Xnteractive Tv Essay, Research Paper

Interactive TV

The Web and the Internet are the latest technologies to be harnessed by companies trying to develop interactive television. This paper reviews the efforts of technology companies and broadcasters to combine television and the Web in their products and activities, and how users are already using them both at home. It reviews some research on the way that TV and the PC/Internet are used at home, and suggests some way that the Web could be integrated with television use. Unlike earlier interactive television projects, where the innovation was largely conducted behind closed doors and among consortia of companies, the innovation environment in which Web-based interactive television is being developed includes a huge number of existing users, technology and content suppliers who play an active role the innovation process. The concept of social learning is suggested as the area of development of tools to understand the process of technical, social and cultural change around innovation of this sort. In particular the idea of poles of attraction is introduced to understand why a huge numbers of supply side players and users are orienting towards the Internet as a possible solution to interactive television. 1. Introduction Of all the visions of the future of television (note 1), interactive television (I-TV) is perhaps the most radical and powerful. In this vision the ubiquitous television set will change from being a device to watch television shows or films into a home terminal for access to and interaction with networked interactive technology, programs and services. The possibilities and benefits of the technology seem self-evident, if only they can be made to work effectively and at a modest price. Many times we have been told to expect interactive television any day now. (note 2) However, after millions of dollars spent, and many pilots and service closures, most of us are still no closer to having interactive television than a few hundred searchable teletext pages, and some phone-in TV shows. In the efforts to create i-TV, numerous applications and technologies have been tried, with companies attracted by the possibilities of each new generation of technology, and responding to the continuous pressure to develop new products, be they technologies, services or program in order to maintain their share of consumer spending. The explosion of the Internet and Web is a new pole of attraction for interactive television developers that seems to solve many of the problems and uncertainties of earlier systems: all of a sudden the technologies, content, users and uses of interactive services are there and proving very successful, all that needs to be done it integrate them into television. For the analyst of new innovations in television, three issues arise as companies are attracted to the Internet and the Web as a solution to interactive television. 1. Instead of being controlled by a small number of corporate players, the technology and service of the Web and Internet are in the public domain, and changing fast. The innovation environment is diverse, heterogeneous, and involves a multitude of companies and most importantly users in shaping the technology and services, which makes management of innovation more complex and give the market a much stronger voice. 2. There is major uncertainty over the relevance of Web-style interactivity to the use of television. Many commentators believe that content and services on the Internet or designed for the PC terminal may not be relevant for many users of the television, while others bet on the explosion of e-commerce through TV Web terminals. 3. The television is no longer the only window for interactive services to the home. The PC is an increasingly common alternative, and is a more flexible and open platform or interactive services. The cheap web set-top box may restrict innovation and fix service and uses in a way that is frustrating to end users and service providers alike. What is more, there is an emerging paradigm in the technology industry of multiple ‘low profile’ terminals for interactive services. This could turn investment and attention away from both the PC and the television. What links these issues is the importance of the end users as active players in the innovation-diffusion process. It was end- and intermediate-users adopting the Internet and Web that attracted interactive television developers, and it is these users who are now directly involved in the innovation process. This paper uses social learning as an analytic framework of socio-technical change that includes an integration of end users in the innovation and diffusion process. Social learning goes beyond the development and diffusion of technology and content to include the creation of new knowledge, regulations, expectations, institutions and cultural norms. In particular it focuses on the role of users in innovation, including the development of user knowledge and practices, and the interaction between users and producers. In this process different actors (users and producers) orient to poles of attraction, including utopian visions, projects and trials, technologies, regulations, user groups, markets, uses, or emerging cultural norms, all of which may crystallize into real products and institutions or disappear to be replaced by a new ones. The process of creation, diffusion and use of new technology and content is not controlled by those innovating the products. Users and producers of technology and content related to television and new media slowly appropriate and shape each other’s products and patterns of use, learning from each other over a protracted period of time. Previous examples that provide useful parallels to interactive television are the telephone and videotext. Both are network systems which changed as people began to use them, and found how they could be useful in ways that the developers had originally not considered as important. In interactive TV, the Television has always been the dominant pole of attraction for both the producers and users, but only industry was interested in interactive technologies. Industry therefore drove innovation independently of any need or desire of potential users. Now the Internet has emerged, and it is pole of attraction shared by users and producers: the innovation process now is shaped strongly by the market. One outcome is a slow change from early models of technology and content based around individual use of media to one that integrates the existing collective use of media and the social practices that surround media products and technologies in everyday use. At the same time, users are altering their everyday practices of media and technology use with the new systems that are currently available, changing the possible market for new products almost before they have a chance to come to that market. This can be illustrated this by looking at evidence of the first few years of the co-existence and evolution of TV and the Web, covering attempts to integrate them technically, and find synergies between them, from the perspective of technology companies, broadcasters and end users. Looking to the future, this article reviews qualitative research on how people actually watch and use television, and some experiences from current use of the interactive material on computers. Combined with reports of interactive television trials, it is possible to illustrate the rich use of both traditional and newer interactive media in the home. We can then more critically approach the uncertainly over the relationship between the Web and television. Fortunately for the optimists, the Web is not static – developments of services and content that reflect the way television is used at home for could make the Web and TV marriage a success. However in the long run through a slow process of social learning we can see interactive television developing into a richer medium that either the Web or TV offers today, but one that is far from the homogeneous television system of today. 1.1 The Wild World Web – innovation in a open environment Most of the previous attempts to make interactive services for the home have had to start nearly from scratch, and concentrate on creating large-scale technical systems. The television has seemed the most obvious terminal to use as the display. In general, developers worked with technologies and services that, prior to roll-out, were not available to users. They tried to create ready-made systems that could be delivered fully functioning to the public. In general they were able to develop the systems without involving the end users, or at least without them being any more active in the innovation process than as subjects of research or controlled trials. Intermediate users, such as service providers (retailers, information providers, banks, and publishers) who could be persuaded to share in the technology based vision were generally involved in a partnership and exclusive manner. However there is a problem facing developers of these network systems such as interactive television. While the technology can be made to work in the lab, these systems depend on building a critical mass of users (e.g. Rogers 1995 p. 313, Schneider 1991) among many others), and on the content and uses of the system. These non-technical elements are much more difficult and expensive to develop from scratch, and to a large extent out of the control of developers, especially when user participation is voluntary.(Note 3) One way to get round this, is to appropriate or modify an existing and established set of content, technologies and uses and users, and try and dominate the market, or improve that service or technology or extend its use to new users. The idea behind interactive television can be seen as an attempt to appropriate the mass market of television users and the existing infrastructure of television sets in homes. With the rise of the Internet and the Web as mass market interactive technologies and systems, it would seem an obvious choice for i-TV developers to try and use this as a resource for creating i-TV. In many ways it reduces uncertainty and costs associated with designing a system from scratch. However, following this path this completely changes the innovation environment and process. Previous projects were dominated, if not completely controlled, by a small smaller of industrial and government players. The innovation process could be analysed as the interaction between corporate actors, and the individuals working in them. However, the Internet and the Web have evolved and continue to develop in a very different manner. End users and a multitude of intermediate user firms and technology firms have been responsible their development. Many different uses have been established and a huge variety of content exists. There is incredible dynamism in the innovation process, with competition between many technology companies and network service providers. This alternative innovation environment needs a different approach to managing innovation, and the marketing of interactive television. It also requires an analytic approach that can account for the large numbers of actors, especially the end users in shaping the technology, content and its uses. 1.2 The Web and Television an uncertain marriage There is no guarantee that a marriage of television and the Internet would be a happy and prosperous one. There is major uncertainty over the relevance of Web-style interactivity to the use of television. Most simply it is the following: the television is a collectively consumed medium, viewed ‘passively’ and from a distance, sitting in a comfortable chair. In