Post date: Jan 31, 2011 3:0:50 AM
I am a great stickler for making things as simple as possible. And I don't see any reason why after almost a 65 years of TV, viewers in the future need to go through a lot more hassle to tune in. Think of it! In the age before the Internet and all that technology, all people needed to do to watch TV is to flip a couple of switches. Electronic Program Guides were our response to the hundreds of channels offered by satellite and cable TV. So we traded off a little more inconvenience (and endless hours of surfing frustration) for the greater variety. Internet Radio and TV potentially offers even greater variety than that and from a technical perspective, programming from all around the world is available (technical perspective but not legal). Even EPGs are not practical in this aspect. So increasingly efficient ways to get to content are required. Algorithms require data to work on and the most intuitive way is to search for the content by presenting a set of criteria. Here is the reason why Google and Pandora reign. Yet, not everybody uses google all the time to access sites on the Internet and FaceBook HAS displaced Google as number one website. Similarly, there will be these opportunities in Intenet Radio and TV. So back to the main question, what can make Intenet Radio TV different from Radio TV?
Okay, I've already touched the "more variety" part but according to the Law of Diminishing Returns, the 100,000,000 radio station will not be as valuable as numero uno. On to the next point, Social Networking. To truly capture the spirit of the Internet, all information that has personal value must be sharable with others, promoting interaction. Information that relate to a persons Internet radio or TV favourites must be sharable with others. Some may argue that this is now done through websites like http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/showthread.php?58024-Share-your-favorite-Internet-Radio-stations-here/, but if this were the case, then BBs and online forums would never have allowed a FaceBook or a LinkedIn or a MySpace. Of course the ability to share radio stations would not a FaceBook make, but one has to start somewhere. One more point is required for interaction and that is 2-way communication. Not only do I need to be able to share out my favourite internet radio stations but I also need to tell those I share with what I think of it or perhaps to do a running commentary on something that is being broadcast at the moment.
The third difference I believe, is also seen in how I keep mixing up Radio and TV. Internet Radio or Internet TV players are pretty much the same from a software perspective. In the case of mVrdo, I limited the application to Internet Radio for two reasons.
1. mobility, mobile platforms here are still short of horsepower to decode the higher quality videos available on the net.
2. availability, there are limited video clips on the net but far fewer free video streaming sources (legal and otherwise)
from a capabilities point of view, gstreamer does both Video and Audio. However, the mobile sector is one area where Video has not made significant penetration and based on this unfulfilled demand, I think that internet TV apps on mobile platforms are significant growth areas.