expect to start in the next year. Now, mark my words on this one: these respondents are wrong.

Come back to this posting in late November 2007 and you will see that almost all of those who just said they will not watch video in the coming year, a whopping 67% of the respondents, goofed. I confidently predict that a year from now it will be all but impossible to go to a web site without seeing video. Flash video is amazing, and we know better quality video and better compression methods will be in place in the next 12 months. If nothing else, advertisers will have video on web site home pages. Movie trailors are going to be everywhere.

So the BBC study in great and the BBC's making it available is even greater. But the role of video on the web is going to continue to grow dramatically, especially over the next 12 months. I suspect a similar study in the U.S. would find more folks using video and on a daily basis than in Britain.

Source:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2006/11_november/27/tv.shtml

ICM interviewed a random sample of 1,008 adults aged 18+
recruited from the ICM online panel between 17 and 19 November 2006 for the BBC.

They also interviewed a random sample of 1,062 people aged 16+ by telephone.
Panellists were recruited from across the country and the results have been weighted to the profile of all adults.

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Whoa, Nellie! What's going on?

I am, as all of you silent readers are aware, writing a book about interactive television. I'm using this blog as a way to "take notes." So the most recent posts may appear incomplete. They are. I've been at this all day today, the day before Thanksgiving, and I am thankful that I can stop for a while. (I always get more done in the library than at home.) Not only is it nice to be around people, the library doesn't have a TV, a fridge, or a bed. Much easier to stay "on task" here.

This posting is a footnote that will be removed once I've caught up on the recent, incomplete posts.

By the way, why do I have this very funny feeling that if I sign up for google ads, I will get many more readers? Is it possible that those who run google ads are ranked higher in the search results? Hmmm.....sure seems possible to me. So those of you who get to this point will know why they're on there. Who knows. Maybe I'll make enough money to buy myself some pop (yes, I said POP as in soda POP....and I'll add sugar to my iced to to MY taste, and not to the taste of the southern cook who insists you can't let sugar dissolve in a glass....puh-lease.

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody! And if you are reading this, post a comment to wish me one, too. I'm really about ready to add the Google ads and see if I get more action. I really want feedback to assist me. Oh, by the way, it was Bozo the clown who used to say "Whoa, Nellie!" (not to say he was the first).

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Engineering Literature and Interactive Television

Here is an example of a paper of great interest to me that appears in a more technical journal that most social scientists would frequently read. I had high hopes that the Universirt of Georgia libraries would have an institutional subscription to this journal, but I don't believe we do:

User interface evaluation of interactive TV: a media studies perspective

Journal Universal Access in the Information Society
Publisher Springer Berlin / Heidelberg
ISSN 1615-5289 (Print) 1615-5297 (Online)
Subject Computer Science
Issue Volume 5, Number 2 / August, 2006
Category LONG PAPER
DOI 10.1007/s10209-006-0032-1
Pages 209-218
Online Date Thursday, May 25, 2006

LONG PAPER
User interface evaluation of interactive TV: a media studies perspective
Konstantinos Chorianopoulos1 and Diomidis Spinellis2

(1) Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Imperial College London, London, SW7 2BT, UK
(2) Department of Management Science and Technology, Patision 76, Athens University of Economics and Business, 104 34 Athens, Greece

Published online: 25 May 2006

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iTV and Surveillance

I'm not sure I've made it clear that I am a new (emerging) media skeptic. As an individual, I did not get my first VCR until 1988 (because I thought I'd watch too many movies along with waiting for the price to drop). Just because my teaching and research interests surround emerging new media does not mean I am on the sidelines cheering them on.

I was reminded of this when I came across an abstract from New Media & Society, Vol. 8, No. 1, 97-115 (2006). This comes from a full article by Professor Matt Carlson of Penn, and quoting the abstract here is for educational purposes and to push some of you to getting the article:

This article explores the early stages of the Digital Video Recorder (DVR) market, with particular attention paid to brand leader TiVo. The television industry, which relies on schedules to organize the audience commodity, faces threats from DVR technology. Initially, broadcasters and advertisers reacted with fear, but also came to realize the potential of using the technology for data collection and target marketing. These firms employed a mix of investment and litigation to shape the developing industry. Simultaneously, TiVo characterized its relationship to broadcasters and advertisers as advantageous rather than contentious. As a result, the emerging DVR model offers users greater control through time-shifting and increased functionality with content playback, while presenting existing television firms with a platform for audience surveillance.

My personal belief about companies and surveillance is that any who do this with their customer data surreptitiously will create mass defections and anger from customers if and when they find out. Businesses know this. It is also one thing to show aggregate numbers (i.e., "57% of TiVo users rewound the Janet Jackson boob fiasco at least 10 times") does not single out any one user (of course, if 100% did it would, but "if everyone else is doing it" probably would make that a wash).

A larger issue is the Patriot Act (e.g., http://www.congress.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d107:H.R.3162: and many other sources) and the extent to which media companies comply with demands from the government to see their records ("why does Sissy Daffodil watch the new English version of Al Jazeera so much?"). That conversation is a vital one, but outside of the focus of my work at this time.

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Replay TV History

Source=http://www.replaytv.com/images/History/rtv2000.jpg





ReplayTV is given credit for being the first PVR on the market in the United States. According to its web site, it was founded in 1997 and was the inventor of the DVR. It also says:

• Putting consumers in total control with QuickSkip® 30-second advance for DVR and other features.
  
• Built-in networking allowing consumers to watch any show from any networked ReplayTV DVR in the home.
  
• Allowing consumers to program their DVR via the web from anywhere in the world.
  
• Genre-based recording allowing consumers to track their favorite team or find their favorite actor.
  
• Network recording which directs requests to available networked ReplayTV DVRs with sufficient capacity.
  
• Progressive Scan and Digital Audio Output for state of the art performance.
  

