Skip to main content

The Birth of eV



The BBC just launched a new version of its iPlayer ap for people with a web connected TV.
The Beeb has an enormous store of content and a less restrictive model than most commercial broadcasters. As both content creator and distributor it can decide its own rules. While this might be a unique position in the market and give the broadcaster a slightly unfair first mover advantage it does offer a glimpse of what ‘TV’ might mean in the future that is converging upon us.

Features of the new app:

•    on-demand
•    advanced search
•    playability on multiple platforms - mobile and static.

Audiences have become used to adding layers of experience to television viewing. TV remains a channel with few restrictions on quality based on bandwidth. It is a fire hydrant compared to the relative trickle of the web. In recent years a significant proportion of the viewing audience have also overlaid secondary media to their viewing experience. Laptops, tablets and smartphones mean engaging with a show can aslo mean engaging with other fans in real time to augment the experience.

The new BBC iPlayer app targets TV buyers who like:

•    interactivity,
•    social networking,
•    TV on-demand,
•    email.

The system can:

•    flip between the various BBC TV and radio,
•    refine content by category or featured content,
•    list favorites.
•    Simultaneously browse while watching a selection,
•    search content by phrase like Google.

The app is initially only for Sony, but will be rolled out for other platforms.
Still it is slick and points the way forward to how we will enjoy eV in the future.

Comments

  1. I myself is a little surprised hearing it. All in all, im happy about it.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ze Frank thinks so you don't have to

Ze Frank appeared on my radar when I saw his presentation among the excellent TED Talks videos . This morning I was reading Russell Davies planning blog in which he referred to a clip by Ze Frank - Where do ideas come from. Here's the transcript: "...Hungry Hippo licks Aunt JEmima [sic] writes, "Are you ever gonna break into song again? Are you running out of ideas?" Hungry Hippo licks Aunt JEmima, that's a good question. I run out of ideas every day! Each day I live in mortal fear that I've used up the last idea that'll ever come to me. If you don't wanna run out of ideas the best thing to do is not to execute them. You can tell yourself that you don't have the time or resources to do 'em right. Then they stay around in your head like brain crack. No matter how bad things get, at least you have those good ideas that you'll get to later. Some people get addicted to that brain crack. And the longer they wait, the more they convince themse...

Johnny Bunko competiton

The Great Johnny Bunko Challenge from DHP on Vimeo . There's a young chap in Indiana, one Alec Quig , who has written to me about creating a career based on a polymathic degree, from which he has recently graduated. He's an interesting young man and his concerns about going forward in life are the anxieties we all face at crossroads in our lives when we are forced to make choices. Dan Pink's latest book The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You'll Ever Need might help: "From a New York Times, BusinessWeek, and Washington Post bestselling author comes a first-of-its- kind career guide for a new generation of job seekers.There's never been a career guide like it.the fully illustrated story (ingeniously told in Manga form) of a young Everyman just out of college who lands his first job. Johnny Bunko is new to parachute company Boggs Corp., and he stumbles through his early days as a working stiff until a crisis prompts him to find a new job. St...

Why billboards must go.

The problem with billboards and advertising in public places is they are an invasion of privacy. Unlike magazine, tv, radio (etc) advertising you cannot choose to turn it off or avoid it. Nor does it offer anything in return. It is a medium that offers no benefit or advantage to the person it is inflicted on. At least television ads subsidise the programming. Without doubt some billboards are entertaining - I thought the anti GE poster for short lived MADGE activist group was particularly good. But most are rubbish. Literally. Badly executed. Nothing important to say. The debate has led to a great deal of hysteria - mostly from people with a vested interest in perpetuating the deployment of hoardings. Perhaps the idea that the issue at stake is 'property rights' is the creepiest. If you own a building you have every right to plaster anything you like on its external surfaces. Is that an antisocial point of view? I think so. In the UK you could have an ASBO slapped on you for si...