[LINK] OurTV Pilot meeting on Community TV for Canberra

[Tom Worthington]

At 6/19/2004 10:32 AM, Adam Todd wrote:
>At 16:45 18/06/2004 +1000, Tom Worthington wrote:
>>Greetings from Canberra. These are some informal notes from the inaugural 
>>"OurTV Pilot" meeting ...
>
>I SAW THE INFAMOUS Tom Worthington Laptop in action! ...

What you didn't see was my laptop battery going flat.  ;-)

>... Once the power is out, the Set Top Boxes don't work to well and you 
>won't know about the raging fire running down your street.  But then, I 
>guess you know about it by then! ...

My STB has a battery backup power supply and worked fine with Transact 
during the Canberra bush fire emergency 
<http://www.tomw.net.au/2004/enetp.html>. But in any case the idea is not 
to use the TV to provide such immediate information.

In reality lower technology systems are used to warn of impending fire, 
such as the police officer who shouted at me during the Canberra emergency 
"get out of here NOW". The TV and web would be used for how to prepare and 
what to do afterwards. This approach is detailed in the report by one of my 
students, Shelby Canterford, "Evaluating Emergency Management Websites" 
<http://www.watersprite.com.au/~shelby/emweb/index.htm>.

>... A Producer who has a program at the start and gains "popularity" and a 
>"community following" is going to survive the broadcast life, where as 
>someone who comes online in five years isn't going to get any exposure ...

Getting a head start would seem a good incentive for budding producers to 
help with OurTV. But early adopters have not necessarily gained an 
advantage on the web and may not here either.

>This very much changes the way in which Broadcast works.  How will 
>"advertisers" of product and programs actually reach the audience and tell 
>them what to think and do?

Advertising revenue shouldn't be a concern for a non-profit community 
service. But "community announcements" and "sponsor acknowledgments" could 
be easily inserted into broadcast and VoD content, in the same way 
advertisements are added to web pages. Items matched to the program content 
could be inserted automatically, as Google does with advertisements.

>... HOw do I tell 20 million people in Australia to visit my web site? ...

Make your web site search engine friendly and then tell people about it via 
conventional promotional techniques. The equivalent with the TV content 
would be to carefully prepare your program metadata for the electronic 
program guide (EPG).

One of the problems Transact has, due to limitations in their older 
set-top-boxes, is a poor program guide 
<http://www.tomw.net.au/2002/transact.html#Guide>. They improved it after I 
got 130 students to redesign it as an assignment (Transact gave the best 
student a $1,000 PDA as a prize). OurTV might be able to try out some fresh 
ideas for this. For example how about a web/mobile phone EPG which then 
tells the TV what to show?



Tom Worthington FACS tom.worthington at tomw.net.au Ph: 0419 496150
Director, Tomw Communications Pty Ltd ABN: 17 088 714 309
http://www.tomw.net.au PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617
Visiting Fellow, Computer Science, Australian National University
Publications Director, Australian Computer Society