TV Content with Synchronized Internet Links
Posted: Thursday 4 Feb 2010, under category Ideas
"Bellyvision" is the term for the growing trend of people who surf the interent on their laptops while sitting on the couch watching TV. It's easy enought to image that television and the internet will become more and more integrated in the years to come, and the newly launched Tellylinks.com hopes to cash in on this phenomenon. The idea works like this: while people watch TV the service delivers web links that are relevant to the what is happening in the TV program.
Tellylinks.com launched yesterday on Channel Five in the UK, providing hundreds of links synchronized with what was happening on the show "Numb3rs" which was being broadcast. The venture is the idea of Jeff Henry, the former ITV senior executive, who says of his idea that it "takes full advantage of two-screen entertainment. There will be a period of years where such services will supplement TV viewing, before true convergence with interactive TV where we will also develop a service. This is an editorial play, it is like an Apple iPhone app for the television."
Tellylinks plans on making its money from advertising based on the content that is proposed to users, though it promises never to have more than one ad every fthree minutes.
I can't really decide how much I like this idea, I guess I would have to try it out. Moving TV in a more interactive direction is certainly interesting. Maybe one of our U.K. readers can give us a firsthand account of Tellylinks service?
