Not Another Repeat

Nothing seems to annoy TV viewers more than repeats, so TV execs have come up with a simple solution. There now seems to be a common trend in television to tart up repeats by calling them ‘catch ups’ and simply appending three minutes to the end of existing shows.

So, in a desperate bid to remain contemporary and green, I’ve decided to recycle some bits and bytes and look back at the IPTV Times archive at random.

My first ever post in 2006 concerned Google:

Google have released thousands of widgets that enable applications to be embedded into web pages, including this video widget. Syndication onto third party websites is going to be a key part of the development of Web 2.0.

Google widgets haven’t really caught on (indeed, Facebook seems to be the most popular host of these mini apps), however syndication is de rigeur now for any serious content owner or channel operator.

My second post was also close to the mark:

The long awaited video service from the founders of Skype, The Venice Project, is sbout to go public.I haven't seen it as yet, but it sounds like you have to download a peer-to-peer client. I'm struggling to see what it will add against all the other P2P services such as Kontiki that are well established; but no doubt they'll be able to sell the company for billions.

Joost, as The Venice Project is now called, seems to be really struggling to find traction. Although Alexa doesn’t represent stats from the Joost Player, it does indicate that growth has flatlined. Meanwhile Verisign-owned Kontiki is being used as a core building block for 4OD and the BBC iPlayer.

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