| Download the video (.wmv, 2.54M) What if you could take the advantages of TV—its rich and
varied content—and combine these with the advantages of a customizable Web
portal?
Researchers at
Accenture Technology Labs
have done just that in their latest innovative prototype—the Real-Time
Television Content Platform. This platform allows viewers not only to
dynamically create the content to be shown to them based on their preferences
but to interact in real time with commercials and receive personalized
newscasts.
Here's how it all works:
Convergence of Technologies
The
Real-Time Television Content Platform represents the convergence of recent
technology developments including video gaming consoles (such as XBox and
PlayStation2) and Personal Video Recorders (such as TiVo).
Together, these new technologies create powerful media
processors capable of creating and managing content on a per-viewer basis.
Media providers can offer "narrow casting" (personalized broadcasting) and
interactive services without the need for an expensive infrastructure.
So What?
The Real-Time Television
Content Platform has the potential to revolutionize the traditional TV viewing
experience:
- The end of advertising as we know it.
One Accenture Technology Labs prototype demonstrates how a more engaging
advertising experience can be created on this platform. A commercial would
showcase the product (in this case, a car) as it always has. Viewers who are
especially interested in the car can put the commercial into interactive mode
and then manipulate the car, changing options and accessories as they wish. The
next time they see the commercial, the car appears with the options they
selected. The real value: it changes the advertising paradigm from showing a
car to showing viewers their car, thus making the commercial a more effective
sales tool.
- Personalized news: a network of
one.
Using the platform, programmers can create customized
versions of content based on an individual's preferences. For example, instead
of producing a general news program, the programmer could stream many possible
stories, allowing viewers to pick and choose the stories that are most relevant
and interesting to them. The result: a more engaging and valuable experience
for the user, and thus more loyalty to that content provider.
Two
prototypes from Accenture Technology Labs demonstrate this personalization
capability:
Personalized Television News uses
Personal Video Recorders (PVRs) to create customized shows out of standard news
broadcasts. During the day, the PVR records content and then presents a
finished product when the viewer gets home. The resulting program closely
resembles the typical news broadcast, but the content is custom tailored to the
interests of the individual viewer.
The second
prototype—Personalized Interactive Content—not only shows
the news based on the user's personal interests, but allows the viewer to
interact with the presentation. This prototype takes advantage of the power of
the platform to deliver a far richer experience than typical Interactive TV
applications.
- Bringing the Best of the Web World to
TV
Today, television captures more viewers and revenue than does
the Internet. But it also lacks the customization and interactivity of the Web.
The Real-Time Television Content Platform enables TV programmers to provide a
richer and more engaging viewing experience, and also give advertisers a way to
create stronger relationships with current and potential customers.
For more information, please
contact us.
Recent Publications Real Time
Television Content Platform: Personalized Programming Over Existing Broadcast
Infrastructures
Kelly L. Dempski
Personalization in Future TV (TV '02)—Second International
Conference on Adaptive Hypermedia and Adaptive Web-based Systems (AH
2002), 28 May 2002, Malaga, Spain
[Abstract]
[Paper
(PDF) ]
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