Interactive TV In NYC
from the go-go-TV-go dept
Time Warner is making a big deal about their decision to launch interactive TV programming in New York City. There have been a bunch of articles about it. I still wonder, though, if this offering really is any better than a TiVo. I was starting to believe that real interactive TV would come through a TiVo or Replay style box. However, this is more of the traditional style interactive TV that people wasted a decade or so talking about. It does let you order movies, and then pause/fast forward/rewind. It will be interesting to see how well this is adopted, because just about every other test of interactive TV has failed miserably. However, even more important, is that this appears to be Time Warner's attempt to roll out additional services, and take control of all information coming in and out of your house. They want to offer voice, video, and data, all through a single company.
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I already have this...
If I had showtime, skinamax, and hbiou, I'd have interactive video too...
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We even have PVR
Anyway, they were slow in rolling out digital cable, but shortly thereafter started offering Video on demand as well as their own TiVo-like PVR.
Kind of amusing--they offer the PVR and in their ads for RoadRunner cable internet, they talk about how great it is to download music and movies so quickly and easily. But at the same time, their other divisions as part of the music & movie industries have to be going nuts because they don't want sharing of movies & music and want to replace the play button with a pay button. I would have to imagine there are some pretty major internal conflicts between the Media & Communications side and the Entertainment side.
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