iTV SMS chat launched in France
Editor: David Minto
A new interactive service started last weekend on the French
channels AB1 and Mangas via CanalSatellite,
allowing subscribers to take part in a live chat through to their mobile phones
The service, called “SMS2TV”, was developed by NPTV
and implemented in collaboration with 123Multimedia.
The application can be accessed from AB1 and Mangas seconds after arriving on one of these
channels. A window is superimposed on the programme on air and enables viewers to chat
without leaving the channel. Messages are displayed simultaneously on AB1 and Mangas and
can be viewed by all CanalSatellite subscribers, with no need to connect STBs to phone
plugs.
The latest SMS
sent is automatically refreshed. CanalSatellite subscribers can choose whether to leave
the application or access older messages on a full screen by pressing OK for free. Sending
an SMS costs E0.35, not including the price of a text message. [link original]
Richard Maroko, AB Group’s programme
director, said he was “glad of the new link between channels and their audience, as
it allows the creation new communities. Besides, the use of SMS is perfectly fitted for
the target of these two channels – 15 to 24 year-olds.”  David
Minto David is the Editor of TVMeetsTheWeb. He recently graduated with a degree in
English from Cambridge University where he was Arts Editor at Varsity, the student
newspaper.
Remember interactive television? At long last, it's finally
happening -- in the form of video-on-demand and interactive channel guides. In limited
markets. And at no small expense to operators and, arguably, consumers.
As iTV remains a ways away from meeting the
concept's original promises of a seamless Internet and TV experience, other technologies
are picking up the slack. Chief among those is the mobile phone world's Short Messaging
Service, which requires small per-message or monthly fees by users and thus is seen as a
bottom-line booster for wireless carriers. (As a result, operators have launched a number
of big-budget
efforts to get wireless phone subscribers "texting," as it's known.)
But SMS also is being seen by folks in the media
biz as a shot in the arm for the weary concept of iTV.
Seven-year-old Proteus
is one of the firms at the forefront of linking SMS to television. Like rivals Enpocket and Mobliss,
the company is one of the few players operating in the U.S. market with live deployments
of wireless messaging-based TV voting applications. And it's seeing traction for its way
of bringing low-impact television interactivity to the masses -- without cable and
satellite service upgrades, set-top boxes or similar equipment.
In recent months alone, the company produced
interactive TV events with Fox Broadcasting and ABC Television Networks, in connection
with Major League Baseball, NASCAR, and NCAA March Madness sporting events.
Most recently, Washington, D.C.-based Proteus
worked with the ABC's Enhanced TV Group to SMS-enable the 30th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards
broadcast on May 16. Viewers interacted via mobile devices to vote on topics like the most
memorable daytime TV moments. Poll results were flashed on-screen periodically throughout
the program. Carriers participating in the effort included AT&T Wireless (Quote, Company Info),
Cingular Wireless, Sprint PCS (Quote, Company Info) and
Nextel (Quote, Company Info).
But the Daytime Emmys proved to be only the start
of a busy weekend for Proteus. The day after Friday's broadcast of the awards show, the
company handled the backend for voting in connection with a NASCAR race, available to
Cingular customers. Also that day, Proteus handled voting during two MLB games in
connection with Sprint.
"We're going to see a lot more of this being
done," said Craig Dalton, director of business development at Proteus. "One
reason is due to the education of the broadcasters -- they're recognizing that there's
low-hanging fruit here for interactivity. Anytime you want to scream at the TV, there's a
good chance interactivity will work -- like in sports, reality shows or award shows."
Founded early in the dot-com boom as an Internet
professional services firm, Proteus, like many survivors of the era, revamped its business
over time. In 1997, the company started moving into wireless, with the signing of mobile
carrier Omnipoint Communications (now a part of Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile) initially for
Web development work -- but ultimately giving the firm insight into the embryonic SMS
market.
Later work in Web-to-SMS applications whetted the
company's appetite for mobile messaging, but it ironically became efforts in following
years, centering around interactive TV applications that gave rise to the company's
current work in SMS. In 2001, the firm sought to launch an interactive TV voting effort in
connection with Fox Sports' broadcast of the Super Bowl in 2002 -- but initially was
stymied by the glacial pace of iTV deployment.
"We showed [Fox] things we had done for WebTV
and Liberate ... but they said, 'We can't deal with that number [of deployments], it's not
going to excite any advertiser,'" Dalton said. "We came back with the concept of
wireless interactive television. While set top boxes didn?t have deployments, mobile
phones did."
The plan sought to play on both media's strengths.
"Television is used to evoke an emotional
responses," Dalton said. "While it's difficult to evoke an emotional response
from a wireless data application, we did have deployment there. So the call to action was
on television, but we had to make it easy to respond via mobile devices."
Initially, the messaging app was launched in
connection with Motorola and built using WAP (define)
-- another technology that, similar to iTV, was targeted by pundits as the Next Big Thing,
until the dot-com bust. For this year's Super Bowl, Proteus reprised the effort with
Cingular, and instead took advantage of SMS, which has greater penetration among consumer
handsets, and a lower learning curve, than WAP.
Since then, the notion of using wireless messaging
to bridge the gap between audiences' living rooms and their television has begun to
resonate with U.S. broadcasters.
"The 'Daytime Emmys Awards' offers an ideal
fit for real-time interactive programming and advertising because daytime viewers are such
dedicated fans," said Rick Mandler, vice president and general manager of ABC
Television's Enhanced TV unit (ETV). "The addition of a wireless component is a major
step forward and is expected to attract viewers. It?s another innovative way that ETV and
ABC-TV are bringing viewers new ways to voice their opinions from start to finish on one
of television?s landmark awards shows."
As with SMS applications in general, Dalton said
the main challenge now is to boost consumers' familiarity with sending messages from their
phones, an endeavor behind which mobile operators are throwing sizable weight -- witness
AT&T Wireless' work on "American Idol," Verizon Wireless' recent voting
effort in connection with the NBA, and the multi-carrier support for voting on
"Nashville Star."
Such efforts also help SMS vendors better sell to
broadcasters, Dalton added.
"Two years ago, it was a totally foreign
concept, and we were lucky that we got some very open-minded contacts at Fox Sports, who
saw this as something that could differentiate themselves, and wanted to ride the wave of
what was coming down the pipe," he said. "Now, that's definitely where we see
the broadcast industry wanting to go, as well as the wireless carriers."
With the increasing interest, Dalton also said
Proteus is eyeing applications based on Multimedia Messaging Service, SMS' video- and
sound-enhanced successor. Already, the company has launched an MMS service for AT&T
Wireless. But MMS, which is more expensive for consumers (and thus more lucrative for
carriers and their media partners,) opens a new set of educational hurdles.
"For the most part, it's a very futuristic
technology right now," Dalton said. "The application with them is a premium
product, designed so that customers are beginning to get a taste for how that's going to
affect their bill."
Such education steps are critical for carriers and
media players looking to take advantage of wireless messaging applications -- for one
thing, they'll ensure that the industry isn?t haunted by the ghosts of iTV and WAP's
lukewarm reception.
"What needs to be recognized jointly between
the two industries, carriers and broadcasters, is we've got to educate consumers on how
these experiences are going to be relevant before we can throw a big charge to them,"
Dalton said. [link de origem]
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