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Internet TV: Communicating
in the 21st Century
Other Topics: IPTV Modem,
IPTV Live Encoding
WebsEdge
November 9, 2007
If you can’t get your audience to participate, you won’t get them
to listen says WebsEdge CEO, Stephen Horn.
The pressure is on. Leaders from all walks of life encompassing both
the corporate and civic spheres are waking up to the fact that the
20th Century top-down model of communication is a fundamentally
inadequate way of getting your message across. When it comes to
stern-voiced leaders in gray suits telling us what to do, the You
Tube generation has turned off and tuned out.
Government and business leaders are well aware of the crisis. From
non payment of taxes, truancy rates and declining electoral turn
outs, to dwindling TV audiences and magazine readerships, there is a
growing understanding that something radical needs to be done. If
today’s leaders fail to find a new, effective channel through which
they can engage their stakeholders, they will continue become
increasingly remote, ensuring the demise of their respective
organizations. |
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In recent months IPTV, a means of
delivering live TV content and video on demand (VOD) over the
Internet through conventional TV sets, has attracted considerable
attention from an increasingly diverse set of elites. This interest
goes way beyond the inevitable investment from telecommunications
providers looking to extract new revenue streams from their existing
markets. From university deans to local politicians, IPTV is the new
kid in town. In contrast to last-century, top-down methods of
communication such as magazine and TV advertising, IPTV uniquely
offers a two way channel of engaging with stakeholders. It provides
organizations the ability to deliver high-impact, tailored,
broadcast quality content, in a cost effective fashion (in some
cases completely free of charge) to a potentially global audience.
From the user’s point of view, the attractions are equally profound.
It offers them the opportunity to communicate on their own terms,
building and participating in a community of like-minded
constituents based on their own interests and business needs. They
can view their chosen content on any Internet-enabled device with an
adequate broadband connection, or transfer the content to a
traditional television set via a set top box.
We have the technology
Much has changed since 1994, when ABC's World News Now became the
first television show to be broadcast over the Internet, using
arcane video conferencing software. The previous restrictions
imposed by low broadband penetration are rapidly disappearing with
rapid growth rates forecast for IPTV as the number of worldwide
broadband households increases from 200 million in 2005, to an
expected 400 million by the year 2010. The financial opportunities
have also been clearly identified. TDG Research, for example, has is
predicted global IPTV revenues will top US$17 billion by 2010.
Meanwhile, the past 18 months have witnessed Microsoft, one of the
world's leading suppliers of IPTV technology, quietly rolling out
its software and middleware to numerous companies in a number of
countries, including AT&T in the US and Deutsche Telekom in Germany.
In short, we’re getting to the point where IPTV is much more than an
experiment. Throughout the US there are now thousands of IPTV
installations in schools, universities, corporations and local
municipalities.
Two-way communication
IPTV is inherently interactive. It uses the same technology as the
Internet which means there is no longer just a one-way relationship
between the viewer and the "broadcaster".
An IP-based platform offers significant opportunities to make the TV
viewing experience more interactive and personalized, facilitated by
a broadband connection and a set-top box programmed with software
that can handle viewer requests to access a myriad of media sources.
Users can also create their own content. While the ability for users
to create video content has arguably been around since the launch of
the first personal video camera, the capacity to display and view
this content over the web is a more a recent phenomenon, typified by
the enormous popularity of video-sharing sites such as MySpace and
You Tube.
User groups
IPTV providers offer a platform that can aggregate programming
content from multiple organizations, such as government departments,
regional development agencies, and local municipalities, to create a
‘community of interest’ around a given topic, product, locality,
service or set of services.
Government departments will be able to reach constituents and
stakeholders, laying out new policies, official meetings, and
governmental changes at both a local and national level. In
education, meanwhile, the benefits of IPTV have long been
recognized. MIT identified the opportunity of marketing its courses
to students around the world back in 2001, when it embraced IP for
distance-based learning. Across the US, Universities and private
Training Companies now have a platform that enables them to sell
their courses worldwide.
A look at the future
In the short term, like all revolutions in their early phase, we
will experience some teething problems. Once the excitement
surrounding the very real opportunities offered by IPTV dies down,
IPTV broadcasters and their users are in for a bumpy ride. There
will be network failures, packet loss and delays when the connection
is not fast enough causing picture break.
Like the music revolution before it, which had to endure a confusing
combination of formats, players and disruptive download services
before the arrival of the iPod, IPTV will experience growing pains.
However, as IPTV matures it will reach way beyond the humble TV set.
Because it is delivered over the Internet, it can be consumed on any
web-enabled device with a fast enough broadband connection. IPTV
will turn downtime into uptime, providing users with
anytime-anywhere access to content over their notebooks, portable
TVs, and cell phones.
IPTV will also usher in a new breed of players. In the same way that
the Internet spawned a new generation of movers and shakers in the
form of Yahoo, Google and AOL, so IPTV will spawn a host of new
names, defying the old adage that billion dollar incumbents always
prevail on an open playing field.
More about WebsEdge
WebsEdge is a division of HBL Media, and a new force in IPTV. As an
Internet television provider, WebsEdge offers a high-impact,
low-cost channel to enable organizations to communicate and converse
with key audiences and stakeholders. WebsEdge IPTV delivers
tailored, relevant, professional, broadcast-quality television
content to viewers based on their interests and business needs. The
way business and organizations communicate with their stakeholders –
and vice versa – is changing rapidly –the latest developments in
IPTV allows WebsEdge clients to deliver tailored content, cost
effectively, to a potentially global audience, via Web TV.
WebsEdge understands media and the power of television via IPTV
and offers three distinct services:
- Create a temporary or
permanent bespoke IPTV channel, including infrastructure and
content
- Work with organizations that
have an existing IPTV channel to develop relevant professional
content for this channel
- Create sponsored IPTV packages
for conferences and events, whereby WebsEdge provides the content
and infrastructure free of charge by WebsEdge to the organizers
and sources sponsors and advertisers for those packages
WebsEdge delivers its customers:
- Compelling, professional,
broadcast-standard television communications to audiences without
needing to go through an intermediary
- Innovative, high-impact and
low-cost way of communicating with existing and new audiences
- Increased impact and reach for
content and messages
- Targeted content for specialist
audiences
- Global reach : content can
potentially reach anyone with a broadband connection
- Enables and encourages two way
communications with customers, citizens and other stakeholders
For further information on WebsEdge
please contact:
United States
Hazel Butters
Prompt Communications LLC
Tel: +1 617 576 5763
hbutters@prompt-communications.com
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