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Recently, whilst touring the US, I heard a lot of talk about Televisions with built-in Internet Access.
I remember when there was much talk about an Apple and Sony merger, as we all know this did not materialise – well not yet anyway!
I was also surprised that when looking around Best Buys, a popular US electronics retail outlet, I (maybe it was me!) could not locate any Internet Radios. I was passed from department-to-department. Maybe I was asking the wrong questions. At one point I was directed to the car radio department, they then they told me to visit the Blue-Ray section!?
This morning CEO Mitchell Berman announced that Zillion, a TV-on-the-Internet service from the privately held start-up Vaenco, had added a new element to its distribution strategy: In addition to offering its on-demand programming through Internet service providers, Zillion will serve consumers directly. To promote both approaches, Berman said the company is working with consumer electronics manufacturers to embed enabling technology in their Internet-enabled TV sets and set-top boxes (e.g., Blu-ray disc players). These devices won’t become available until the second half of next year, however; nor does the company expect to move beyond trial deployments with ISPs this year.
In an interview earlier this week, Berman said …
… the company’s focus remained on striking partnerships with ISPs — in particular, telephone companies. (Cable operators, whose pay-TV businesses are ZillionTV’s main competitors, have been understandably cool to Zillion, although Berman said he continues to try to strike deals with them.) For telcos, Zillion serves two purposes: It gives them a video service they can bundle with their phone services at no extra charge, and it encourages their customers to sign up for higher DSL speeds. But Berman said Zillion wanted to be able to promote its service to everyone in the country, which led to the decision to offer its service directly to the public in areas where it has no ISP partner.
Does this mean the start of true convergence?
NB Convergence has to be both both a hardware and easier software perspective, almost bordering on The Semantic web, i.e: Web 3.0.
The video is interesting as it suggests a personalised service. Does this mean we have control on the adverts & tags!?
The real question has to be if all that we have to watch is Reality TV, at least it will be easier to vote!
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