Cablevision Forms Innovation Group, Canoe Staffs Up, Sezmi Raises $33 Million, Zappware Names New CEO

Ensequence and Visible World Team for EBIF Ads, New Zodiac EBIF Players, tru2way Launched in Chicago and Denver

EBIF Wins for BIAP, SlingPlayer Launches on BlackBerry, ActiveVideo Targets CE Devices, New Integra5 Deployments

Showtime Taps Oberon for ITV Promotion, New ITV Ad Deals for etc.tv, BBC Celebrates Red Button, Channel 4 Drops It

New ITV Weather Apps, Bravo Plans Interactive Fashion Series, New ITV Games Deals and Deployments

Program offers an industry-first combination of research services and marketing opportunities, available individually or as an annual subscription, for video and broadband service providers, technology suppliers and investors

In this recorded episode of [itvt]'s talk radio show, "The TV of Tomorrow Show with Tracy Swedlow," David Housman, general manager of OCAP/tru2way specialist, Vidiom Systems, discusses the company's new focus, following its amicable split with its founder and former CEO, Tim Wahlers (who has established a new company, enableTV, from parts of Vidiom's professional services business--see [itvt] Issue 8.06 Part 1).

[itvt]’s Tracy Swedlow recently interviewed Bill Sheppard, chief digital media officer of the Client Software Group at Sun Microsystems. Audio of the interview is below, followed by a transcript that has been slightly edited for length.

Sheppard explains why Sun is bullish on tru2way; provides an overview of the new JavaFX language and its significance [...]

In this recorded episode of [itvt]’s talk radio show, “The TV of Tomorrow Show with Tracy Swedlow,” Maha Ibrahim, general partner at venture capital firm, Canaan Partners, discusses her company’s investment strategy. Among other things, she explains why Canaan is interested in early-stage HD broadband video providers; outlines the criteria that guide the company’s [...]

This issue contains back-to-back recorded episodes of [itvt]’s talk radio show, “The TV of Tomorrow Show with Tracy Swedlow,” devoted to the latest crop of interactive media prototypes from the American Film Institute Digital Content Lab, and to the AFI DigiFest 2008 event that the Digital Content Lab organized earlier this month in Los Angeles. [...]

[itvt]’s Tracy Swedlow caught up with David Verklin, CEO of Canoe Ventures–the company that is implementing Project Canoe, the US cable industry’s initiative to create a national unified platform for interactive and addressable advertising–at the NewTeeVee Conference in San Francisco last week. Audio of the interview is below, followed by an unedited transcript of the [...]

In this recorded episode of [itvt]’s talk radio show, “The TV of Tomorrow Show with Tracy Swedlow,” Tom Pratt, VP of programming and product development at The Weather Channel, discusses the channel’s interactive TV offerings and strategy. Topics covered include why The Weather Channel views implementing interactive TV as a high priority; the channel’s [...]

Sefy Ariely, VP of sales and marketing at IPTV middleware and applications provider, Orca Interactive, discusses some of the company’s newest offerings. They include an end-to-end hybrid solution for delivering TV over the open Internet, social TV applications, and a personalization capability that makes use of fingerprint-recognition technology. Ariely also discusses Orca’s new deployment [...]

In this recorded episode of [itvt]’s talk radio show, “The TV of Tomorrow Show with Tracy Swedlow,” Comcast Media Center (CMC) COO, Gary Traver, and Homer Gonzalez III, product manager for CMC’s HITS AxIS offering (note: the latter, whose name stands for “Headend in the Sky Advanced Interactive Services,” is a centralized platform that operates on the National Authorization System and that is billed as being designed to support developers of advanced OCAP/tru2way and ETV/EBIF interactive TV applications and to facilitate the deployment and management of those applications on cable systems serving small- to mid-sized markets), provide an overview of how HITS AxIS works and of the strategy and business model behind the platform. Topics covered include recent updates to the platform; the current state of interactive TV standards; CMC’s strategic relationships with companies such as Ensequence, itaas, Softel and Vidiom and with groups such as OEDN.net; and much more.

