- Real-Time Interactive TV & Ads on Three Screens
There were many visions of TVs future at this year’s CES, but what came from Yahoo’s Connected TV platform may be the most appealing to broadcasters and consumers alike.
Yahoo unveiled a new feature for its Connected TV platform called “Broadcast Interactivity” that brings an Internet-enhanced TV experience to consumers at the behest of broadcast networks and advertisers. The service works by showing the user a symbol at a broadcaster/advertiser-specified point in the broadcast. If the user clicks a corresponding button on their remote, extra content is displayed.
At CES, Yahoo was using this to demonstrate polls based on the current TV show and ads, interactivity to give more information about characters and products on screen, and even to show off a potential point of sale for its retail programming partners. The point of interaction is locked to a time of the content owner’s choosing and it is possible for the user to miss it. Consumers don’t have to interact with the special prompting, but they can define what content is relevant to them, golden information for Yahoo and its partners.
Yahoo is working with ABC, CBS, Home Shopping Network and Showtime on content for a pilot program in the first half of 2011. Brand advertisers Ford, Mattel and Microsoft are planning to work with Yahoo to add interactivity to their TV ads.
Yahoo gave us a list of possible broadcast nnteractions for these partners and said everything on it can be done without any new infrastructure:
- CBS: Viewers of “Hawaii Five-O” will be shown information about actors, characters and settings via their remote control.
- ABC: Viewers of an ABC primetime show can access actor information, photos and videos during certain scenes while watching the show. Video placement and when it takes over from the original TV show’s video will be determined by ABC.
- Showtime: “Showtime Boxing” fans can get detailed fight and boxer information, vote for their favorite boxer and even do trivia based on the match and boxing lore.
- HSN (Home Shopping Network): Viewers will be able to directly purchase items from the live TV show, even giving them access to the specials of the day, all from their remote. Sales appear controlled by the network partner, but Yahoo can store enough information so that if its own service is used, all the consumer has to provide is the credit card’s authorization number on the back to make a purchase.
- Ford: When watching a Lincoln commercial, users could be shown local dealers, customize their dream cars, view Lincoln videos, enter contests and see other relevant stats about the cars.
- Mattel: Viewers of a Barbie TV commercial could “take Barbie polls, play Barbie dress-up games, view Barbie documentary videos and more.” They showed off a voting process at CES, but the big thing would be to entice children and parents to make direct purchases, especially on Saturday mornings.
HSN will allow on-screen purchases, no phone call needed.
Yahoo said the partners will control how their additional content is shown and experienced. Yahoo has provided a basic framework that advertisers and broadcast partners can use, basically filling in the areas with the proper information, or they can make their own overlays and Yahoo will work to accommodate them. Yahoo will allow control for the associated interaction beyond the TV button, such as allowing users to use existing HSN accounts to purchase or if services want information provided directly by the consumer at a point of engagement.
For CE and industry partners, Yahoo has so far announced Alpha Networks, Aonvision Broadcom, D-Link, Haier, MediaTek, Sony, TCL , Toshiba, TPV, Trident Microsystems and Vestel. It said that it will bring the broadcast interactivity pilot on enabled devices in the first half of 2011.
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