ACTV is the "Killer App" that everyone has been looking for their story has not even begun as of yet.
What I found to be significant is what others have been saying about ACTV. On October 5th Liberty Media announced that they will transfer their 86% in TCI Music to Liberty Interactive. That was the first step in developing channels in addition to sports programming using ACTV technology. In a short amount of time it will become apparent as to the depth of the relationship between Liberty Interactive and ACTV.
This is from the Oct. 5th release-
"One of the first things that Masters said he will look at is TCI Music and interactive opportunities involving music, such as selling CDs.
"We've been working in the last year very much in line with the vision of Liberty Interactive," The Box president Alan McGlade said.
Liberty Media is publicly on record saying that Wink et al are nowhere on the radar scope. This is what an anonymous source from Liberty Media had to say about other companies-
"A source inside a Liberty affiliate company said the natural preference will be to work with Liberty Interactive, and not with an outside vendor, such as Wink Communications Inc. or ICTV.
"I wouldn't want to be a shareholder in any one of those companies," the source said. "Why would TCI, for example, work with them when they have Lee Masters building them something specific to their needs and working in concert with companies like us?"
Several weeks ago, in an apparent prelude to creating its interactive unit, Liberty acquired a 10 percent stake in interactive-program company ACTV Inc. for $5 million.
"We like the kiretsu of relations that exist within our family," one official with a Liberty-owned company said.
Liberty, armed with a $5 billion cash war chest from its sale of certain assets to AT&T Corp., will finance Liberty Interactive, the first mandate of which is to create enhanced-video content tailored to advanced-digital set-tops."
The use of ACTV will not stop at the regional-sports-network level: The two companies have formed a joint venture that will explore other applications of the technology.
Liberty vice president David Jensen said that when TCI tested ACTV's technology in Ventura County, Calif., the "four-plex" approach was used with children's shows, news and game shows.
"Clearly, there are other areas of programming that can be enhanced with the ACTV proprietary technology. We're interested in exploring all of those," he said, adding, "It's a great business [with] just sports."
Jensen said ACTV also has some potentially important patents, including ones covering the interface between streaming video on the Internet and on TV.
The internet technology will be used in the interactive advertising that John Malone has fixated on doing shortly. Here are those patents-
United States Patent 5,778,181Hidary, et. al.Jul. 7, 1998
Enhanced video programming system and method for incorporating and displaying retrieved integrated internet information segments
Inventors: Hidary; Jack D. (New York, NY); Ullman;Craig (Brooklyn, NY).
Assignee: ACTV, Inc. (New York, NY).
ABSTRACT
A system for integrating video programming with the vast information resources of the Internet. A computer based system receives a video program with embedded uniform resource locators (URLs). The URLs, the effective addresses of locations or Web sites on the Internet, are interpreted by the system and direct the system to the Web site locations to retrieve related Web pages. Upon receipt of the Web pages by the system, the Web pages are synchronized to the video content for display. The video program signal can be displayed on a video window on a conventional personal computer screen. The actual retrieved Web pages are time stamped to also be displayed, on another portion of the display screen, when predetermined related video content is displayed in the video window.
23 Claims, 3 Drawing Figures
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United States Patent 5,774,664Hidary, et. al.Jun. 30, 1998
Enhanced video programming system and method for incorporating anddisplaying retrieved integrated internet information segments
Inventors: Hidary; Jack D. (New York, NY); Ullman; Craig (Brooklyn, NY);Spivack; Nova T. (New York, NY). Assignee: ACTV, Inc. (New York, NY).
Abstract
A system for integrating video programming with the vast information resources of the Internet. A computer-based system receives a video program and uniform resource locators (URLs). The URLs, the effective addresses of locations or Web sites on the Internet, are interpreted by the system and direct the system to the Web site locations to retrieve related Web pages. Web pages related to the video programming appear upon receipt through the user's browser. The video program signal can be
displayed on a video window on a conventional personal computer screen.The actual retrieved Web pages can be time stamped to also be displayed, on another portion of the display screen, when predetermined related video content is displayed in the video window. The computer-based system can receive the URLs embedded in the video program or directly through an Internet connection, at times specified by TV broadcasters in advance. The system interprets the URLs and retrieves the appropriate Web pages. The Web pages are synchonized to the video content for display in conjunction with a television program being broadcast to the
user at that time. This system allows the URLs to be entered for livetransmission to the user.
3 Claims, 4 Drawing Figures |
