Stephanie Haile

Web TV or Internet Television?

The advance in technology in the last twenty years has been incredible. From the beginnings of television, advertising has been a focal point and to merge Internet with television has been a focus of this age.

In the '90's the technology gurus had tried to first incorporate the Internet into the television and now we have the television on the Internet. All access to your favorite shows from your computer screens istead of the original plan of all Internet access from your television monitor. Web TV and interactive television became quite mainstream in the latter part of the 1990's and came in a set top box form to connect to your tv. Today, we have the Wii which is Nintendo's game console that connects to your television much like a Web TV set top box did and allows you to surf the Internet, check your email, and play online games, also much like Web TV. Another company who is holding on to the idea of merging TV and Internet is Yahoo.

Yahoo is working on their own Web TV. A free to use, "widget" based system where web widgets would line the bottom of your television viewing screen giving some interaction to the user. Widgets do not encompass the full spectrum of Internet reach though and will allow users the "section" of Internet activity that each individual widget offers. Having a defined focus for engaging without the use of a type pad, Yahoo's choice of widgets should be a click away for the information offered in them. Their will be no "browser" selection or web search capability planned for now, but Yahoo may indeed be the breakthough company to the highway from the television to the Internet.

The incredible growth on the Internet taking the flip side view (from Internet PC to television access) is, however, quite massive. Sites have sprung into being on this concept alone and other sites have expanded their "text" and photo format to use this technology to feature and highlight a given topic of the site.

Flixster is a social network created for TV and movie lovers alike. Actually a place from your personal PC to watch, rate, and interact with friends while enjoying the shows and films you love. While sites that feature individual television shows have incorporated video for viewing these featured shows directly from the net. Sites like The History Channel, CBN, CNN, or Discovery and SciFi come to mind here for it's programming efforts viewable online.

Are we choosing to leave the comforts of the living room, with the big screen and recliners for the desk style settings of an office? My guess would be no from the amount of chatter about having to "tough it out" on the PC to catch up on missed television shows or hearing "I wish I could watch the YouTube videos from my big screen".  Trading comfort for convenience is the issue at hand in this scenario.

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