Earlier this week, Plano, Texas-based interactive TV technology provider, BIAP, announced that it has signed a five-year license agreement with Time Warner Cable that will see the latter using BIAP’s ETV User Agent in its advanced advertising platform. According to the companies, the BIAP software will enable Time Warner Cable digital set-top boxes to run EBIF applications created by the operator itself, or by third parties such as broadcast networks. In addition, the BIAP ETV User Agent will support a new version of Time Warner Cable’s MDN navigator, the companies say.



In this recorded episode of [itvt]’s talk radio show, “The TV of Tomorrow Show with Tracy Swedlow,” BIAP CTO, Aaron Ye, the company’s chief scientist, Louis Slothouber, and its EVP of marketing, Dan Levinson, discuss the new Time Warner Cable deal and its significance. Topics covered include the interactive and targeted advertising capabilities that the BIAP ETV User Agent will provide for Time Warner Cable; how the new deployment relates to Project Canoe, the US cable industry’s initiative to enable a national platform for targeted, interactive advertising (note: BIAP’s offerings include a product dubbed “Canoe in a Box”); BIAP’s plans for the future; and much more.

In this recorded episode of [itvt]’s talk radio show, “The TV of Tomorrow Show with Tracy Swedlow,” Dean Denhart, president and CEO of BlackArrow, a company that specializes in targeted advertising management technologies for on-demand platforms (note: among other things, the company recently announced that it had raised $20 million in new funding and that it had integrated its ad-management system with Akamai’s Media Framework), provides an overview of the company and its positioning in the market. Topics covered include the various components that comprise the emerging market for targeted advertising; the growth in interest in targeted advertising and how that is shaping the current competitive landscape; the significance to the advertising industry of the tru2way/OCAP and ETV/EBIF standards; how BlackArrow believes its strategy differentiates it; how the company plans to use its new funding going forward; and more.

San Francisco-based start-up, iWidgets, recently unveiled its flagship iWidgets Social Syndication Platform and announced that CBS Interactive had signed up as the platform’s first customer. The platform allows end-users to watch clips of CBS television shows directly within popular social networks and to interact with other viewers through such features as content-sharing, polls, ratings and contests.


In this recorded episode of [itvt]’s talk radio show, “The TV of Tomorrow Show with Tracy Swedlow,” iWidgets founder and CEO, Peter Yared, discusses iWidgets’ offerings, its new deal with CBS, and how the company is positioned in the broadband video and social networking spaces in general. Topics covered include how content owners can use the company’s platform to add interactivity to broadband video and then syndicate the resulting assets; the company’s various partnerships; its business model; how it plans to evolve its platform going forward; and much more.

InteractiveTV Today [itvt], the first, best and most widely read news source on interactive and multiplatform television, is pleased to present the third annual TV of Tomorrow Show, March 10th-11th (Tuesday-Wednesday), 2009 in San Francisco, California at the famous Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.





The first two TV of Tomorrow Shows were praised by sponsors, speakers, exhibitors and attendees not only as true experts’ conferences that attracted a veritable “who’s who” of the interactive TV industry, but as offering a thoroughly unique and enjoyable experience. We are working hard to ensure that the TV of Tomorrow Show 2009–which is already attracting an array of high-powered speakers and which will feature a line-up of fascinating entertainments–is even better.

In this recorded episode of [itvt]'s talk radio show, "The TV of Tomorrow Show with Tracy Swedlow," Perry Wu, founder and CEO of BitGravity, and Angelo Fernando, communications and outreach manager at Arizona State University, discuss the new Decision Theater at ASU, which incorporates video, interactivity, graphics, and dynamic data, all enabled by BitGravity's suite of services and products. Topics covered include the concepts behind and the goals of the Decision Theater; projects that have been conducted there; BitGravity's market segment and offerings; how the company's technologies are used to power interactive video experiences; and more.

--Radio Interview: ActiveVideo's Jeff Miller Discusses the Deployment

In this recorded episode of [itvt]'s talk radio show, "The TV of Tomorrow Show with Tracy Swedlow," ActiveVideo Networks president and CEO, Jeff Miller, discusses the new Oceanic Time Warner Cable deployment and its significance. Topics covered include the various services that ActiveVideo Networks is powering for Oceanic Time Warner Cable; how end-users are responding to those services; why ActiveVideo Networks is now finally gaining traction in the cable and IPTV markets; how the company plans to develop its technologies and services going forward; how it views the US cable industry's ETV/EBIF and tru2way standardization initiatives; and more.