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.
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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]