Signal Through Noise A Discussion on the Future of Television and Advertising

Interesting article on a Boston company called Backchannelmedia that has a novel approach to interactive TV.

Essentially, the way it works is let’s say a spot has a URL directing viewers to a micro-site. What Backchannelmedia does is give broadcasters the ability to insert an icon during this portion of the spot and if the viewer pushes “OK” on their remote they will receive an e-mail - or they can go to a customized portal set up by Backchannelmedia with everything they have clicked on - which will have that URL contained within (thus removing the need to scramble to find a piece of paper in order to write the URL down).

I am not all that moved by the whole “eliminating the problem of not writing quickly enough to get the URL” as Google solves this issue, but I do think that receiving an e-mail later will help reinforce ones initial interest; interest that might have waned in between the viewing of the spot and the next time they are on-line. For some reason I think that this could be particularly powerful tool for political campaigns as I can imagine that after viewing a spot for a particular candidate that moves a viewer in one way or the other, getting that e-mail or checking into their portal later on could motivate them to take the next step.

Having said that, as always, I would love a more sophisticated version of this where, for example, if I see a pair of jeans I like during a show, I could push a button on the remote and, later on, when on-line, get the brand name and website of the retailer who sells them. No mention of when something like that would come along - what I am asking for is entirely interactive content rather then simply an interactive component to traditional advertising - but I see no reason why the technology couldn’t work in this situation.

All in all, this is an interesting concept and it seems to remove a number of the technical impediments that have kept Interactive TV from arriving for so long now. The first trials of the product are taking place in New England as of this posting so I am keeping my fingers crossed that it goes well and acts as a cataylst to moving the concept of Interactive TV forward.