Wednesday, February 14, 2007
57,000 Channels and Nothing On
Bill Gates is one of many Internet TV (IPTV) backers who say broadcast TV is doomed and that the Internet will revolutionize the industry. While he's partially right, let us not forget that TV and then VCRs were supposed to make the cinema experience obsolete, and the Internet was going to kill off newspapers.Both those industries while wounded are still bigger than the IPTV industry likely will ever be. The problems with IPTV will include an overabundance of choice, the lack of easy navigation, and inferior quality when compared to broadcast. I'm sure I could find 24 hours worth of interesting shows on YouTube et al, but it would take a month's worth of filtering through garbage.
Most folks today haven't mastered the art of finding quality shows amongst the 300 channels on their cable or satellite system. IPTV will put tens of thousands of programs at your fingertips, but without a TiVo-type guide to sort through the multitudes. IPTV will be composed of niche (ie vertical) programming, and connecting the tulip gardening enthusiast with appropriate programming will be a challenge. The most likely way to find these customers is to partner with the existing online brands today for verticals (such as cars and gardening), and through TV aggregation services that tag content to match your interest. Organizing TV through personalized RSS feeds are the best way to make sense of what will be a tidal wave of video content.
Also, just as any idiot can blog (ahem), anyone can create a crude program with a camcorder, but they will look like crap compared to the high-production value that TV budgets allow. These programs will be delivered to the living room, but for the most part they won't stand up to today's slick broadcasts.
IPTV will be an extension of broadcast, just as SFGate.com and other publishers have created websites that are extension of newspapers by adding multimedia and social media components. So like it or not, NBC, ABC, and CBS will still be around in 5 years trotting out programs such as Wife Swap.
Posted By John Gartner at 12:24 PM
Permanent Link: 57,000 Channels and Nothing On
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