I'm not sure how long this information will be online, so I want to quote liberally from http://archive.avsforum.com. A Loren Kruse asked the folks who worked at ReplayTV from its inception and soon after for their personal histories of ReplayTV in late August 1999. "JustDoug" responded on 09-29-00:

Anthony Wood was the co-founder and inventor of ReplayTV. I started as the 10th employee, although as a contractor I was like, number 4 or something. By then it was not in a garage (they don’t make garages in Silicon Valley big enough to start companies in anymore). But I remember my first desk was a card table. There were definitely garage-esque moments though. The company had a stealth name of “Pacific Digital Media”.

We knew about a company called TeleWorld, and we had heard they were making a digital VCR. But we didn’t have any idea it was going to be pretty much the same thing as ReplayTV. TeleWorld later changed their name to TiVo, within two weeks of us changing our name from Pacific Digital Media to ReplayTV.

One of the proposals for a new company name was Avio. If we had gone with that, the 2 first creators of PVRs would have been TiVo and Avio. I’m really glad that didn’t happen.

I think Anthony Wood had the idea for ReplayTV while running his first company back around 1993 or 1994. I worked for his first company, as did ReplayBen. His first company made (then) cutting-edge audio recording and editing software and hardware. One of its main features was record-while-playback.

I think Anthony saw the audio-only simultaneous playback and record technology and extended the idea out to video; but in a form more like ReplayTV than a non-linear editor. Then it was matter of time for hard drive prices to fall. According to the first www.replaytv.com website, he had been tracking the prices of hard drives for years before starting ReplayTV.

One of the coolest things about being an early employee is that, embedded in the back of the front panel plastic is all the early employee’s signatures. I know, I know, no one will EVER see it, but just to know it’s there in everyone’s ReplayTVs is pretty cool.

"ReplayMike" added on 09-29-00 (the same day):

Well, I'm a relative newcomer compared to JustDoug (having started about a year and a half ago). Although, I did make it in the door before the first shipment... barely.

I first saw ReplayTV on the web site in November of 1998, after being tipped off by a friend. I immediately placed an advaced order for the 28-hour model, for $1599.

In January of 1999, I flew to Las Vegas for CES, and checked out the ReplayTV and the TiVo. Both products were still a little "rough" -- the ReplayTV crashed during the demo, and the TiVo didn't have a channel guide of any kind.

Since I was (and am) a DBS satellite subscriber, I was wowed by the ReplayTV's integrated multi-source Channel Guide (at the time, the TiVo didn't support multiple inputs, although it was planned for the future). I also just preferred the overall look and feel of the ReplayTV.

I spoke at length with a few of the employees manning the booth, and eventually popped the question: "So, are you guys hiring?"

Well, the answer was "yes", and after returning to the Bay Area, I began a marathon series of interviews at the Replay Networks offices in Palo Alto. The funny thing was, every time I came in for an interview, there were more desks and cubicles crammed into the place! When I came by to pick up my offer letter, the hallway to my future manager's office was gone -- replaced by cubes. On my first day of employment (in the new Moutain View building), I canceled the order for the 28-hour model, since I was able to scam a beta unit to take home.

It's been a heck of a ride. I started almost exactly one week before version 1.0 shipped, and spent my first week on the job doing testing of the release. There's been TONS of hard work between then and now, and no sign of any let up soon. But it's sure been a blast!

I have a policy: I work on products that I actually want to use. That's why I worked at Apple for six years, and it's why I work at ReplayTV.

"ReplaySpence" poeted the following on 09-30-00:

Well seeing as you asked, about a month ago (August 18th) we hit our 3rd birthday. Here's an edited version of the email I sent company-wide. The last section relates to all the internal rebuilding we're doing here as the company grows and we need to squeeze more bodies into the building.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you read the New York Times article from last weekend, you'll see a mention of August 4th 1997 as the day that Jim Barton and Mike Ramsey started a new company called TeleWorld, now known as Tivo.

Well, today is the third anniversary of the birth of a company called Pacific Digital Media, which we now all know as ReplayTV. On August 18th 1997, our first meeting was held at the house of Eddie, Anthony Wood's co-founder and VP of Engineering. The meeting was attended by Eddie, myself, Karl (our first Hardware Engineer), and a prospective employee who decided later that he didn't want to move to Silicon Valley.

We had no offices, we hadn't decided on the name yet (we later chose Pacific Digital Media because it was non-descriptive and we wanted to stay in stealth mode), we had no domain name, we were all using our personal email accounts and ISPs, we had no equipment, we had no specifications or design. There wasn't even a name for the category of product we were building. All we had was determination and confidence that we could do it.

Three years later, we're finishing up version 3.0 of the software, we have a major OEM company selling ReplayTVs in stores nationwide, and we're advertising on TV.

Oh, and just in case you're thinking that you're squeezed inside your newest offices, look at how it started....

From: Eddie
To: Anthony Wood; Spencer Shanson; Karl; Greg; Don Woodward
Sent: Tue 8/26/97 12.05am

Things are really hopping. Our lawyers are getting our incorporation
done and we've pretty much decided to use "Pacific Digital Media" as
our interim company name. I registered for "pacificdig.com" for our
domain name. Speak now if you have any objections, although we know
we're going to change the name.

Thanks to Spencer, we think we've found some great space we can hang
out in for a few months. The offices are at Clyde Street in
Mountain View, on the border with Sunnyvale, off of 237/101. We're
looking at renting seven offices that can each hold two desks, and
a fairly wide hallway. The building is set up as an incubator for
startups, so there's lots of helpful services and the rent is not
too bad. I'd be happy to give details. I'm going over there at 10:30
on Tuesday to fork over rent for the next six months, so if you want
to check out the space first, you can meet me there.

Eddie.

The company got itself in trouble by making itself very consumer friendly but not advertiser friendly.

