.tv Maaaaan it would be cool if...

[[email protected]]

Okay, I would like to ask you guys...

If you were developing, what would you want in a .tv channel? I mean channels, not sites. I believe .TV is head for television set top boxes. If you were developing, what would you want to put in a channel. We are the visionaries of .TV, the people here in this forum believe in this extension and how useful it will be. So, I want to know if you guys have any ideas, if you could do ANYTHING with a channel, what would it be?

Hopefully this discussion can shed more light on what me.tv should be doing for you guys. Impel.TV would be more than happy to tell you what we are doing and how. Consider this an open source discussion. Maybe open source is the road? Flush out the ideas and then tell them how to do it. In business we want our employees to say, this is the problem and this is exactly how to fix it. Or this is a great idea and this is how it might be done.

Maybe it's marking a particular place in the video and mailing that location to your friend or mother? Maybe its an autofeed type system to keep your content fresh? Maybe its an SMS when a new video comes out from a particular publisher? I don't know, that is why I am asking? Let's throw down cool ideas, or not? Hopefully it will show the providers what you want, besides Google Adsense.

Anybody got a unique idea?

Thanks,

Dave Lalande
Impel.TV

 

[TheBulldog]

OK.......

Me.tv, myspace, facebook, etc etc etc. Lets look at what they offer: Free hosting and free name. (ok, not me.tv, but if they did showbiz.me.tv for free, and then showbiz.tv for 24.95 that would solve that)

So beyond that, the ability to EASILY monetize/place ads etc etc. I guess my point is that if I am not making money, then it is a hobby. So at impel would I make money? Or would it be a 90/10 thing? Think google. Google delivers ads, but probably passes on 10% at best to the site owners.

So what would be the reason I would go to impel? Do you offer free hosting? Free content? Do I get to choose my layouts? Ad my own ads? Those are all the things I want.

Ironically, if you want to take the time for a simple site, you can do it all through google. Google is now doing simple template hosting, but they allow html to place your own ads. (duh, they are google after all)

 

[equity78]

Showbiz Dave told me he was not looking for partners right now

 

[[email protected]]

More ideas please...

Showbiz Dave told me he was not looking for partners right now

Showbiz, Equity is correct. We are not looking to partner for now. We were exploring the idea, but it was never our intent to partner with domain holders. It was an after thought.

We are looking for ideas and to teach you what we know, so you can make these hosters deliver the goods. Even some we don't know of yet.

Really, we want to talk about ideas here. Everything you mentioned is pretty standard, or at least it ought to be. Other than the free hosting. Google tools aren't going to be free forever. They missed their targets, it might be time to start charging for stuff? If not now, they will charge for things at the end of the day. I don't want to argue on when the charges are coming. Heck, I don't want to argue at all.

Let's try to think of some things that aren't yet out there. Open source discussion, so to speak. I am not surprised there are not no real answers to this question yet. Thinking of development outside the box, is tough.

So far here is what I think I am seeing for what you guys are wanting me.tv or Google to do for you...

* Hosting...
* Ad system (this should include a cart, for instance, just an ad system is not enough)
* Choice of layouts (why not completely custom layouts?)

Things I either missed that where asked of me.tv or Google or haven't yet been asked about?

* Content is free already if they give you an API tool
* How about an autofeed system, shouldn't these guys give you a way to teach the machine how to add content? Do you want to sit around and embed things one by one?
* How about notification of events? i.e. new user sign ups, forum posts. new embeds/uploads?
* How about mobile videos? Are these guys going to make us all inferior by keeping the mobile capabilities to themselves?
* How about search for descriptions, surely Google is going to do that, Does me.tv have search?
* How about an ad deal for localized advertisers? Shouldn't Google bring those clients to you? They just did a deal to get more involved in newspaper ads. They are getting involved in newspaper advertising? Why couldn't they bring those advertisers to us and split the revenue?
* API for you. I would think that they could build and API so that your categories could be syndicated across each others channels, so we don't have to recreate the wheel. Does Google want everyone adding the same vids to channels that are closely related in topic matter? You missed the synergies that come with syndicating if everyone is an island.

Where is Yahoo and Microsoft? Why is Google the only one even trying to do something here? Someone call Yahoo headquarters and tell them they are missing out on the future of television. I search for Impel.TV on Yahoo and I get four results. I search for Impel.TV on Google, I get well over 25K including all the channels we have up so far. As we add videos to our library now, they (Google) are indexing them. Boy, if Google is the only player, they are never going to give people more than 10% of the revenue.

I think the thing to do, might be to open source a platform and compete with these guys as a group? Anybody got any ideas on how this is done? Does anyone have any ideas at all? me.tv has all the time in the World to roll out the obvious if they are the only game in town. Watch how quickly you get things delivered when a viable solution comes along and people start jumping ship.

Again, let's work together and direct these hosters as to what you need and even things they haven't thought of yet.

Thanks for throwing something out there Showbiz. Anyone else have needs/ideas? Is everyone here holding to sell? Is everyone here holding their breath waiting on me.tv to deliver/communicate?

Dave Lalande
Impel.TV

 

[TheBulldog]

Actually, Microsoft is doing it as well. Microsoft Domain Control or something like that. I haven't had a chance to play with it, but what I saw didn't look bad. Free of course.

