Personalize The TV Show You're Watching Via Text Message

Overhype

from the interactive-TV? dept

The latest attempt at “interactive TV” in the UK sounds an awful like “choose your own adventure TV.” A group of companies are working on an experimental system that would allow viewers to “personalize” the TV show they’re watching by sending SMS text messages. Viewers could adjust the plot of a fictional story or have a non-fiction story focus more on areas that interest them most. The biggest challenge is setting up the editing so that, no matter how the shows are personalized, they still flow naturally. Of course, the likely result is that, just like with “choose your own adventure” systems, the shows will be forced into occasionally awkward “connecting” points, where the editing is designed to match, no matter which route is taken. While it may get some attention for being novel, it doesn’t sound all that compelling. This is yet another attempt to view things from the broadcast perspective: giving the end user a few different pre-produced options and calling that “interactive.”