Live Internet Television

In an interesting twist, Hulu is experimenting with the approach initially taken and abandoned by Joost, almost as if the companies think the grass is greener on the other side.

When Joost started it was a downloadable, full-screen only, archived TV viewing application with limited content.

VCs came in, scrapped the downloadable application and went with a flash-based web player instead, echoing Hulu.

After launching its Flash-based website with a large menu of archived content, Hulu has since curtailed its plans to distribute with Boxee, and has now created a downloadable, full-screen only, archived TV viewing application.

Hulu’s best decision was to keep its meat-and-potatoes website offering, since the bulk of its viewership originates from its webpage.  Hulu’s downloadable player doesn’t offer users any advantages over its Flash-based player, in either content or functionality.  From a functionality standpoint, Hulu’s player contains the same design flaws as the Joost original.

ivi’s approach to the market is different, and we have a clear point of view about what Internet TV is and can be.

The ivi experience begins with the understanding that websites simply aren’t good live TV delivery mechanisms.  They’re great for relevant video clip delivery and archived video, as websites are easily organized thematically and are searchable.

Live TV, and alpha-state TV viewing, requires channel changing, and most importantly continuously-streamed content. ivi delivers the living room TV experience in a downloadable, stand-alone player.  Unlike the cumbersome “full-screen only” players designed by Hulu and Joost, the ivi player allows multi-tasking, because it can operate in easily customizable window sizes.  Television is coming to every Internet-connected device —  It will be powered by ivi.

With the proliferation of Adobe Flash-based sites streaming live content, including Hulu’s announcement that it is live-streaming a Dave Matthews concert and other the event-streaming done by IBM (US Open) and Microsoft (Beijing Olympics), it’s an exciting time.

Cable and satellite don’t have to fear Internet content cannibalization … yet.  There are still hurdles that have to be overcome before people will entirely abandon their cable or satellite service.  The user experience and bandwidth costs are primary among them.

At ivi we call the traditional TV user experience “alpha-state viewing.”  Users turn on their television and watch whatever is on.  We estimate that traditional television is 90-percent alpha-state viewing.  Interactive viewing and event-based viewing make up the remaining percentage.  Internet television has made strides towards increasing the user experience in interactive and event-based viewing.  However, Internet television has not yet replicated the traditional television experience of: “Let’s see what’s
on!”

Additionally, until the Internet’s transactional delivery model can be turned into a broadcast delivery model, the cost of delivering large scale, broad-appeal video is going to be both cost and bandwidth prohibitive.  The user experience is the ultimate leg up for cable and satellite providers.  Until somebody creates an “alpha-state viewing” experience for Internet TV, users won’t depart cable and satellite in the high volume contemplated in articles like this.

ivi TV was designed to overcome these hurdles. Live Internet TV will be a reality soon.

Great discussion about the Hulu-Disney deal over at NewTeeVee. Liz Gannes and  Chris Albrecht do a fabulous job of teasing apart the interesting issues.

The bottom line is that wrangling over control of content is not going to stop anytime soon, and that — despite strong earnings in this difficult climate — cable companies are working hard to find a an evolution path that keeps them in the game.

Comcast and other cable companies are seeing their core paid distribution businesses get more and more threatened by Hulu, as it starts to fully become the TV receiver for the Internet age. Will the cable companies head to court, like in the UK, where broadcasters’ joint venture Project Kangaroo was deemed to be anti-competitive? You can be sure the giant is no longer sleeping.

“Man on the street” interviews are quite revealing in their own way. They tell the same story as dry statistics, but with more dimension.

TV on your PC posted a video this week that I found quite interesting. ivi TV’s particular interests are bringing the traditional TV experience online and  giving viewers more TV choices including free choices. The media obsession with TV vs. Internet is not that interesting to the consumer. I in particular feel like cable/live TV, archived TV, and live online TV (soon to be available through ivi) are all complementary aspects of true consumer choice. It’s not a Hulu vs. “real” TV option; we want the right TV for each of many contexts. So, the things about these mini interviews that stood out for me are:

1. People appreciate the “relax and veg out” nature of TV in a different way than they enjoy a more participatory Internet experience
2. People like having more TV choices
3. People are looking for ways to save money on TV entertainment
4. People spend A LOT of time on their computers. that can mean that they WANT television to be there, too, or it can eman they want a BREAK from the Internet to watch TV.
5. People are very aware that TV is going online in many ways

What would you want to add to te dialogue about current TV habits and attitudes? I’ve embedded the video below, but make sure to enrich the discussion with your comments!

I Twitter-voted for the iPhone as the most revolutionary productivity tool I adopted in the past year but that doesn’t stop me from going on about how the lack of Flash makes a lot of things invisible to me on the iPhone. I consider Flash overused anyway, so to have all Flash content appear as a little blue lego-thingy or a get-Flash message is extra annoying to me.

Now that TV.com is going after Hulu so aggressively, and has beat them to market with an iPhone app, I’m guessing Hulu, Apple and Adobe will be in even more intensive and productive talks to get Flash onto the iPhone ASAP.  WebTVWire writes:

Just a few days ago, TV.com announced it would be making some short-form content available internationally, breaking the site free of its U.S. only shackles. This is something Hulu has hinted at for months but never actually delivered on.

And now the CBS-owned TV.com has beat Hulu to the punch again, this time releasing an iPhone application. The app offers all iPhone and iPod Touch users the chance to watch TV.com content on their mobile device.

[...] The biggest problem for Hulu is that it uses Adobe Flash to deliver video content, and Flash isn’t yet compatible with the iPhone and many other of the new-generation of mobile devices. Hulu has indicated it’s working on a iPhone app but it’s relying on Apple and Adobe to work together to make Flash available on the iPhone.

It goes without saying that I rushed to download the TV.com iPhone app to check it out. I didn’t find anything I wanted to watch in full episodes, but I did find the utterly charming James Norton of Chow.com doing 1:11 tastings — including a baby food tasting in which he tried to channel his infant palate. His other short tasting videos are great as well.

The TV.com site doesn’t mention the iPhone app, but it does mention episodes of something I found hilarious to imagine — and could only imagine because no episodes were actually available to watch. Perhaps it’s better to imagine than watch anyway when the shows are: