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Dear iTV Doctor:I've heard the reports and read the stories about Verizon FiOS TV putting live TV on the iPad. I understand that iPads and tablets are the hottest thing going, and it's very cool that Verizon FiOS is working with a device that's not even on their network. But there's got to be more to it than just TV, right?iPaddling uPstream
Dear iPaddling:I think there is a...
August 26, 2010 - 10:57pm
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Dear iTV Doctor:I'm writing you anonymously today, because I don't want my friends to know that I really don't understand "The Cloud" as it applies to television content. In fact, I really don't understand "The Cloud" at all. I know that it basically means that I get content from out there (somewhere), but where does it all start and how does it get to me? I know that when our customers make an...
August 17, 2010 - 12:55am
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Dear Readers: Let's do the time warp again this week. We started our PERSPECTIVE series with Full Service Network (1994), then Video Juke Box (1988), followed by Talkback to Showtime (1981). Now we go back to 1977, and the granddaddy of interactive television.It didn't last. The technology worked. The consumers liked it. It even had scale (once the system was built). But they shut it down....
August 13, 2010 - 1:03am
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There were two phones on the desk. Not his desk. (Showtime president) Mike Weinblatt's desk. Mike's was the only office with two phone lines. Both phones were live. One phone was connected to the call center, the other to the uplink in Vernon Valley, NJ. As the numbers changed from the incoming 900#, he calculated the ratios and relayed the results to be displayed on the network. The show airing...
August 3, 2010 - 1:50am
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It was the bells. During the initial meeting, and throughout the day, he kept hearing a bell ring. At the top of the hour. At the bottom of the hour. In the middle of the hour. All the time! It reminded him of an insane high school bell schedule where classes alternated start and stop times to cut down traffic in the hallways. Finally he asked, "What's with the bells?" And when he heard the...
July 25, 2010 - 10:35pm
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Dear Readers:Today we begin our long-awaited series: PERSPECTIVE. Our first chapter deals with Full Service Network. Future columns will discuss QUBE, Video Jukebox, Sega Channel and other ground-breaking interactive TV efforts, and the impact those deployments have on interactive television today. Chapter One: Full Service NetworkThe industry served up a bazillion video-on-demand sessions last...
July 15, 2010 - 9:20pm
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Dear Readers:3D TV mania is clearly upon us. Announcements right and left. More heat than a firestorm. And maybe, just maybe, a viable television business. There are a lot of unanswered questions, and one of the most nagging is "What about all the programming in the can? How do we monetize that?" So, to get to a bit of an answer, I reached out to Hitesh Shah, CEO of The Z Effect, a company that...
July 8, 2010 - 8:36pm
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Congratulations to Steven C. Johnson from Johnson Telecom (http://www.johnsontelecom.com). Steven was top among the 113 brave souls who entered the Interactive TV Trivia Challenge last week. Steven will receive a personalized iTV Doctor lab coat! And for those of you who tried the quiz, and for those who did not, here are the answers. Like I said--it starts easy and gets pretty nasty at the end (...
June 27, 2010 - 11:41pm
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Dear Readers:Inasmuch as summer is upon us, it's time for a bit of summer reading. Something light and fun that might provide a bit of perspective. And that's just what we're going to do--create a series of columns, under the name "PERSPECTIVE," that feature some of the wonderful interactive television work that has gone before. But as we line up contributors to the series, I thought I'd...
June 17, 2010 - 10:07pm
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Dear Readers: Today we have an interesting question about connectivity--putting the "interaction" in interactive television over on another device. You may argue that this is nothing more than the venerable "two-screen interactive TV" of days gone by, but with the superior intelligence (and ubiquity) of smartphones, and the audience power of television, it's worth another look. But before we...
June 10, 2010 - 9:55pm
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The iTV Doctor is Rick Howe, who provides interactive television consulting services to programmers and advertisers. He is the recipient of a CTAM Tami Award for retention marketing and this year was nominated to Cable Pioneers. He is also the co-author of a patent for the use of multiscreen mosaics in EPG's. Endorsed by top cable and satellite distributors, "Dr" Howe still makes house calls, and the first visit is always free. His services include product development, distribution strategy and the development of low-cost interactive applications for rapid deployment across all platforms.
