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Last time I checked, television was for "vegging" couch potatoes, a source of amusement and leisure designed for zoning out. That's not the way the folks at America Online see it. The week of Aug. 14, the Dulles (Va.) company launches AOLTV in eight selected markets. AOL's first-generation interactive television hits Circuit City stores -- following weeks of delays caused by marketing and production problems.
I may be a poor critic since I don't currently own a TV. Yet the AOL's reasoning on this venture seems a bit flawed to me. Here's what the company says (in an AOLTV product summary) about the tendencies of people who watch TV: "While watching a show they like, they think about how great it would be to talk to a friend, see how their stocks fared that day, get the score of a game, and check the weather forecast for the weekend. They also think about that one last e-mail they've forgotten to send or read. They want to do all this, but really want to keep watching the show. With AOLTV, they can. And they don't have to wait until a commercial break."
Clearly, the world's largest Internet service provider expects AOLTV to revolutionize television. Now maybe I'm looking at this the wrong way, but it seems to me that most people don't want to bother with e-mail while watching a program they like. That's what most viewers do during commercials, not during a show. People thoroughly entertained by a football game's fourth quarter or an episode of Friends don't think about surfing AOL or simultaneously checking the weather. Ever asked a question to someone hypnotized by a movie or sit-com? They don't respond. Their eyes are locked on the screen. They're not thinking about sending e-mail or checking stocks. They're not thinking at all.
TARGET AUDIENCE. With so many interactive-television options in the making, is AOLTV's $250 set-top box, plus $15 a month, really worth it? Clearly, the service isn't for everyone. I can think of some people who might be interested. For example, the millions of homes without a computer might be a lucrative audience for AOLTV. The service would give them Internet access and e-mail as well as instant messaging -- all by using their television, a local phone line, and a cool remote keyboard. For the nonwired world that doesn't want to pay $1,000 for a computer, AOLTV might be a bargain.
But that's not who AOL is targeting. The company says its primary target audience is its 23 million online members. The company believes that this community will pay an additional $15 a month -- on top of their current $22 monthly charge -- plus the $250 for the hardware. It's those users who are most accustomed to online chat rooms and instant messaging. Members will see the value in placing those features on the TV in the family room, says AOL Devices Vice-President Carlos Silva, a 35-year-old entrepreneur hired when AOL bought NetChannel two years ago. He says people will want to message each other during popular TV shows and football games. AOLTV, he says, is part of the company's overall strategy and resounding slogan: "AOL Everywhere."
REALITY BYTES. "We've done surveys and research, and we've talked to our existing members," says Silva. "We've seen the spikes in chat rooms, before and after The X-Files, for example. So when you talk about instant messaging during a show, it just makes sense." He adds that existing subscribers will see it that way because it's a natural extension of a relied-on computer service.
To be fair, AOLTV has many smart features. The picture-in-picture capabilities allow people to keep a TV channel at the corner of the screen while e-mailing or surfing the Web. Instant messaging "Buddy Lists" are translucent and fade or disappear when a viewer is inactive. The e-mail and Web features are unobtrusive and can easily be turned off. So the service might be useful for, say, a group of Trekkies chatting online about the finer points of a fabled Star Trek episode. If nothing else, you don't have to connect, and you've still got a great program guide from AOLTV that allows you to set shows for recording. "The program guide is what we started with when we designed the product," Silva says. O.K., now we're talking. Yet Even Silva seems to admit that the company isn't hyping the product as much as it did initially in the spring. "We're trying to take a kind of low-key, realistic approach to the rollout," he says.
Small wonder. It's still a little unclear how many people will want to check stocks during a TV show or feel the need to check the weather while watching a movie. Checking the weather isn't exactly difficult now. Ever heard of the Weather Channel? As far as messaging friends while watching a program, this is the most difficult concept for me to accept. If I want to chat about a basketball game, I'll pick up the phone and hoot and holler at a friend. I'll summarize my thoughts in a postgame e-mail to everyone I know who watched it. One thing I won't do is keep an eye on a small translucent instant messaging screen for missives from friends while glued to the NCAA finals. I can't have one eye on a close game and another on a message board. The only multitasking I'll be doing is with a beer and a pizza.
GLIMPSE OF THE FUTURE. The fact is AOLTV doesn't come cheap, and it represents one of several services on the horizon that offer interactive-TV features. AOL itself has two more product rollouts late in the fall -- one that combines AOL with DirecTV satellite service and another with TiVo that gives users digital-video recording. But neither service would work with the standard $250 set-top box. In the new era of interactive TV, AOL "very much wants to keep its subscriber base," says Mark Hubbard, executive vice-president of Wave Systems, a company developing interactive-TV options that rely on digital-television broadcasting.
With so many interactive-television options in the pipeline, AOLTV offers a first glimpse of the future. AOL itself has its hands in several other interactive ventures as the company tries to gauge what combinations TV and Internet users really want. Right now, it's anybody's guess. Better services might be right around the corner. If AOLTV were priced at $60, it might be a fun television tool for anyone. For $250 plus the monthly charges, however, AOLTV may be wise to pass on until we have a clearer picture of what other forms of interactivity television can offer.
Copyright 2000, by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.
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