ReplayTV was in the DVR market about the same time as TiVo, but they had some extras that got them into trouble with program producers. TiVo is trying to work with advertisers, while early iterations of ReplayTV allowed for the automatic elimination of commercials from the recording process. I will return to this posting later.

http://www.pvrwire.com/images/2005/12/ReplayTV%205500.jpg



In June 2002, a federal judge overturned an order that would have required ReplayTV to gather data about customers' TV-viewing habits as program producers alleged piracy because users can skip commercials that pay for the programs. The judge was ruling on procedural grounds and did not extend her decision to Sonicblue's MyReplayTV.com web site, which collects anonymous information about the programs stored on customers' recorders. See Jon Healey (June 4, 2002), "Technology: A Federal Judge Reverses a Ruling by a Magistrate Judge That Said Sonicblue Must Track Users of Its ReplayTV 4000 Digital Recorders, Los Angeles Imes, n.p. Accessed http://www.sirs.com, Nov. 22, 2006.

The emergence of ReplayTV and TiVo brought out won of the most odd quotes ever to be made by a media executive. The observation of CEO of TBS was that anyone who recored a commercially sponsored program but did not watch the commercials (either fast forwarded through them or, as in the case of ReplayTV, miseed them as the device did not record the commercials) as a thief. If for no other reason, the comment seemed ridiculous given that people who used their VCRs to record and then fast forward through commercials (and yes, there was a VCR that also stopped recording when a commercial pod came on) had been "stealing" for years. Perhaps what Keller really doing was ringing the alarm bell because now even technophobes could avoid the commercials...essily. History showed in the Betamax case, however, that Hollywood has made out like a bandit thanks to the VCR and home video (since enhanced via DVDs). I remember reading this quote when it first came out and wondering if Keller had been told by TBS to raise the red flag or if Keller had jumped off the deep end himself.

Regardless, ReplayTV was involved in a lawsuit at the time because its DVR made skipping commercials even easier than TiVo. It tunes in to the signals sent over the airwaves telling the local station, satellite service or cable facility "here come the commercials."

By mid-2003, the New York Times reported:

ReplayTV's new 5500 model, which will go on sale next month, will no longer be able to skip entire commercials automatically without recording them or to send recorded programming over the Internet to other ReplayTV users outside a home network. The recorders will, however, still be able to store large libraries of programming indefinitely and allow users to skip manually through recorded commercials in 30-second increments.

ReplayTV's New Owners Drop Features That Riled Hollywood
Eric a. Taub. New York Times. (Late Edition (East Coast)). New York, N.Y.: Jul 21, 2003. pg. C.3

IEEE Spectrum published an excellent article on ReplayTV and how it got itself entangled in the web of Hollywood and copyright protection (while TiVo was about to steam ahead without similar impediments):

See http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/print/3673

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TiVo

This is as of late 2006 something of a history lesson. TiVo has managed to stay independent (at one point it was DirecTV's only DVR). TiVo records shows as typed in by the user whether by program title or keyword (such as Buckeye football). The viewer is given a choice of video quality (the higher the quality, the more space it takes on the hard drive). If the show is a series, the user can record up to 5 episodes and even keep them if she wants (right on the TiVo or "offload" them onto a VCR).



It's getting close to calling it a day, but there are a number of screen shots as well as pictures of the TiVo remote at http://www.humaxusa.com/image_gallery.html as of 21 November 2006.

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What's the Big Deal About a Set-top Box?

Nice of you to ask! One of the main reasons why consumers in the U.S. both have been slow to see interactive services before now but certainly will in the near future is the set-top box. Cable and satellite viewers probably don't spend much time thinking about the set-top box, although savvy home video enthusiasts know that the industry was able to create "cable-ready" TV sets that worked great with analog cable service. Once again, cable and satellite viewers are forced to deal with the set-top box (although there is little evidence to suggest other than the occasional lightning strike), viewers at home put much thought into what the devices actually did, that lack of knowledge is allowing cable and satellite providers to upgrade their customers into new, interactive services courtesy of the set-top box.

TiVo and ReplayTV jumped the gun a bit on the next generation set-top box. TiVo is essentially a computer with a large hard drive and it happens to use the linux operating system. TiVo's take-up was slow because it was perceived to be a very expensive alternative to a very inexpensive VCR. TiVo is the poster child for an experiential consumer product meaning, quite simply, talking about it is far less persuasive than actually having one in the home. Once a consumer took the product home and began to use it, the love affair took off quickly. TiVo received the highest consumer satisfaction rankings in the history of such measurements. But it has taken a while to reach critical mass, and that time lag has allowed both satelllite competitors (DirecTV and Dish Network) to develop and offer their own DVR (or PVR; I'm not sure who has the final say on "digital video recorder" versus "personal video recorder," although I am partial to the latter because I think it communicates more to the potential adopter).

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Levels of Video Interactivity from the A/V Literature

Interactive video made a splash in education but I suspect most experts would agree that the splash didn't displace as much water as was expected when interactive videodiscs were introduced around (and before) 1980. In fact, this book was copyrighted in 1982 suggesting it actually was written before 1982 (i.e., the concept of interactive video has been around for 25 more than years):

Floyd, S., & Floyd, B. (1982). THE HANDBOOK OF INTERACTIVE VIDEO. White Plains, NY: Knowledge Industry Publications.

The bibliographic entry above is taked from the ERIC document below, which is an example of the definitions of interactivity assigned to educational application of videodiscs 25 years ago.

From http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2/content_storage_01/
0000000b/80/2a/09/ea.pdf, ERIC Identifier: ED270103
Publication Date: 1985-12-00
Author: McLean, Lois
Source: ERIC Clearinghouse on Information Resources Syracuse NY.
Videodiscs in Education. ERIC Digest.

