The road to Interactive Television

Interactive television is on its way to the market. There are several activities like the plan of Yahoo to develop a widget channel for tv. It is a useful strategy to transer successful business models. So it happens now with screening rooms, where people can chat while watching.

This is what the german service telewebber offers. People can chat while watching tv. This is done by an online service, which has epg features and lists the tv program so people can meet. Online streams of tv broadcasts within the service may be a future feature. This is what YouTube offers by Streams for internet video.

Another service enhancing the tv experience is blinkx BBTV by blinkx. It is an online tv software enabling full screen tv at the internet. Additionally the software suggests relevant information about what is on the screen. This feature is already offered by some digital television broadcasters.

Actually this all happens at the internet or while being connected to the internet because of the missing backchannel. Whereas this requires some installation opposite to being able to click within a broadcast like doing it on the internet, this is a real business case as real interactive television is or will be based on internet technologies at least in part. The related technology to make digital tv interactive is called MHP, Multimedia Home Platform.

A service using the technology the opposite way by streaming video signals from the internet into a tv broadcast has been introduced lately by the german news channel N-TV. For a talk show called busch@n-tv there is a software available to stream webcam video into the show.

Last but not least a link to a provider of interactive tv applications. At the right of the tru2way homepage you will find a list of licensees with a lot of big players.