contrast, the Web and computer-based interactive products demand a high level of engagement and interaction with the content, and are used by individuals sitting close to a computer screen. These are thus incompatible uses, technologies and content. While there are strong arguments for this position, it would be naive to accept it without further investigation, especially in the light of existing early-adopter uptake of Web on TV products, and other trials of interactive television. Another factor has also complicated the vision of interactive television. There is now an alternative to the TV as the terminal to the home, the PC. I-TV developers may get a free user network and content, but with it comes competition from the PC, the expectations of existing users, and uses and content developed around the PC not the TV. Many people have both television and computers at home. Does it make sense to develop the television as an interactive terminal, even if there is still a huge number of PC non-owners or users who might use it. These uncertainties, and the on-going process of innovation that accompanies the working out of the answer between the market or users, and the various players of the supply industries, is an important example of complex socio-technical change that needs addressed. 2 The Struggle To Make Television Interactive Interactive television should not be defined as a particular technical or information system : it is a term that has been appropriated and rejected by many of the players trying to change television, and could be applied to many widely different systems. I define interactive television as bringing possibilities of interactive multimedia technology to Television. It is therefore crucial to understand Television to understand what interactive television might be. Television is not just a technical system or a series of programmes. It must be considered as a major business, and placed it in a wider technical and social context. Television is also a mass market and cross-society phenomenon, almost everyone watches TV, and it is the sheer reach of the medium that makes the integration of new technology into Television a major issue. Television is central to most people’s domestic life, and to our cultural, social, political and consumer awareness. In other words, ‘television is everyday life’ (Silverstone 1994). Most people in the developed world, and increasingly in developing countries, rely on television as a primary source of global news, of entertainment, of political awareness, product and cultural knowledge, and a resource to construct and reflect self-identity. It is also embedded in the cultural and political (Williams 1990 (first pub. 1975)): national and now global culture would be very different and may not exist without television in its current form. Television is also an important industry, a huge money earner, and a controversial business that challenges political and cultural norms as is becomes more commercial and international. Interactive television may involve changing television in one or all its aspects. Changes in technology that are worth their investment will certainly run in parallel with changes in the industry, use, content and regulation. The social shaping approach indicates that attempts to create interactive television systems are the result of the interaction of these factors, including commercial interests, competing products, regulation, developing user needs etc (MacKenzie and Wajcman 1985; Williams and Edge 1996), as well as the invention of new technology. Successful i-TV projects will be the ones that take advantage of the embedded nature of technology, however much the most technically sophisticated or creatively daring ones may inspire us. 2.1 A brief history of i-TV Many attempts have been made to develop ‘interactive’ television (Carey 1996). These have been undertaken around particular poles of attraction that provided the motivation for experimentation and change sometimes the technology has been the attraction, sometimes the content, and sometimes the users and consumers. These poles of attraction have generally only been of concern for small groups of technology and infrastructure companies and, on occasion governments wanting to develop industry or infrastructure. The earliest TV systems were two-way communications devices; after the broadcasting model was established, systems such as QUBE in the 1970s used cable systems to provide interactive services involving home audiences, but failed to offer sufficient return on investment (Carey, 1996 #184). The 1980s saw the development of videotext, either broadcast or via a telephone modem, around a model of information searching and browsing. In the 1990s many expensive proprietary interactive television projects were set up, or at least publicised, by technology and network companies anxious to realise long standing science fiction dreams, bolster share prices and generate new revenue streams. Although many of these projects may have ‘failed’, they gave birth to huge numbers of spin-off sons and daughters: media and technology products and formats, business opportunities, engineering and business knowledge and experienced personnel. In addition, much was learned from these trials and services, not least that the services, content and the audience/users are the key factors and these need more that just vast amounts of cash to develop. In the last years of the 1990s, the Internet, and more particularly, World Wide Web content, have emerged to offer a way of providing many i-TV services more easily and cheaply than some of the more technology heavy and commercially integrated systems. In the same way as earlier technologies were grasped upon to provide interactive television, the Web and Internet became one of the poles of attraction for system and business development.