Bring together 120,000 people and more than 2,500 exhibitors in Las Vegas for a few days, and you're guaranteed to make some noise.
No question there was plenty of noise to go around at the annual Consumer Electronics Show two weeks ago. There also was a blizzard of news to sift through, emanating from both CES and pre-CES activity. However, this blizzard of news contained a trio of takeaways that may, depending on the whims of the public, turn out to be early inflection points for how TV will be watched and used this year, this decade and in decades to come.
First, CES brought home the sensation that interactive TV will be available in a widespread way across the country by the end of this year. Every TV set maker, cable, satellite, overbuild operator, and perhaps broadcasters, will offer some ITV services over the next 12 months. Whether powered by EBIF, Tru2Way or operating systems and middleware like Google's Android, interactive service will get to customers. Once again, and you can't say it enough, any Web site, iPhone app or Android app becomes adaptable for the TV set with these forces in place.
Second, there's a huge bet in play that the public will, sooner or later, embrace three-dimensional television technology and services, with or without glasses. The bet involves billions of dollars from the TV set community, as well as from major programmers and distributors from DirecTV to Discovery Communications. Ready or not, Avatar-inspired or not, here comes at least two 3D channel ventures (DirecTV and ESPN) by summer, and more in 2011, including Discovery's collaboration with Sony and Imax. Didn't take long after CES for a wave of naysayers to weigh in on 3D's chances, citing either technology shortcomings or appeal shortcomings.
In Discovery's case, it's the company's second bet on a service ahead of a technology's public reach – the first was HD Theater, created and launched in June 2002, when few believed HD would reach more than a few million early adopters. HD Theater is now available to nearly 50 million digital cable/satellite homes with HD sets.
Rounding out this takeaway trio is the first candidate for out-of-left-field TV development of 2010. Cisco calls it "home telepresence," others call it video telephony. What we have here, announced by Skype pre-CES and showcased by Cisco and others in Vegas, is the ability to make a telephone call and see who you're calling at the other end on your TV screen. There's a lot of possibilities available off video telephony, such as the ability to go back-and-forth between a multi-player videogame competition and seeing who you compete against. Or engage in video multitasking of sorts, by doing both via split-screen.
There you have it – three big possible inflection points in TV history, all resulting from CES. As you contemplate the ramifications of ITV, 3D and video telephony fighting for mass market share, take this away as well: how successful or abominable these ventures become hinges on something simple. Does this technology, do the services using them, hit home with the public? Does the public believe these are new avenues making a positive difference in their lives? How the public answers, ultimately, will determine how inflective these points get.
Until the next time, stay well and stay tuned.
Simon Applebaum is host/producer of Tomorrow Will Be Televised, the Internet radio program covering the TV scene. The program runs live Mondays and most Fridays at 3 p.m. Eastern time/noon, Pacific time on www.blogtalkradio.com. Replays are available 24/7 at www.blogtalkradio.com/simonapple04, and on podcast to any major mobile device through Web download sites arranged by www.sonibyte.com. Have a question or comment? Send it to simonapple04@yahoo.com.
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