The following is a direct quote from the ERIC document:

System hardware configurations usually include a videodisc player, video monitor, microcomputer, computer screen, and an interface to connect the computer and the video player. Videodisc systems are categorized according to their level of interactivity.

--A Level 1 videodisc system is a stand-alone videodisc player, which may allow dual audio and random access of still frames, freeze-frames, auto-stop, and chapter search, but has no memory or processing power. A keypad is used to input data, and output may include audio from one of the two available channels together with standard motion and still frame graphics. The user can select what is to be viewed next and which audio channel will be heard.

--Level 2 systems use a stand-alone, educational/industrial player allowing disc control through an internal programmable microprocessor. The keypad at this level can be used for numeric entries and some special options. While the format of the output is essentially the same as it is for the Level 1 player, the microprocessor has enough memory to receive multiple programs and provide a more sophisticated level of interaction for the user.

--Level 3 disc systems add the power of an external computer to a videodisc player by connecting them with an interface device, usually a computer card. In addition to the videodisc for audio and motion graphics and still frame graphics, media for such systems include floppy diskettes [remember this is 1985] for the computer programs. An audiocassette can also be used to provide random access sound over still frames and over computer graphics. Authoring packages are available to assist Level 3 program designers.

--More sophisticated systems are being developed which have capabilities far beyond those of the original Level 3 system. For example, a graphic overlay capability has been developed that allows the display to contain graphics generated by a computer, visuals from a videodisc, or a combination of the two, without the user being aware that the material comes from different sources; availability of more powerful (and less expensive) microcomputers has made possible an expansion of system control; and digital recording of audio can be used to greatly extend the the amount of stereo sound that can be provided over still graphics on a single videodisc.

The relevance for today is that interactive videodiscs appear to have only been applied in education in the fringes, but not a hallmark of education. Considering the impact on students a re-enactment of the Civil War (available from many possible sources from historically accurate to entertainment such as the linear film Glory), there is room for questioning why video and especially interactive video has not caught on. Is it a conceptual problem or a technological one? If the latter, it would seem that the future of education applications of interactive video should be bright at both the home and school.

Worth mentioning is the explosion of Flash video on the web. It seems virtually all mainstream "old media" stalwarts have video on their web sites, and this includes print media, especially newspapers. I don't often check magazines online, so maybe I better do that. I repeat, as I have said many times, that we live in a video society, and with the cost of video production so low and Flash video so good (and all forms of compressed video will only get better), video will continue to use more and more of web browsers' (people's) time spent on the web.

Source: http://www.sdm.buffalo.edu/oir/MacDent
/Issue_2/16_Interactive.html accessed 21 November 2006

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Optimistic View (Whoops!) of Interactive Videodiscs

ERIC Identifier: ED270103
Publication Date: 1985-12-00
Author: McLean, Lois
Source: ERIC Clearinghouse on Information Resources Syracuse NY.
Videodiscs in Education. ERIC Digest.
THIS DIGEST WAS CREATED BY ERIC, THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES
INFORMATION CENTER. FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT ERIC, CONTACT
ACCESS ERIC 1-800-LET-ERIC
TEXT: Videodiscs could have a revolutionary impact on the use of audiovisual media in education. What makes the videodisc so attractive? Videodisc systems can combine the best features of instructional television and computer assisted instruction. They can provide individualized, self-paced instruction with feedback and remediation, while incorporating all traditional audiovisual media into one easy-to-use, durable format.

Source: http://www.eric.ed.gov/ accessed 20 November 2006

In my writings on forecasting the adoption of new media, I've observed that it's easier to envision the end-state scenario than it is to anticipate the bumps in the road. This results in an optimistic "forecast" for a new medium as seen in the text above. (There are examples of technologies that exceed expectations including broadband access, for example; its growth has exceeded forecasters's predictions for its growth because they did tend to focus on why broadband would not diffuse quickly, and the hurdles were overstated.

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Contributions to Interactivity from Instructional Media

Instructional media has gone its merry way, finding applications for new communication technologies as soon as they are made available. I remember in high school we had the "videotape club" and the yearbook showed a picture of the advisor "taped in" with 3/4" videotape. (This is the same guy who told me not to take typing because I was a college prep student, advice that I still curse as I struggle to type with 4 fingers, up from two.)

The concept of interactivity in instructional media has been around for years, and the rest of the world can learn from intructional media. For example, from http://www.nwcg.gov/pms/pubs/glossary/I.htm (accessed 20 November 2006):
IMI Interactivity Levels

Standards to which IMI products are developed conforming to interactivity level(s) which are appropriate for the instructional design, strategy, media, content, and course specifications.
see also: Interactive Multimedia Instruction ; IMI Level 1 Interactivity ; IMI Level 2 Interactivity ; IMI Level 3 Interactivity

IMI Level 1 Interactivity

This is the lowest level of courseware development. It is normally a knowledge familiarity lesson, provided in a linear format (one idea after another). Use Level 1 to introduce an idea or concept, or to familiarize. Provide minimal interactivity by using selectable screen icons that are inserted into the linear, or almost linear, flow of the courseware. Allow the student little or no control of the sequence of instructional media presented, including: simple developed graphics, clip art, customer provided video and audio segments (clips). Make use of typical input/output peripherals throughout the lesson.
see also: Interactive Multimedia Instruction

IMI Level 2 Interactivity

This involves the recall of more information than a level 1 and allows the student more control over the lesson’s scenario through screen icons and other peripherals, such as light pens or touch screens. Typically level 2 is used for non-complex operations and maintenance lessons. Simple emulations or simulations are presented to the user. As an example, the user is requested to rotate switches, turn dials, make adjustments, or identify and replace a faulted component as part of a procedure. This also may include simple to standard developed graphics, and/or clip art, and video and audio clips.
see also: Interactive Multimedia Instruction

IMI Level 3 Interactivity

This involves the recall of more complex information (compared to levels 1 and 2) and allows the user an increased level of control over the lesson scenario through peripherals such as light pen, touch screen, track ball, or mouse. Video, graphics, or a combination of both is presented simulating the operation of a system, subsystem, or equipment to the user. The lesson scenario training material typically is complex and involves more frequent use of peripherals to affect a transfer of learning. Operation and maintenance procedures are normally practiced with level 3 scenarios and students may be required to alternate between multiple screens to keep pace with the lesson material. Multiple software branches (two to three levels) and rapid response are provided to support remediation. Emulations and simulations are an integral part of this presentation. This may also include complex developed graphics, and/or clip art, and video and audio clips.

