Thursday, February 28, 2008

from interactive television to the internet

McPherson's essay got me thinking about why so many features of television have made their way to the internet while internet features on television seem to be fading away. Increased interactivity through things like pay-per-view and home shopping networks paved the way for DVR's and internet TV, but these all seem to be left by the wayside as viewers begin to spend more time in front of their computer screens than their television screens. As a previous post noted, McPherson's essay is a few years old and we now seem to have the faster connections and better graphics capabilities to allow other websites, the progeny of Pseudo and DEN, to provide similar television programs and other "interactive" content on our computers much more easily. But even as the market for things like internet TV is becoming ever more popular in the United States, I am interested in finding out a little more about these technologies in other countries. TiVo ended sales the UK in 2003 because business had declined, but now they have announced that they will begin providing service in Australia sometime in 2008. It might be interesting to discuss in section how "interactive" and "lean forward" technologies as well as content relate to the internet and television and specifically how the relationship between these two media, in terms of the markets for interactive technologies and programming, has changed over the past several years, both in the US and elsewhere.

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