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DISH presenting ESPN's coverage of U.S. Open through Interactive TV mosaic
Earlier this year, DirecTV showed up everyone else with its interactive, multi-screen coverage of the Masters. Now, however, DISH Network is stepping up to the tee by planning to offer ESPN's coverage of the U.S. Open in a similar fashion. From June 12 through 13, DISH subscribers will be able to view a multiple-screen showcase (dubbed Interactive TV) that will create a mosaic with ESPN's primary feed, a feed focusing on Tiger and Phil, an "Up Close" channel and a number of other specific feeds that hardcore golf lovers will surely be fascinated with. Your turn, DirecTV.[Image courtesy of ESPN]Update: Ah, so DirecTV is doing the same! Thanks m.e.
Couch potatoes rejoice as HSN partners with DISH for 'Shop by Remote'
The long-promised day that die-hard sofa jockeys have been yearning for is almost upon us, friends, with a partnership between Echostar and the Home Shopping Network promising to finally bring the first large-scale shop by remote project to the US. Rather uninspiringly called, um, "Shop by Remote," the service will allow DISH customers to simply click a button on their remote (plus 15 other buttons corresponding to their phone numbers and zip codes) when they want to buy the current item being shown on HSN -- a process that is supposedly "three to four times faster" than ordering by phone, but only slightly lazier (especially if you've got all these shopping channels on speed dial like certain people we know, Mom). If the current product isn't doing it for you, you can also select from the two previous items or the deal of the day, all of which allow you to further customize your choice (color, size, etc.) through a series of contextual menus. Sure we're not yet able to one-click Rachel's pants while watching Friends like the futurists predicted oh so long ago, but this is still an important step on the path towards the completely-impulsive, thought-triggered shopping experience that will finally enable us to accumulate crap at an even faster clip than we've managed to already.
TiVo getting interactive and on-demand ads
It was no surprise that TiVo's fast-forward banner ads didn't quite take as they might have hoped, but BusinessWeek is reporting that next month we can expect to see some new TiVo-based advertising systems rolled out, including interactive ads and ads on demand. Yes, yes, we've seen interactive advertising and enhanced television done umpteen times now, but from what it sounds like (BizWeek was kind of vague -- we don't have a lot of specifics yet), TiVo's taking a slightly different approach by background-downloading and storing ads in the system for viewing; this also lends to a new kind of choose your own adventure style ad system that lets viewers pick how they want to be advertised to with spots that unfold depending on user input. The irony here is that the first round of TiVo's interactive ads were apparently bought by Sony for the new Bravias they've been pimping so hard lately -- HDTVs that your trusty old standard def DVR won't be able to take full advantage of. Still, if you want to learn more about Sony's new TVs, their TiVo commercial will apparently have twelve different endings to choose from.[Via TechDirt]
Digital Hollywood Fall starts today
Digital Hollywood Conference is the place where the various companies that bring us much of the content we'll be experiencing on our HDTVs, cell phones, game consoles, and iPods get together and talk about the best ways to do it. Your next home server-mediacenter-xbox720-ps4-RSS parser-cell phone-breadmaker? Yeah they've got that. You can watch for updates here, as well as via a live blog of the event if you're interested (and we know you are) and a podcast; although several companies have already made notable announcements, and we'll keep you updated as it progresses.I'll be keeping a definite eye out for information from today's "Transforming Television" seminar, because HDTV, PVR, OnDemand and Interactive TV all touch me in my special place. Also at the conference will be our own Shawn Gold, speaking on Alternative Media & Advertising: Personalized Consumer Broadband, RSS Feeds, Blogging and Podcasting