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You may use this content (better still, argue with me!), but please cite my ideas as © 2006, Dr. Bruce Klopfenstein. Find any typos? Don't smite me, let me know!

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You may use this content (better still, argue with me!), but please cite my ideas as © 2006, Dr. Bruce Klopfenstein. Find any typos? Don't smite me, let me know!

Definitions of Interactive Television

Defining interactive media is not straight-forward. The literature in the field of education has, perhaps, the longest history of defining interactive media because the good ol' A/V folks were quick to jump on computers and interactive videodiscs, to name just two, when they first came ouf. Suffice it to say, all communication media have the potential to be employed for educational purposes and that certainly is and will be the case with interactive television. But first, how do we define interactivity.

Interactivity is not binary, but is instead a continuum from limited interactivity to full emersion (e.g., holography in the future not unlike the Holodeck on Star Trek: Next Generation (this is a given, the only question is how long it will take for this form of interactive "television" to move from defense department contracts to the general public; think of airline simulators for military pilots followed by simulators for civilian pilot training).

Interactivity can also be depicted graphically. The following depiction comes froma book authored by the late Ev Rogers (1986).




Georgia Tech MA graduate student Karyn Y. Lu (2005) says:

Interactive television (iTV), or enhanced television (eTV), is any television or video programming that incorporates enhanced content or some style of user interactivity, for example, providing synchronized trivia content during a broadcast, allowing viewers to vote on the outcome of a show, or digitally recording video onto a hard drive so viewers can time-shift while watching a program. ITV is also used as an umbrella term to cover the convergence of television with digital media technologies such as computers, personal video recorders, game consoles, and mobile and wireless devices, enabling user interactivity.

Lu continues with this graphical representation of traditional (linear) television versus interactive television:



Source: http://idt.gatech.edu/ms_projects/klu/lu_karyn_y_200505_mast.pdf accessed 21 November 2006.

The business college at the University of Greece in Athens has a unit devoted to interactive television: http://uitv.info/ which also includes a definition for interactive television:

What is interactive TV?

The answer depends on who is asked: 1) An engineer would assume digital broadcast and return channel, 2) a content producer would refer to interactive graphics and dynamic editing, 3) a media professional would describe new content formats such as betting, interactive storytelling and play-along quiz games, and 4) a sociologistÕs definition would focus on the interaction between people about TV shows. While, none of the above definitions seems to agree with each other, all of them are right.

Interactive TV Systems

Interactive TV systems is a class of computer applications that runs on video and multimedia servers, advanced set-top boxes, home media computers, and mobile phones. Still, the term interactive TV has been a buzzword with as many supporters as opponents. One explanation is that interactivity has been used to describe a technological feature of the media as much as it has been used to characterize a way of using the media. For this reason, the above definition makes an explicit definition between the tehcnological and the social aspects of interactive TV systems.

Source: http://uitv.info/topics/what-is-interactive-tv/ accessed 21 November 2006.

Please send me the citations for other definitions of interactive television. All of us know where to find them: here (with your help).

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You may use this content (better still, argue with me!), but please cite my ideas as © 2006, Dr. Bruce Klopfenstein. Find any typos? Don't smite me, let me know!

Klopfenstein's Evolving Defintion of Interactive Television

Click here to see the image to the right in a larger version.

You know, I actually put a lot of thought into this, but I know it can be improved. My working definition of interactive television takes into account that there are various levels of interactivity. I believe a good way to define interactivity is to take it from the perspective of the viewer who becomes a more active viewer. Here is my working definition that might change tomorrow (I posted it on this blog in December 2005:

Interactive television (iTV) is not one service. It represents a continuum of services from very limited interactivity (such as using a remote for TV power, volume and channel control) to more moderate interactivity (such as using an electronic program guide to search for programs), to more sophisticated levels of control recently made available by personal video recorders. An irreversible trend has become quite clear in the last few years: the control of television programs is moving away from the program provider and into the hands of the viewer. Two-way interactive television is yet another example of iTV, but it implies more complexity and modifications in viewer behaviors than do other iTV services.

How does that compare to other definitions of iTV. I'm glad you asked. Let's find out. Interestingly, in searching 28 library databases, "interactive television definition" resulted in one lonely definition: "Video teleconferencing (Interactive television): A course broadcast between two or more remote locations, with live, animated image transmission and display. Faculty and students can interact with each other with no delay." Source: Ann Higgins Hains, Simone Conceição-Runlee, Patricia Caro & Mary Ann Marchel, "Collaborative Course Development in Early Childhood Special Education through Distance Learning," Early Childhood Research & Practice,
Vol. 1 No. 1: Spring 1999, np.

Although the results of that search were dramatically limited by my use of "interactive television definition" (meaning all three words had to appear in succession), even my academic peers had thought this is what I meant by interactive television (I think every professional association in the communication field now "gets it," that iTV is not a fad this time around).

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You may use this content (better still, argue with me!), but please cite my ideas as © 2006, Dr. Bruce Klopfenstein. Find any typos? Don't smite me, let me know!

