500 channels and a BUY button

Tim Bray has started a new series of articles, this time on something he calls the Technology Predictor Success Matrix. As with most of the posts on his weblog (and astonishingly few on this one), it’s quite interesting, even at this early stage. What piqued my interest is an item in his list of Technology Losers that’s near and dear to my heart and wallet: Interactive TV.

Bray asks those who protest the inclusion of their pet technology–like me–to consider the answers to two questions: Are people using them? Did anyone make serious money based on them? And you’ll generally get two negatives. For what he appears to regard as interactive television–summed up in the quote I’ve used to title this entry, which he admits is the put-down version–he’s probably right. I don’t know of anyone who’s been able to click on a scene from Friends to buy that blouse that Jennifer Aniston’s wearing… you know the one… with the frilly… and the tight….

Erm, yes, where was I? Right: given the classical definition of interactive television as a glorified Eaton’s catalogue, I don’t believe anyone ever really used it or made money based on it. (Based on the companies, yes. Based on the technologies, no.) But one only needs to watch the tube for a short while to see a cable company pushing their new video-on-demand services, or a satellite company advertising their Interactive Program Guide software as a part of their all-digital service, to see what interactive television is today… and it’s not that far off the original premise.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the last nine years I’ve worked for what’s essentially a child company of the incredibly-arrogant one he refers to, it’s that cable companies aren’t interested in anything they won’t make money on. (It’s hard enough to get them interested in things they won’t not make money on. But I digress.) Like John Young’s character in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, interactive television has been declared dead again and again. Perhaps no one’s made money on interactive TV yet, but it’s being deployed and used: look around a bit, and you’ll see there’s no one standing around getting ready to whack it over the head and throw it on his cart.

Needless to say, I’ll be curious to see Bray’s evaluation of this loser against the Matrix. I agree with the rest of his losers list and the entirety of his winners list; I suspect interactive television will be a soft match at best.