TV on the Internet ... or, Something Like That
In my time spent home sick over the past two days, I installed Opera for Wii and started exploring the brave new(ish) world of web/tv convergence. We knew it as “WebTV” back in the nineties, when what at that time seemed like a great idea soon petered out into a ball of Microsoftian nothingness now known as “MSN.TV” (always a good marketing ploy to tag your technology product with MSN!). Set-top boxes seemed like an extra piece of unnecessary hardware in the household, hampered by an idiosyncratic browser, extremely limited bandwidth for delivery of rich content, lack of robust plug-in support, etc. Besides, who wants a keyboard stuck between the sofa cushions?
But yesterday as I installed and began using Opera on my Wii console (been available for ages, just took me a while to get around to it) I caught a glimmer of the future in a whiff of nostalgia for the days of WebTV. Here I was, on my sofa, looking at a specially designed interface (in this case, for YouTube XL), waving my WiiMote at the screen to clumsily navigate and even more clumsily “type” URLs and search strings into a specially designed browser. Huh. They - along with Hulu and their new “Hulu Desktop” app (curiously designed primarily for computer use instead of set-top-box deployment) - call it a “lean-back viewing experience.” Note: “lean-back,” not “laid-back.” They have a ways to go yet on that particular usability front.
The point of this little tale is more a question: are we happy to see the Web, for which we have long clamored for the the standardization of interface design conventions and technology, turning back into something that requires a different design for every device on which it is viewed (we’re already doing it for iPhone and non-iPhone mobile, why not keep rolling)? Will the ubiquity of Internet-connected gaming consoles - not to mention Slingbox, Roku, and Tivo units, Internet-connected TV sets, et al - create a new opening for the Big Screen (formerly known as the Small Screen) to overtake, or at least match, the computer screen as a viable, common means of accessing content (particularly video, for which these devices were, duh, made)?
Are we going to start seeing more of Lewis in the loft, testing our sites on the Wii and the Playstation3?
It’s clear that the Forces of Internetocracy (Google, anyway, assuming they at least blessed YouTube’s decision) have decided to throw their design money behind the idea. And when Google says “jump” … Well, you can guess what’s coming next.
I’m not saying this is necessarily a bad thing. We’re in the communications business, and as communicators, designing interfaces to bring our content to more people in different ways is generally good for business. But our clients may beg to differ, as they watch costs for developing a comprehensive Internet-based communications strategy creep ever northward as we design and build them sites for PC, mobile, and now, TV. Not to mention special interfaces designed for MySpace, FaceBook, Twitter, and whatever next month’s flavor happens to be.
FWIW, any text smaller than 14 point was blurry on my 46” TV. YouTube videos looked like they were all shot on a Mattel PixelVision camera. And Flash: forget about it, at least on Wii. Back to the future, at least for now.