The Importance of Definitions

Does everyone know what I mean by interactive television? If you do, email me at klopfens@uga.edu. For those of you who missed out (so far) of the joys of graduate school (and for those of you who've already had 3rd grade science), definitions are needed to include and exclude entities. When does someone crossover the threshold between being a social drinker and an alcoholic? That threshold is a definition that is probably arbitrary. For more reading about definitions, you can go way bak to The Function of Definitions in Social Science
Richard Popkin, Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 40, No. 18 (Sep. 2, 1943), pp. 491-495.

Defining interactive television is an especially tricky thing to do. Does using a remote control to turn a TV on or off constitute "interactivity"? Some might say yes, but a definition that broad may not help in the on-going research about interactivity. Should some measure of the audience's involvement in a television program be included? It seems logical to suggest, for example, that an immersed audience member might be more prone to engage interactive functions of a television show. But this is subject to debate and (funded!) research.

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You may use this content (better still, argue with me!), but please cite my ideas as © 2006, Dr. Bruce Klopfenstein. Find any typos? Don't smite me, let me know!

Klopfenstein Book Publisher Sold

[Editor's Note: I will be switching over to APA Style for my publisher, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates (very recently sold to London-based publisher Informa. Interesting to note that Informa is the publisher of Lloyd's List and organizer of conferences including the a mobile phone industry get-together, has been approached by its rival Springer Science and Business Media about a takeover that would create a business worth more than £4bn. Source: Hans Kundnani and Richard Wray, Springer in talks with Informa on £4bn merger, MediaGuardian.co.uk accessed on 12 November 2006). As someone from outside the book publishing industry, I have no idea what this means, especially if they keep the LEA name. I guess if I do a bang-up job there may be more of a global audience for my book, but I still plan to focus on the shifting sands of the nascent U.S. interactive television industry.

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You may use this content (better still, argue with me!), but please cite my ideas as © 2006, Dr. Bruce Klopfenstein. Find any typos? Don't smite me, let me know!

iTV Software Companies: Streaming Media

I have my students use Flash 8 Professional to simulate interactive television examples. There are a plethora of companies out there with software specific to interactive television. It would be helpful if some group rated the software; even creating the categories by which the software could be rated would be helpful.

On a somewhat unrelated note, business.com has a list of streaming media companies.

iTV Services Are Rolling Out

2 or 3 years ago (yup, that recent) my .... hmmm ... how to say this tactfully... OK, some important peers of mine at my place of employment had comments like "you can't even define interactive television" and "they've been talking about interactive television for years" [this is an enlightened colleague because, of course, they have], policy studies are the way to go (having nothing to do with iTV), etc.

Now we are moving into our own little "dot.com" era for iTV which definitely means that there will be quite a few players who don't make it and some who will fly. If a major cable company or one of the satellite providers chooses an iTV provider, that will provide such a company with quite a shot of capital.

For example, Cablevision (which has its roots in my small home town and a few around it in Ohio) has a service called Optimum.

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You may use this content (better still, argue with me!), but please cite my ideas as © 2006, Dr. Bruce Klopfenstein. Find any typos! Don't smite me, let me know!

Video on the Web on the Elections

I'm not sure who is keeping track of the diffusion of video on the web, but it is extremely impressive. In reading a story about the Ohio governor's race, I followed a link to MarketWatch.com At that site are a number of videos including wrap-ups of the election featuring an interviewer and an expert in front of a green screen with a nice "Election 2006" graphic.

It's becoming apparent that many "old media" providers and information providers like MarketWatch are putting up videos on the web. This does not surprise me in the sense that the cost of video production has dropped dramatically in the last decade (that will reverse itself until HDTV is well established). What intrigues me is who will prefer the information presented in video format versus reading. My personal strong preference is for video because I like to multitask. I've already noticed in my own use that highly engaging video content will lead me back to just the video task (and not multitasking).

We do live in interesting times.

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You may use this content (better still, argue with me!), but please cite my ideas as © 2006, Dr. Bruce Klopfenstein. Find any typos! Don't smite me, let me know!

Very Early Post-mortem on Election Coverage on the Web

Perhaps it is my mistake as one who can have video and audio playing while I go over to sites on the web, but MSNBC has slaughtered the competition in my location on my laptop. I have no reason to think my setup should have done anything to do with my MSNBC success (and it's playing in the background right now).

I tried to find "leaked exit polls" (at least one blogger begged those with the results to send them to him or her) before 5 PM and I didn't find them. The initial exit poll information was relatively benign because so many people seemed comfortable with the economy which sounded pro-Republican. The 6 of 10 who think things are not going well in Iraq didn't seem overwhelming.

So I have settled on MSNBC which, for those who don't watch, has been 24/7 on the election for the past 9 or 10 days.

Well, this has been about 2 staight hours of writing (not helped by bologger being up and down). Congratulations to MSNBC online, at least from this corner of the universe in suburban Atlanta.

P.S. Fast forward to 8:20 PM, foxnews.com does not have live video from the TV side, but they ARE doing a video stream of Fox News Radio "You Decide 2006." Rather weird, and I wonder how many people would bother with this. But, if you're an old radio guy like me, it's kind of nice to see a crowded radio booth. Obviously, to anyone who doesn't think Fox is really "fair and balanced," it will be interesting to see how Fox covers what some would assume is "bad news" from Fox's perspective.

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You may use this content (better still, argue with me!), but please cite my ideas as © 2006, Dr. Bruce Klopfenstein. Find any typos! Don't smite me, let me know!

Election Night 2006: The Web Is Here

Well, it's election night in the U.S. and I was searching the blogs which, I had read earlier, were going to start posting exit polls now (5 PM EST). Somehow I found myself going to MSNBC online and, after a brief (15 second) spot for something medical (not a great ad apparently), a relatively flawless video picture and (importantly) audio showed up in a 430 by 240 window (granted, TV engineers woould find it simply horrid but you have to know TV engineers to understand this statement). I could watch in full screen, but that did show artifacts. I could have continued to watch that fullscreen (it wasn't that bad), but there was no need as my eyes are maybe 15 inches from the screen.

