Interactive TV

Interactive TV can actually be divided into three categories, low interactivity, medium interactivity and high interactivity.

Low interactivity refers to actions like switching channels, volume up or down and etc. Moderate or medium interactivity is like simple movies on demand without player control. High interactivity refers to high involvement from the audiences from where their decisions or participation can alter the whole storyline or the outcome.

Commonly, interactive tv refers to a show or a program whereby people can participate by actively voting for a certain contest to reach the kind of result they want. A return path to the program provider is not necessary to have an interactive program experience.

Matthew Timms, head of programming at Two Way TV in London describes this digital revolution you have heard so much about:

"..somehow they feel they're sitting there, it's just them and the television - even though the reality is it's got a wire leading straight back to somebody's computer. So it actually gets sort of interesting information back."

David Burke in his article reviewed that interactive tv, from the surface, might seem to be a new way of interacting with the audiences, to get that "return path" or response from the audiences, there might be another hidden motive or issue at the back.

For some interactive tv programme, it's about pressing some buttons on the remote control to move on to the next step or choosing the path you want. Every press that you have done will be stored. According to Burke, interactive tv might be promoting another form of invasion of privacy.

Somehow i think it is true. Just like what we've done in the internet can actually be traced as well. Things are no longer simple. From Burke's point of view, it could be another marketing tool as he says:

"This is called your TV set’s “click stream”, and it can be analyzed to create a surprisingly sophisticated picture of who you are and what motivates you (sometimes called “telegraphics”). Such profiles of households or individuals can then be used to target consumers with direct marketing techniques, through their television, in the mail or over the phone."

I personally think it is an insightful article and worth a reading. After reading it, suddenly i feel like interactivity with the media might not be a good thing after all. Oh well, depends on how you look at it actually. The article can be found through this link below:

http://www.whitedot.org/issue/iss_story.asp?slug=shortSpyTV

And there is another website that i found, which is basically an online interactive tv channel. Have a look as well:

http://www.itvt.com/


Till then. Cheers!