tracyswedlow's blog

Thanks to Erin Flood and to Will Kreth at Time Warner Cable's OEDN.net for sponsoring our show and for putting together this very nice photo essay of our TV of Tomorrow Show 2010 in San Francisco. Nicely done! On to your next adventure....! Congratulations to Will for his Award for Leadership in Interactive and Multiplatform Television this year! You deserve it.

--Tracy Swedlow, Editor [itvt]

Here's the 3D TV I want in my house. -- Tracy Swedlow, editor [itvt]

Finally am posting the great conversation between Tim Kring and Brian Seth Hurst - it was very well received at the conference.  There are 4 parts to this conversation.

To get to all the videos click here

-- Tracy Swedlow, editor, [itvt]

Noticed that Comcast had created an Interactive Television menu selection on the Main Menu. Once you click it, there is a page branded with a new "iTV" logo (fat, blocky letters) and a call to action offering Caller ID to San Francisco Bay Area Triple Play customers. Is it EBIF-enabled? More on this later. -- Tracy Swedlow, editor, [itvt]

UPDATES:  Mike Ryan, CEO of A Different Engine, sent us some updated info:

1) the app is EBIF and was built by Comcast's TVWorks. Mike says he oversaw the work, which took place over 18 months. Launched within the last 2 months.

Allan Thygesen reported December 22nd that the patent he wrote while at Wink for analog interactive TV was finally approved at the US Trademark and Patent office December 15th! It was filed June 15, 1999. Here are some comments in the screenshot on his Facebook page.  Patent lawyers are certainly thorough.... We hope to hear more on the topic so watch this space. -- Tracy Swedlow

LATEST UPDATE:  Allan Thygesen wrote in...

This funny parody video about the impossibility of Flash on the iPhone features Adobe CTO, Kevin Lynch (right with the beret!), and Adobe's SVP and GM, John Loiacono (left with analogue TV). It was produced for fun for attendees of the Adobe MAX 2009 conference and it expertly echoes the ever popular "Myth Busters" show.  -- Tracy Swedlow, [itvt]

AStoryBeforeBed.com (see a recent news story above) is an incredible find. The concept is simple: purchase a book for $6.99 and then read it via your Web cam as the pages turn. You can annotate the book, too!  Beautifully designed, the final file is saved on the site and then you can send it to your loved ones to view.

I heard about it because a friend of mine Oliver Chin, who has a children's book imprint called Immedium.com (and I edited a few books for him), uses this service to more widely make his books available.

I like to catch up with people in the industry from time to time and find out what they do in time not-obsessed with the trials and travails of the interactive TV industry. Here, we see Bill Niemeyer, ITV strategist and veteran numbers-cruncher, practicing his driving skills around the track.

Bill driving a (rented) Spec Miata race car at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma during an October 2009 Audi Club high performance driving school. This was his 10th track day weekend.

Verizon/Google Droid platform smartphone has a huge interactive digital signage piece in Times Square. You can also go on their Web page and see it streamed live here.

Or, just watch the YouTube video from VerizonWireless TV about it.

-- Tracy Swedlow, editor, [itvt]

Thanks to an [itvt] reader, Nadia Rodakowski, for sending the link to this new Twitter reality real-time show called "Who Is the Bald Guy!!"  The YouTube blurb says "The show takes place live online and let's the viewers decide what happens."  Looks like a mixture of reality and loosely scripted material. Reminds me of the old FX show called Todd TV, which I really miss.

Here is the link to the main page on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/user/whoisthebaldguy

Check out the video for the "NUDE IT" app on the iPhone. I can't believe that's true, but they did a good job at making it look real...

During our recent trip to the UK, the [itvt] editorial team shot a "Day in the Life of..." segment with Softel CEO, Sam Pemberton, at the company's headquarters in the Berkshire village of Pangbourne (near Reading). Softel offers a range of television products including solutions for interactive TV, opt cuing/ad insertion, subtitling and captioning.

Thanks again to the power of YouTube, you can see something amazing on demand as UGC.  -- Tracy swedlow

Found this great interactive TV ivideo series using YouTube annotations technologies made by Canadians, which claims to be the first interactive tennis lesson on YouTube. Tried it out and it's kind of weird and amazing and fun, if you're into tennis. Pretty well done when you consider that the creators (tennis pros) had to think through all the interactive options to make this work. I really give them credit for doing this and not making it cheezy.  -- Tracy Swedlow, [itvt]