This is an old (4-year-old) laptop running Windows 2000, and the video is fine. MSNBC online also has video clips, basically news stories that I can click on an watch at any time. One very interesting note is that when MSNBC went to the commercial break, it played looped music of the MSNBC election theme music and an animated image saying MSNBC's Live Coverage Will Resume Shortly" along with their animated graphic (Decision 2006) and a reference to a politics web site that I did not get down quickly enough. I like Chris Mathews (who doesn't?), but I am hoping to check other news sites right now.... cbsnews.com and it almost 6 PM EST.

cbsnews.com's page is very busy with many screen shots of individual stories but I don't see anything that looks like a link to live video other than one for the CBS Evening News that is not on air, I assume, right now. I clicked on the link to CBS Evening News and was asked to login. I did not do that on MSNBC, but it's possible that I have login information stored in a cookie for MSNBC.

On to abcnews.com at 6 PM EST...The abcnews.com site looks far different from the cbsnews.com site. In fact, it looks somewhat archaic and over-simplified compared to the flashy, busy cbsnews.com home page. News of Britney Spears' divorce is part of a slideshow of news stories I could choose. There are a massive number of stories listed by title, so many that it looks like the bibliography in the back of a book. I hate to do this because I am enjoying the MSNBC audio (it's still running in a different window) but abcnews.com has a podcast of "lawyers on stand-by" for voting problems (sponsored by AT&T). The podcast has a music bed and a report of about 60 seconds from Brian Ross, ABC News' investigative reporter. Under a text banner saying "Breaking News" ABC cites an exit poll showing "FIRST PRELIMINARY EXIT POLL RESULTS: NEARLY 6 IN 10 VOTERS DISAPPROVE OF THE WAR IN IRAQ AND THE WAY BUSH IS HANDLING HIS JOB" (sorry, cut and paste job and I don't want to clean it up right now).

So far, only MSNBC has impressed me, so let's switch to the other cable news networks starting with Foxnews.com. It is now about 6:15 PM EDT. The foxnews.comhome page is very different fromthe others. It is clean with only a relatively few headlines. I see a link to Brit Hume at 7 PM but so far do not see a link for live video at the moment...still looking. I see as soon as I scroll down that the site looks more like cbsnews.com with lots of individual stories and "celebrity" foxnews.com reporters (including Alan Colmes). I see there is a headline saying "Americans voting to decide which party controls Congress; widespread polling complaints; FBI probes claims in Virginia." abcnews.com used the word "sporadic." Chris Mathews reported that a liberal organization was offering a $250,000 reward for information about any voter intimidation taking place across the country. What must the rest of the world think?

I have to fly now to cnn.com which, like foxnews.com, has a simple "above the fold" appearance with a picture of three voting booths and a small graphic showing the Senate as currently configured (yes, blue and red seats in a barf chart) and an ad on the upper right portion of the screen. In looking for a live feed I see that I am asked to join CNN's pipeline for $2.95/month or "Save 20%" if I order the entire year. They appear to be charging for what msnbc.com is giving free. The rest of the site is like a smaller version of the very littered abcnews.com site with cnn.com showing far fewer links. I'm surprised unless I am missing something here.

I now will got to news.google.com just out of curiosity and the second story listed is, again, Britney Spears and the top headline is "Tight legislative races could bring new faces to Salem" as in Oregon. I'd love to have a google employee explain how that's their "top" story (again, it could be tied to my searching habits on google, I just don't know). I clicked on the U.S. tab on the left under Top Stories and here it is: Highlights from national exit poll in US midterm electionsInternational Herald Tribune - 30 minutes ago. So this story was posted apparently at about 6 PM EST. "The survey was conducted for The Associated Press and television networks by Edison Media Research/Mitofsky International among 8,344 voters nationwide, most of them as they left 250 randomly selected precincts Tuesday. The sample included 1,500 absentee or early voters interviewed by telephone during the past week in 10 states with heavy early voting. Margin of sampling error plus or minus 2 percentage points for the overall sample, larger for subgroups." What strikes me is the condemnation of the way things are going in Iraq, 8 in 10 respondents said the economy was "very important." This rendition does tie the issues to how the respondents voted.

It is now about 6:30 PM EST and cbsnews.com's link to the broadcast of The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric is basically a dead link. I can watch last night's brodcast apparently, but right now I see a still image of 5 voters in open voting "booths." I canot find anything that will let me watch Katie Couric "live." OK, I tried again and am now seeing last night's CBS Evening News. Pretty weak.

Blogger went down so I kept writing on the computer and here comes the cut and paste: As of about 6:50 PM EDT it appeared that CBS News was starting to load, but the traffic on the net may have something to do with it. However, MSNBC still came in fine. Blogger.com apparently is down which, I am very sorry to say, happens far too often in my opinion. I've got to migrate to something better.

I am listening to Keith Olberman giving the AP report on exit polls and this is the most detailed report I have heard. Olberman said specifically that they had to be carefuol reporting the numbers because they are so "large." The MSNBC coverage seems to be saying the Democrats have everything going for them, and yet are confused by exit polls saying the economy was OK (which may have been influenced by lower gas prices say I).

MSNBC keeps on trucking with no problem. I forget to check nbcnews.com but will do that now.

OK, nbcnews.com goes on to msnbc.com so Brian Williams is offline, presumably.

It is now nearly 7 PM EST and so those states where the polls close at 7 will be fair game for the media (which is odd to me because I am sure there are going to be people in line to vote that surely will not be turned away). MSNBC has been the online goliath so far tonight and they are into a commercial break during which, again, there is no advertising on the web video feed.

