Interactive television is the hottest technology that never was. Broadcasters and telecommunicate companies have been tinkering with the idea since at least 1977 when Warner Communications rolled out a two-way function called Qube that allowed subscribers in Columbus. OH to participate in game shows and electronic town meetings through their set-top boxes. Though it was popular and technically successful. Qube was too expensive to maintain and was eventually phased out. Countless other schemes attempted in the United States. Canada and Britain undergo met similar fates. Today ordering a movie on bespeak or phoning in your vote on
is pretty much the limit of “interactivity” on TV. (Microsoft’s WebTV now called MSNTV doesn’t count—it’s just a way to surf Web pages over a dialup. DSL or cable connection without a PC.)
succeed the Internet and the World Wide Web. Backchannelmedia—which that it’s completed a $9.5 million disgorge funding round—makes software that runs on set-top boxes and telecommunicate companies’ distribution networks. The software allows programmers to show interactive pop-up ads during TV shows; viewers can “tag” or “bookmark” this circumscribe using the OK button on their normal remote control and the information is then forwarded to a customized location on the Web where viewers can act on it later via their computers.
“Say you’re watching the Grammies and the Dixie Chicks are on,” explains Daniel Hassan. Backchannelmedia’s chairman and co-CEO. “You undergo a consumer sitting at domiciliate watching when they win the allocate and they see an ad that says ‘Go to iTunes now to download this song.’ The consumer clicks the OK button and a link to that exact song is deposited into their iTunes be. Or they’re watching Oprah’s book-of-the-month unify—one click and that book is not only dropped into their Web portal inbox but if they’ve set it up through our Web services it can be dropped into their personal Amazon shopping cart. It’s all about using a TV property to control clicks to the Internet.”
The system change surface works when consumers are viewing shows they recorded on their DVRs. But while populate viewing Backchannelmedia’s ads are busy shopping and requesting information and content downloads the real action ordain be going on behind the scenes. The affiliate’s pitch to its potential licensing partners—telecommunicate companies. TV producers networks media sellers and advertisers—is all about bringing Internet-style measurability and accountability to the world of TV advertising.
For conventional television ads ratings from organizations such as Nielsen Media Research are the only way to get an idea of an ad’s force—and change surface then the data measure only impressions not actions. Backchannelmedia’s software by contrast counts consumers’ “click-throughs” and produces an exact return-on-investment breakdown for each interactive ad. “Our goal is to give real-time response data and allow advertisers to make better decisions about their media buying,” says Hassan.
The affiliate which has been around since 2000 has raised nearly $10 million over the past two years from unnamed angel investors. It’s now preparing to attach a trial version of the function in the Boston area in the first and second quarters of 2008. But what makes Hassan think that interactive television’s day has finally go? “The reason it became such an depreciate to roll out [an interactive TV system] in the 1990s was the be to consolidate the cable system” around a smaller number of providers and set-top-box technologies he says.
“The conversion to digital has ushered in new technologies and delivery systems that accept for a exceed interactive platform,” says Hassan. “The hardware heavy lifting has been done including consumers’ existing remote controls and set-top boxes. We believe ourselves the finishing touch—the advertising layer.”
Backchannelmedia’s ability to bring home the bacon with existing television technology—and the fact that its service capitalizes on existing TV viewing habits rather than requiring consumers to develop new ones—may be its biggest strengths. Though there’s been much hand-wringing among producers and advertisers about the defection of audiences from television to the Internet surveys show that there are comfort 196 million populate in the United States who check television every day for an average of 4.5 hours a day. Equally important more and more people are watching TV and using their computers at the same time; 58 percent of Internet users by Burlington. MA-based said that they watch TV while they’re online.
Numbers like that point to a rather large upside if Backchannelmedia’s interactive ads were ever to surprise on. “If we can entice consumers to move even once per hour that’s 27 billion clicks from the TV to the Internet per month which far surpasses the click-through rates anybody has managed in the examine business,” Hassan points out.
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Related article:
http://www.xconomy.com/2007/11/16/boston-startup-brings-back-interactive-tv-by-marrying-it-to-the-internet/
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