And I disagree with you that Google will be charging. Google plans to have both a free and a pay version of their system. That has always been the plan. They support it with ads in the mail system, but the sites have zero ads on them unless you put it their yourself.

Personally, I am not waiting on me.tv to do anything. I have already proven that I can put my own ads on me.tv, so I don't understand why people are still complaining about it. The only problem with it is the placement. Aside from that, it is easy to do.

My only real beef with them right now is lack of layout choices on me.tv. Aside from that, what they offer is more than anyone else for free anyway.

 

[eyedomainous]

Okay, I would like to ask you guys...

If you were developing, what would you want in a .tv channel?

Maybe it's marking a particular place in the video and mailing that location to your friend or mother? Maybe its an autofeed type system to keep your content fresh? Maybe its an SMS when a new video comes out from a particular publisher? I don't know, that is why I am asking? Let's throw down cool ideas, or not? Hopefully it will show the providers what you want, besides Google Adsense. Anybody got a unique idea?

They say "a picture is worth a thousand words". With online TV / video... a picture can be worth a thousand clicks.

What I would like to see... is an online video processing system that bitmaps the contents of each frame in order to make those contents clickable/interactive. The resulting in-video content data layer would allow viewers to hoover over, click, or touch, any item in the video to get more information on that item.

If they click the table, for example, they could find out everything from the type of wood it is made of to where & who made it and -of course, where they could buy it. Locally. At the best price.

Channel based in-video content mapping & tagging:
An in-video product data layer, based on the keywords of the channel/site showing the vid, would also be possible as well as in-vid product geo-tagging... where the viewer's browser ip, and other geo data, would be used to make the click-results contextual. So... if you clicked on the jeans an actress is wearing in the vid it would show you who made them, the style, and what stores near you sell them... --who has them in stock, with the best price, 'buy now' ecommerce incentives, and so on.

Further, an opt-in social networking data layer would allows folks watching the show to add their face, by uploading a pic/avatar, to the audience... where they can chat via text bubbles. In addition to adding your face to the 'general audience' it would be nice if folks could add/overlay their face into items in the vid itself... so if you wanna talk about the actress -drag and drop your avatar onto her t-shirt, or to the art in the background if your interest is art, ect. (of course only those that opt-into a layer will be able to see, and interact with, that layer)

I have other features... but you get the idea of where online TV needs to go, IMO, to become the 'killer app' of killer apps. An online TV interactive visual ecosystem that incorporates and seamlessly embeds everything from advertising & ecommerce, to item search info. and social networking... without visually altering the expected, most popular... and now standard, online TV "user experience" of "Free TV"... without commercials.

 

[MillersCrossing]

They say "a picture is worth a thousand words". With online TV / video... a picture can be worth a thousand clicks.

What I would like to see... is an online video processing system that bitmaps the contents of each frame in order to make those contents clickable/interactive. The resulting in-video content data layer would allow viewers to hoover over, click, or touch, any item in the video to get more information on that item.

If they click the table, for example, they could find out everything from the type of wood it is made of to where & who made it and -of course, where they could buy it. Locally. At the best price.

Channel based in-video content mapping & tagging:
An in-video product data layer, based on the keywords of the channel/site showing the vid, would also be possible as well as in-vid product geo-tagging... where the viewer's browser ip, and other geo data, would be used to make the click-results contextual. So... if you clicked on the jeans an actress is wearing in the vid it would show you who made them, the style, and what stores near you sell them... --who has them in stock, with the best price, 'buy now' ecommerce incentives, and so on.

Further, an opt-in social networking data layer would allows folks watching the show to add their face, by uploading a pic/avatar, to the audience... where they can chat via text bubbles. In addition to adding your face to the 'general audience' it would be nice if folks could add/overlay their face into items in the vid itself... so if you wanna talk about the actress -drag and drop your avatar onto her t-shirt, or to the art in the background if your interest is art, ect. (of course only those that opt-into a layer will be able to see, and interact with, that layer)

I have other features... but you get the idea of where online TV needs to go, IMO, to become the 'killer app' of killer apps. An online TV interactive visual ecosystem that incorporates and seamlessly embeds everything from advertising & ecommerce, to item search info. and social networking... without visually altering the expected, most popular... and now standard, online TV "user experience" of "Free TV"... without commercials.

Eyedomainous - truly great ideas...the question is , are your ideas an option for budget conmscious - single site businessses....To me, the software to do this SOUNDS expensive....but may very well not be..........if it is not...then you have hit the nail on the head!!!!!

 

[eyedomainous]

Eyedomainous - truly great ideas...the question is , are your ideas an option for budget conmscious - single site businessses....To me, the software to do this SOUNDS expensive....but may very well not be..........if it is not...then you have hit the nail on the head!!!!!

Thanks much for the feedback, MillersCrossing. There are several cost effective ways video content mapping could be done using flash, silverlight, or javafx grade tools. The cost to produce the "software" would be paid be advertisers... 'Tv-tagging' their own products... a 'one time' cost. From there I see individual TV site webmasters assigning keywords to each vid, like we do now, but the keywords would activate / open visual/video content applications along with the standard text.