MSNBC reports that people still in line in Virginia will be allowed to vote despite the 7 PM official closing time. Coming to about 7:10 PM and blogger is down yet again, but MSNBC keeps going.

I will check pbs.org now as I had not thought about them. It appears that there is no live video feed but I will keep looking. OK, at http://www.pbs.org/newshour/ there are very few stories, easy to read, and it appears there are video stories but I'm checking for a live feed. This reminds me that C-SPAN might have a live video feed. OK, this is yesterday's News Hour.

Incredible. cspan.org is owned by an Internet squatter. c-span.org is almost all text and links to individual stories. They do have links on their site maps to the C-SPAN channels. C-SPAN 1 is carrying something about election/voting standards, but the video is not coming though, just the audio. I take that back, the video has now arrived. The feed is live but the content apparently is a committee hearing. So, they may com online at 8 PM.

I'mgoing back to cbsnews.com to see if they still have last night's broadcast online. I am really surprised by this because it was "advertised" as being a broadcast/webcast simulcast. Now cbsnews.com isasking for a userid and password. I am in, a connection attempt is being made. The video player says ready but there is no play button. A right mouse-click resumes the attempt to connect. I must return to MSNBC if for no other reason than to see how my Internet connection is doing.

cbsnews.com is failing to connect.

OK, MSNBC loaded quickly, this time in Firefox, there was a 15 second spot for Panasonic and it took a little extra time to start in Firefox (I even got a video clip of a presenter saing that it was checking to be sure I had the right video player). OK, I am back to the same Panasonic ad and now "we begin this hour." There is daylight so this story is obviously old. I will go back to IE 6 to check MSNBC. Incredibly (to me), MSNBC came onlineon IE in just seconds.

I see a headline that there are voter problems in, where else, Florida, again. Where's Jimmy Carter when you need him? Who would have thought we'd need some outside observer to check on topics like voter intimidation, misinformation on where they needed to go to vote by mystery telephone callers, and more. To the best of my knowledge, all of the accusations are against the Republicans. I don't believe I have seen one issue that Democrats or their allies are being accused of. It's as if the Republicans want to be remembered in 2006 for scandal after scandal.

Robert Byrd is re-elected in West Virginia to continue his Senate service that began in 1958. Ted Strickland, minister, is the new Democratic governor in Ohio (7:35).

Fast forward to 8:20 PM, foxnews.com does not have live video from the TV side, but they ARE doing a video stream of Fox News Radio "You Decide 2006." Rather weird, and I wonder how many people would bother with this. But, if you're an old radio guy like me, it's kind of nice to see a crowded radio booth. Obviously, to anyone who doesn't think Fox is really "fair and balanced," it will be interesting to see how Fox covers what some would assume is "bad news" from Fox's perspective.

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You may use this content (better still, argue with me!), but please cite my ideas as © 2006, Dr. Bruce Klopfenstein. Find any typos! Don't smite me, let me know!

iTV Sites Update: 6 November 2006

The following results were found from a search on Google using these 4 keywords:

interactive television demonstration projects 2006

They are listed in the order given by Google to utilize Google's metadata solutions. I chose which made the most sense for my work. There are so many interactive television projects from the past (1980s through the 2000s that no longer exist that I added 2006 to the seearch keywords).

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• ATSC Does Interactive TV Demonstration Project from tvtechnology.com which also has many more links.
  
• Interactive Television Made Easy This course aims to introduce participants to the latest research on interactive television and how the broader digital design community can contribute more easily to iTV service creation. The course includes a FREE introduction to the iTV creation toolset, SATSUMA.
  NMK is a learning and business information hub for companies and individuals working in UK digital media. NMK runs an open-access website, http://www.nmk.co.uk/, packed with articles, commentary and white papers. In turn, we produce a programme of topical and high-level events and courses, perennially well received due to the extensive research NMK undertakes to provide the broadest and most relevant perspectives. All events are offered at minimal cost to delegates to provide an accessible mix of knowledge and experience sharing combined with networking opportunities.
  
• Interactive Tele-Journalism A platform for low cost, live, interactive news television that is in development (ITJ Project Beta Released August 2006).
  
• OpenCable™ technology
  
• http://www.glowpoint.com/ is a company that was pushing into a variety of video products. Their earnings report webcast on 20 April 2006 is a study in how competitive this business has already become. This webcast covers a the company's restructuring. In addition, it shows how perilous it can be to get excited about a press release.
  
• The Future of Television in Canada Prepared for the The Banff World Television Festival 2006: June 8, 2006
  
• 2007 International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces Since 1997, the annual conferences on Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI) have been the principal international forums for the presentation and discussion of outstanding research and applications involving intelligent user interfaces, a field that intersects Human Computer Interaction and Artificial Intelligence.
  

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You may use this content (better still, argue with me!), but please cite my ideas as © 2006, Dr. Bruce Klopfenstein. Find any typos! Don't smite me, let me know!

Back in the Saddle Again

Lots of news from me and the University of Georgia. First, we are now a member of the New Media Centers Consortium (http://www.nmc.org) which will make it easier for us to get hardware and software for interactive television research. Second, I'm under contract with the new owner of Lawrence Erlbaum Associates to finish my book on interactive television. I've given myself a very tight schedule in order that it be ready for fall 2007 (which is unrealistic unless I pull a rabbit out of my hat...which I've done before). Third, we've been offered new digs as to where the iTV lab will go which includes many offices of various sizes. So, now is the time to get to work. It's aways easier for me to write when the weather turns grey and chilly.

So, see http://www.nmc.org for what other members are doing and I believe we are the only ones working with interactive television (although that will surely change and quickly as other North American academics will be jumping on the band wagon now that it's clear iTV is here to stay.

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You may use this content (better still, argue with me!), but please cite my ideas as © 2006, Dr. Bruce Klopfenstein. Find any typos! Don't smite me, let me know!