All of the hardware is there for a ‘new’ internet driven TV experience. A experience that could bring people to the couch and away from the computer for internet video.

The movie rentals on these services are still a bit pricey, but they are as simple to rent and purchase as changing a channel.

I watch a fair amount of youTube and video podcasts with my AppleTV, it works quite well and I can share the viewing experience with my wife and friends.

The days of people hunched around a desk for a over the shoulder viewing experience could be numbered…

I find it relaxing sitting on a chaise lounge watching a HD TV. For the most part laptops have whining fans and are quite hot to the touch and tuff to get cozy with…

On the other hand, Mr. Hodgetts puts together a great point of view as well. Fragmentation is a big issue and will only grow over time. I like what he is doing with the Open Television Network.

For both content creator and consumer, I think discovery and search will be the crucial element of success. In the fragmented world that is getting bigger by the day, how will the creators content be found? How will the consumer find what they want?

This is closely followed by the concern over how a creator will make enough money to survive in a small niche-based world of viewers. Advert does not work in niches or fragments. imo, this is where Mr. Pittman is still right. Only TV has the scale to generate enough cash to pay significant amounts to creators. On the other hand, Mr. Hodgetts, with his pay per download model at OTN, is going to be right eventually, since pay per download works in niches. Although you still need lots of downloads!
JB

That’s the point Mr Pittman fails to see – eventually the aggregated viewers of “niche” programming are more people than are viewing the lowest common denominator of broadcast. Cable did it to broadcast having overall more viewers about two years ago. It may take another 10 or 20 years but it is inevitable that programming – not just short form consumer generated programming – but all programming will come via an on-demand, personalized channel basis. There will be no need for channel programmers when every viewer programs their channel from the pool of available television and movies in a creator to consumer marketplace, like that which we’re creating over at Open Television Network.

Short term, Mr Pittman’s on a safe financial get, long term he’s in the wrong race.

Philip

Most of us, whether we like it or not are at the mercy of half a dozen remote controls all designed by people from other planets (and not the same other planet apparently, unless you happened to buy your AV equipment from the same store, same vendor, same day). I know several households where there is one person who knows how to operate it all, and that person has to carry a beeper to be on-call for everyone else.

Web interfaces, as bad as they are, are trivial by comparison. I think with increased popularity, they will get easier, and the interfaces which will look more like an iPhone, will make current remotes seem like old Soviet military equipment.

More importantly, all “broadcast” media, and I include newspapers and magazines in that, have this delightful property of having the advertiser (a department store for example) depend on a middleman for evidence that their ad has been effective.

Face it, most people don’t want to see ads, in any medium, and will often go to great lengths to avoid doing so.

You can “target” ads in a broadcast medium, pots and pans advertised on cooking shows, etc. But not nearly so well as on the Internet where you can develop a profile of each household, if not each member of that household.

Finally, given the ability (assuming we get there at some point) to watch any TV show or movie that has ever been produced, on demand, will make going back to monitoring the broadcast schedules seem very tedious indeed.

Yes, there is a generational change involved, but we are well into it. Mr. Pittman and I are already past the age demographic that most advertisers are interested in and pay top dollar for. Those who are in that demographic are as comfortable with a mouse as with a remote control with thirty buttons on it.