The Thursday edition of The Wall Street Journal has Walt Mossberg's take on AOLTV.
interactive.wsj.com
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AOLTV Shows Some Promise,
But Isn't Ready for Prime Time
By WALTER S. MOSSBERG
AMERICA ONLINE GETS IT. The colossus of the Internet, which already connects more personal computers than any other company, is also among the leaders in embracing the dawning post-PC era, when online or digital tasks will be more easily achieved using simple Internet appliances -- wired and wireless.
Under the slogan "AOL Anywhere," the company has hatched plans for an extensive line of Internet appliances that will allow its 23 million members, and millions of new adherents who lack PCs, to log onto AOL in new ways. These devices range from pagers and mobile phones to small terminals designed for the kitchen and den.
So it was with great anticipation that I began my test a few days ago of the first of these AOL appliances, a $249 set-top box called AOLTV. It's manufactured by Philips Electronics and is available this summer at Circuit City stores in selected cities, including Baltimore, Phoenix and Sacramento. A full national rollout is set for the fall. Unfortunately, I found that while AOLTV succeeds impressively in a couple of key areas, it has too many rough edges to fulfill its promise.
AOLTV IS A SLIM black box that sits on top of your TV set. It comes with a universal remote and the best wireless keyboard I've ever seen. Two thin manuals and a video provide clear installation instructions. You can register on AOLTV with an existing AOL screen name, which gives you access on the TV to the same e-mail and buddy list as on your PC, or you can register as a new user.
AOL's goal was to go beyond the pioneering efforts of WebTV and build a second-generation box that better integrates the Internet with the TV-viewing experience. AOLTV is all about "enhanced TV," that is, TV viewing enhanced with some of the best features of the Internet.
As with WebTV, you can view standard Web pages, when not watching programs. But AOL aimed to create a TV-centric experience, complete with an electronic program guide for normal TV viewing, special interactive channels, and TV-themed Web material and chat rooms that would appear on the same screen as normal TV shows. Beyond that, AOLTV is designed to leverage the company's huge member network. The idea is that you're an AOL member, no matter what device you use to log on.
AOLTV succeeds at some of those goals. Most notably, you can communicate with other AOL users while watching a TV show in full-screen mode. Using a menu that drops down from a tiny, unobtrusive AOL logo in the upper-left corner of the screen, you can send and receive instant messages with the wireless keyboard. As on the PC, you can use a buddy list and be notified when a pal logs on. You can then swap instant messages in real time, discussing a favorite show or a big game you're both watching, regardless of whether the other person is accessing AOL from a PC or a television set.
You can also join a chat room that's instantly created to discuss every show on TV in larger groups. You can even send and read e-mail while the TV show continues to play in a small window. If e-mail arrives while you're online, AOL's trademark "You've Got Mail!" announcement is heard.
BUT AOLTV FALLS DOWN on the job as a way of organizing and enhancing regular TV. Its electronic program guide is clumsy. It tries to group shows into categories, such as news and sports, but I found the categories confusing. For example, the "movies" category doesn't include the big networks, even though they show movies, and the "networks" category on my box includes an obscure local station that shows news from Taiwan. Adding to the confusion, AOLTV also renumbers all your channels.
Worse, AOLTV is the only television device I've ever seen that doesn't allow you to drop stations from your channel-surfing rotation. Even basic TV sets and VCRs let you prune unwanted stations so they don't slow down your scanning.
Also, the special "AOL channels," which are supposed to integrate TV shows and Web sites, are pretty much useless. During the baseball All-Star game this week, the special interactive sports channel was carrying a story about a basketball coach, when I really craved to see in-depth player stats from the Web. And the system won't play any video clips on the Web.
Set-up was slow and tedious. I got an error message commanding me to call customer support, but the support person was as mystified as I was by the error. The manuals and video had almost no explanation or introduction to the features of the service. The onscreen help was also poor.
If you have a question you want answered, or any other comment or suggestion about Walter S. Mossberg's column, please send e-mail to mossberg@wsj.com
AOL says it's working on many of these problems and predicts that most will be solved in coming months. But even if that happens, there's another impediment to AOLTV: The service, which isn't included in the price of the box, is costly.
New members pay $25 a month, $3 more than AOL members using PCs. Existing PC members must pay an extra $15 a month to add an AOLTV. That high add-on fee is partly justified by AOL on grounds that, for the first time, it will allow multiple screen names in a single account to be online simultaneously, whether one is on a TV and one is on a PC or both are on PCs or TVs. That softens the blow a bit, but it's still not a price structure likely to speed the adoption of a new product.
AOLTV has promise. But it's not ready for prime time. |
