Back in the days when TVs were for watching and PCs were for surfing, things seemed so much simpler. Boundaries were well defined and even though some pundits enjoyed upsetting the apple cart by throwing in that fear-of-death word: "convergence", we always knew that whatever the future had in store for us, we could handle it. Only we didn't quite expect it to be so darned confusing.
If, like me, you've lost count of the number of different products providing internet access, prepare to get your thinking cap around the untamed world of the internet on your TV. Granted that this is not especially a new thing - NTL has been offering it for almost two years - but the ballpark is starting to get so much more complex.
ONdigital last week joined the party when it revealed details of ONnet, its TV internet offering that hits the market next week, while Bush Internet is gearing up to bolster sales in the pre-Christmas rush. As if that wasn't enough to satisfy latent demand, Granada is preparing to launch Powerchannel, its very own TV internet product, in just over a month's time.
All parties say there is a market for TV internet, but many a pundit has already put the dampener on the hype by questioning their sustainability and market positioning. The main gripes are 1) that the revenue model isn't strong enough to support heavily subsidised set-top boxes; 2) demand for internet on the TV is still unproved and 3) the products are aimed at a difficult market segment (ie people that never or rarely use the internet).
I may be vilified for saying this, but at the moment, TV internet services are nothing more than gimmicks or, at best, expensive experiments that make unfounded presumptions about revenue streams. The TV internet providers may be able to sell tons of ad space across their default portals, or sell anchor tenancies to third parties (such as retailers) and take commission on sales, but they can't bank on users staying within the confines of their "walled gardens" and spending their cash.
It's one of the many quirks of the TV internet model - provide them with a free rein but hope they'll not wander off too far - and why the likes of BSkyB are loath to go down this route. Of course, the other quirk is that the providers may not be able to sign up enough users in the first place to justify taking advertisers' money.
No one has yet made a success of offering the internet via TV to a mass audience. NTL may have been one of the first into the UK market, but strangely the company stopped pushing its TV internet service a long time ago.
Quiz NTL about figures and you'll get the response "sorry, don't release them", which, if glossed rather cynically, could suggest the service has not been a rip-roaring success. Talk to Sega Dreamcast, another company with a box that provides TV internet, and you'll hear much of the same. Further afield, Microsoft has had three years to make an impact on the US market with WebTV, but has struggled to pass the 1m mark, and this in a country with 100m households.
The logical conclusion is that the average consumer not only doesn't want to sit directly in front of their precious TV but, and most surveys support this, most people who don't already have internet access (two-thirds of UK households) are quite happy with their lot and see no reason to get connected.
Given this fact, it seems incomprehensible that the TV internet providers are not pitching their services at the higher end of the scale - at early adopters and those people with internet access already. Surely that's a more viable market segment, and one that likes to spend money on new gadgets?
Of course, the reason why these services aren't aimed at existing users is that they are frustrating to use when you're accustomed to being able to get everything you want from a website. All of the providers have opted out of the costly option of pre-installing RealPlayer (around £700,000), and because there is no facility to download software onto the boxes, this is not likely to change in the near future. What this means is that all the cool broadcasting stuff, increasingly becoming the mainstay of the internet, will just not work on TV internet services. Forgive me if I'm missing something, but wasn't that what the TV was designed for?
One aspect of TV internet that often tends to be overlooked is that surfing the internet is, by and large, a very solitary personal experience. If you've ever tried it with someone hovering over your shoulder grabbing the mouse, you'll know what I mean.
With mobile internet technology becoming mainstream, broadband just around the corner and cable and satellite operators offering interactive services as part of their digital packages, it does seem that the market for stand-alone TV internet products is somewhat limited. To say it's a gamble is a huge understatement, but without companies taking these type of risks where would we be today?
A few years from now, we will know conclusively whether consumers will buy into this dream, but until then there's going to be a lot of money spent finding out.
