Interactive TV Award - Blog zum Interactive TV Award der Deutschen Telekom

Now that the professional concepts submitted for the competition have all been viewed and prepared for the jury meeting, project manager Klaus Greiber offers us a brief overview of the ideas proposed and finds that the task facing the official jury on 8 November will not be an easy one.

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We´re done - as I reported last week, I have spent that last few days viewing the concepts submitted in the professional section of the Interactive TV Award together with my colleagues from product management for IPTV and Entertain in Darmstadt. And, in anticipation of your questions, I can say that we are very pleased with what we have seen. At this point I would like to say a big thank you to all those who participated - we really didn´t expect so many exciting ideas.

What will the TV of tomorrow offer and how will we control it? After the jury meeting on 8 November we will know more.

A brief overview of the concepts submitted

Without wishing to steal the jury´s thunder, here is a general overview of the key content of this year´s competition entries:

TV applications for the 50+ generation: The theme of “Silversurfers” is obviously something that doesn´t just interest us, but also a whole section of our entrants. Submissions included a number of extremely interesting concepts that aimed to forge a link between the Internet and television, specially for older people, and to make the Internet and appropriately prepared web content available to the relevant target group in an appropriate way using the familiar medium of TV.

Personal TV: Another clear focus among the submissions is on the individualization of television viewing. A large number of concepts dealt with the specific topic of “personalized TV programming”. These ranged from program formats with highly specific target groups, to usability concepts that make it easy to assemble content and to interact with the individually chosen content, including multi-device approaches to extend the TV experience to other end devices (such as smartphones or the iPad).

Social TV: This year, the incorporation of social networks in television usage was an even stronger part of the concepts submitted than was the case last year. To be precise, the majority of the concepts submitted include a “social component”. From programming to content, TV guide or personal preferences, we have received a wealth of interesting ideas for how these issues can be linked to social networks and services, such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or special recommendation systems, and used on the television.

New kinds of transmission formats, including interactivity, were also much more in evidence this year than in last year´s competition. We were very pleased to find that almost all of these concepts considered how to enable the viewer to participate in the programs themselves - it´s all there, from interactive game shows and quizzes or other participatory programs, to program control.

Telecommunication features on TV: Naturally, what a competition like this needs is a link between the television and other telecommunication services. Following the trend of GoogleTV and its imitators, some of the concepts submitted are based on the idea of how chat, videoconferences or other services of this kind can be used the television. Naturally we are very pleased with these applications because they illustrate our motto “Television as we live” particularly clearly.

Heated debate in IPTV and Entertain product management

The viewing and preparation of the concepts submitted on 21 and 22 October really did witness some heated debate among the product managers. In almost every case the starting point was: “Could we imagine viewers wanting to watch or use this?” There was another hotly debated factor: “Does this just constitute technical game playing, or does it offer the viewer genuine added value?” You can probably imagine the scene in Darmstadt

Things are starting to get exciting - the task facing the jury on 8 November will not be an easy one

Well, we have done our job for the moment - it will be the turn of the official jury on 8 November. I am sure that our jurors are not going to find this an easy task. It is going to be a real challenge to choose THE concept or company best able to square the mix of technical features and functions with interesting content and easy usability from the large numbers of ideas, some of which share very similar approaches.

So, things are starting to get exciting - and I am particularly looking forward to seeing which competitors we will be able to name as finalists in the Interactive TV Award here in my blog on 9 November.

Klaus Greiber…

… likes his task as a project manager of Deutsche Telekom Interactive TV Award for the variety and because of its strategic aspects. He organizes the innovation contest and keeps it running. From his Twitter timeline we learn that he is also a sports-mad fan of Austrian motorbikes and of Cologne carnival.