Interviews

[itvt] has just published the latest edition of Rick Howe's regular column, "The iTV Doctor Is In!" This week, NBC Universal's VP of digital distribution, Michael Aaronson, provides a detailed overview of how the broadcaster brought interactive TV coverage of the Winter Olympics to AT&T U-verse TV, Cablevision, Comcast, DirecTV, DISH Network, Oceanic Time Warner Cable, and Verizon FiOS TV.

In addition:

[itvt] has just published the first in a new series of columns from "The iTV Doctor Is In" columnist, Rick Howe. Entitled "The iTV Doctor: Profiles" and sponsored by HSN, the columns will profile various prominent figures in the interactive TV industry, starting with Joan Gillman, president of media sales at Time Warner Cable.

[itvt] has just published the latest edition of Rick Howe's regular column, "The iTV Doctor Is In!" This week, Sangita Verma, founder and CEO of TAG Networks, explains how that company's interactive TV games channel on Oceanic Time Warner Cable is beating major linear programming networks in terms of average daily viewing minutes. (Note: [itvt] would like to thank Rick for moderating the highly praised panel, "The iTV Doctor Is In!: The Operating Room," at the TV of Tomorrow Show last week.)

[itvt] has just published the latest edition of Rick Howe's regular column, "The iTV Doctor Is In!" This week, Tyler Slocum, senior director of advanced services at DirecTV, discusses the satellite TV operator's app store and its line-up of widgets.

[itvt] has just published a radio interview with Braxton Jarratt, co-founder and CEO of Clearleap, an Atlanta-based company which offers a technology platform for bringing Internet-sourced video content to television sets.

[itvt] has just published the latest edition of Rick Howe's regular column, "The iTV Doctor Is In!" Last month, the good doctor announced a new feature called Looking for a Gig, that sees him inviting readers who are looking for a new job "whether full-time or part-time, permanent or temporary, salaried or contract," or who are just interested in seeing what's out there, to email him a brief description of their capabilities.

[itvt] has just published the latest edition of Rick Howe's regular column, "The iTV Doctor Is In!" This week, GW Shaw, executive director of AT&T U-verse marketing, discusses AT&T U-verse TV's interactive TV apps strategy, and how that strategy has been shaped by what it has learned from its customers since launching its first ITV apps back in 2006.

[itvt] has just published the latest edition of Rick Howe's regular column, "The iTV Doctor Is In!" This week, the iTV Doctor is launching a new feature called "Looking for a Gig," in which he invites readers who are looking for a new job "whether full-time or part-time, permanent or temporary, salaried or contract," or who are just interested in seeing what's out there, to email him a brief description of their capabilities. He will then publish these in his column as he receives them.

[itvt] has just published the latest edition of Rick Howe's regular column, "The iTV Doctor Is In!" This week, various interactive TV industry notables--including Mike Bloxham of Ball State University's Center for Media Design, Allison Dollar of the iTV Alliance, Jaspal Bhasin of itaas, Glen Friedman of Ideas & Solutions, and Gary Arlen of Arlen Communications--weigh in on the buzz around 3D TV at the recent Consumer Electronics Show.

[itvt] has just published the latest edition of Rick Howe's regular column, "The iTV Doctor Is In!" This week's column features Peter Flood, head of business development for North America at Playcast Media, discussing how that company's technology enables video games--including sophisticated console games--to be played on legacy set-top boxes.

Five companies in the interactive TV and online games/gaming space--Accedo Broadband, Betfair, PlayJam, RallyPoint and Two Way Media--announced Tuesday that they are establishing a new forum for the development of games on connected TV. The companies say that online games are a major driver in the multiplatform digital entertainment arena, attracting 38% of Internet users and generating billions of downloads via mobile and digital TV platforms, and that they believe such games will act as a "prime motivator for consumers to connect their TV's to the Internet."

[itvt] has just published the latest edition of Rick Howe's regular column, The iTV Doctor Is In! This week, the iTV Doctor, along with Will Kreth, senior director of advanced video strategy at Time Warner Cable and founder of OEDN (the OCAP/EBIF Developer Network), and Mike Bloxham, director of insight and research at Ball State University's Center for Media and Design, project themselves into the future and attempt to answer the question: What was the single most significant factor that led to interactive TV's success in 2012?

[itvt] has just published an interview with Professor Tom DeFanti, the principal scientist behind the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology's (Calit2) new 3D immersive visualization system, NexCAVE. Also participating in the interview is Dave Walton of JVC, the company whose 3D HD LCD monitors form a crucial component of NexCAVE.

[itvt] has just published interviews with Sezmi co-founder, chairman and president, Phil Wiser, and with Microsoft Xbox Live general manager, Marc Whitten.

Wiser discusses Sezmi's platform (a set-top box-based offering which the company bills as "combining traditional TV content, movies and Internet video in a single, easy-to-use product and service"), its programming partnerships and its various interactive, social and content-discovery capabilities; the company's monetization strategy and roadmap for the

[itvt] has just published an interview with Peter Low, president and CEO of interactive TV authoring solutions provider, Ensequence. Low, whose appointment as CEO was announced in September, discusses his new role at Ensequence, outlines the strategic trajectory of the company's flagship iTVManager platform, provides statistics and other information on the company's various deployments around the world, explains how the company is responding to the emergence of connected TV, and shares his thoughts on the implications for the company of the US cable industry's plans for template-driven interactive TV.