More great news from THE SHOW! Western Show II
OK - that last post took a while, but let's try one more.
First I should say again that I own 2 stocks, IATV, TVGIA. Now, I want to comment on something that Advocate first mentioned in his report: The middleware guys, our friends Liberate and OpenTV.
Do you guys (and dontdump) know what the major difference is between those two competitors? I know someone here said it before me - Liberate is a WEB BASED platform, while OpenTV is TV-CENTRIC. Yeah, Liberate is pretty cool - it's very complicated, and yes it allows you do interact with your television - with an internet-centric approach. You know, web pages, web-based email, real-time stuff - I mean, let me be perfectly honest - I REALLY dislike the old WGAT/WebTV internet over television thing, but I do like the idea of having certain practical internet-based capabilities at your fingertips while watching TV.
Now, OpenTV on the other hand is TV-centric in that they give you interaction that generally keeps you the viewer in one place - on the show your watching - which is exactly where the cable guys and advertisers want you. They sure as hell don't want you wandering around the internet while their ads and shows are getting blown off. And, Open TV let's you do a bunch of other stuff too - like play-along games, TV-mail and banking, etc. But you'll notice if you read the "About OpenTV" parts of their PRs, their is no mention of the internet at all, while Liberate has it mentioned every other word.
Ok, so what the heck does any of this have to do with ACTV. Well, OpenTV has a distinct advantage in that they are TV-centric, and that they already have a WIDELY deployed and used product...but where Liberate has them by the bananas is that they are OPEN-Standards based, in bed with all them ATVEF guys (with tons of dough and influence), and they can give you the internet content to go along with your TV show. Well, Advocate was absolutely right when he said that OpenTV can actually work with a lot more systems then you think, and I asked demo-dude point blank and he said they are "moving in that direction" and although they believe ATVEF is lame, because of its power, they may need to go that route and "NO it would not be a problem." That being said, what about the web content for enhancement of televsion broadcasts? I have absolutely no idea about this, but I wonder who is a content-enhancement company, a tv-centric company, a company with a patent portfolio that covers Internet content, both pushed and pulled, a company that does Individualized Television - including various camera angles that the viewer controls and stats and replays, with a partnership in this endeavor with Fox Sports -
while OpenTV gives a demo with cameral angles, stats, & replays a few booths down using the Fox Sports covered World Series...
Can You Say Partnership With OpenTV?
Remember what I was saying about bringing HyperTV to the masses over a single box...in essence, preping them for convergence.....and eventually getting to a point where the product is streamlined into a more ubiquitous app? A TV-CENTRIC APP??
Remeber how many points sorry Worldgate went up when they announced their deal with OpenTV a few days ago? (10)
And we haven't even mentioned the probability that Digial ADCO is going to be in every digital settop box in America, and the fact that TV Guide release 15 hits various cable systems in Feb, which will lead to our HITS integration a month later and then we're beamed to everybody.
I love this stuff.
Courtesy of Video killed radio nerd.
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