Digital Camelot - The Once and Future Web of Engelbart and Nelson

If you care about modern culture and how technology is shaping it, this is worth thinking about -- A powerful eulogy for where the Web might have gone, and still may someday, and the friendship of the two people most responsible for envisioning the Web*  --  Ted Nelson's eulogy for his friend Doug Engelbart, as reported by John Markoff in The Times -- with Nelson's inimitable flair.

As Markoff says:

Theodor Holm Nelson, who coined the term hypertext, has been a thorn in the side of the computing establishment for more than a half century. Last week, in an encomium to his friend Douglas Engelbart, he took his critique to Shakespearean levels. It deserves a wider audience. 

Dr. Engelbart and Ted Nelson became acquaintances at the dawn of the modern computing era. They had envisioned and invented the computing that we have come to take for granted.

I first encountered both of them in 1969, and what I saw set the direction for my life's work.  Engelbart gave "The Mother of All Demos" in 1968 (I first saw him give a follow-up the next year, and then read most of his work).  Nelson dreamed of hypertext and hypermedia, and wrote papers on what he called "hypertext" in the '60s and the highly influential Whole Earth Catalog of "Computer Lib / Dream Machines" in 1974.

As Nelson laments, both received a degree of recognition, but both were marginalized. Powerful as it may be, expediency took the Web in more limiting directions.

Their ideas remain profound and forward looking. Anyone who really cares about the future of media, intellect, and culture, and how information technology can augment that, should consider their work.  Just because the Web took a turn to expediency in the past does not mean it will not realize its richer potential in the future. (One hint of that is noted in the next section.)

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As to Nelson's comment about "keeping the links outside the file," he refers to the important point that HTML embeds the links in the HTML file, which largely limits linking and annotating to the author/distributor of the HTML page. Nelson views this a crippling to the vision he and Engelbart (and Bush) had, in which links could be created by third parties and associated with the page from outside, thus allowing anyone to link from, annotate, and enhance any work.

I was struck by the fact that  interactive hypermedia centered on TV and video are becoming mainstream, and much of it now does keep the links outside the file. Perhaps just a primitive version of Engelbart and Nelson's ideas, but a step in the right direction that might lead to further movement, and maybe spill over into other Web services...

Prime examples are the growing use of Automatic Content Recognition (ACR), which recognize a program and current viewing time-position, and is used to associate independent linkbases with video.  This is occurring both with 2-screen apps like Shazam, Zeebox, and IntoNow (Yahoo), and with 1-screen apps in smart TVs from most of the major TV vendors, and with support from major studios.

Video seems to naturally make embedded links problematic (where to put them?).  The TV industry tried to embed the links into the content (in such forms as ATVEF trigger streams in the VBI, and more recently in cable operator OCAP/EBIF platforms), but this has proven difficult to get to mass market.  Meanwhile, ACR has become popular -- first on the fringes, but now increasingly accepted by both the market and the industry.  Studios like Fox are even opening up their TV enhancement content to let independents like Zeebox use that content apart from (and in competition with) the Fox apps.  They recognize that the value of their services is enhanced by letting others re-distribute enhancements to their shows (along with independent enhancements) -- anything to increase attention to their shows.

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*Of course there were others, most notably Vannevar Bush, who inspired both Engelbart and Nelson.

Twiiter Ad Targeting + Comcast Show It -- Crossing the Chasm?

Two very interesting moves toward mass market Interactive TV and T-commerce were made recently, and I suggest putting them together will lead to a major step beyond.

Twitter announced that its ad targeting now allows advertisers to send you promoted tweets if you tweet about a program during which their ad appeared.  A one-two punch, to follow up on the TV ad impression. A crude but clever way to synchronize Internet with TV, but potentially on massive scale, and thus a big step.  You tweet; that tells them what you are watching; they know what ads air with it; and let the advertisers tweet you. There are better ways (such as ACR and triggers), but not in wide deployment (but that will come).

Comcast announced that it is working with Twitter and NBC to enable tweets to include a Show It button that when clicked, tunes your TV to the program that was tweeted about (or sets your DVR to record it).  That is if you have Comcast's new X1 set top box. In any case you can also view the video on your Twitter device (second screen on phone or tablet). Comcast says they hope this will become a standard, used by other networks and distribution partners.

Given the scale of Twitter and Comcast, this could finally get Interactive TV across the chasm. Their reach can bring it to the masses, show the economic imperative, and lead to far richer versions. If the money is shown to be there, along with the mass market to deliver it, that will launch a major build-out.

[***Update 12/12:  A nice analyst commentary by Joel Espelien that agrees on the importance of these moves (in spite of little press attention) was posted today. (In the I almost told you so department, I had this post largely complete in mid-October, but let it sit as a draft until this week.)]

Soon:  Once these first steps take hold, other advanced features will be easy to add.

Some of this is suggested by Comcast: expansion to Facebook, and presumably any other Web service or app. This enables the idea of "the Web as program guide" that I described in my CoTV work,

...where all media types can be fully interlinked, in a manner that is fully consistent. Hotspots can serve as link anchors whether in text, image or video, and targets can be of any media type -- rich combinations of hypermedia browsing and navigation across devices.

It also seems that one valuable enhancement in TV advertising will be easy: telescoping ads synchronized across two screens.  From an ad on your TV to a video follow up on your phone or tablet. This has been done for years on some TV platforms, but not on a scale that gets much recognition or much interest from advertisers. But there is money there, if it reaches scale.

Telescoping to a second screen could be easy with Twitter Ad Targeting combined with See It with just one small twist.

• As it is now, See It is described as linking to a program, in the sense of content you could select by channel, or from a program guide. Nice, but what about advertising?
• As it could be, it might also enable links to advertising video-on-demand.  Comcast may have enabled this already, but if not, it should not be hard to add.

That enables telescoping across two screens. Ad Targeting flags a viewer who is seeing the ad on TV, and sends a link to his companion device that links (via See It) to a commercial video that picks up from there. A 15 or 30 second spot can link to a longer form video that drives home the message -- and can also include an online call to action, with all of the ease of interaction via a phone or tablet. All with widely deployed and widely used technology.

Coactive TV -- The World of TV is getting there, and more is yet to come...

The kind of advanced "coactive" TV that I been promoting since 2002 is finally reaching the mainstream, but there is still much more to come.

As noted in a new page on the CoTV Web site, "Coactive TV: User-centered Convergence Today and Tomorrow:" 

The increasing prevalence of "media multitasking" (simultaneous use of TV and the Web) on laptops and smartphones began to change perceptions, and 2-screen ITV began to be seen as desirable in itself. Users were creating their own manual ITV experiences by finding relevant Web services on their own.  That set the stage for the emergence of CoTV 1.0, which was then kick-started by the iPad.  One indication of CoTV crossing the chasm into mainstream attention was the survey by Katherine Boehret of the influential Mossberg/Wall Street Journal/All Things D team on 12/20/11.

Another indication this is getting real was the number of announcements at CES. As reported by Bill Niemeyer in the 1/13 OTT Monitor from The Diffusion Group:

One key takeaway from CES that has floated above the noise pertains to Automated Content Recognition (ACR) for TV and video platforms. CES saw announcements from a number of ACR vendors including Audible Magic, Civolution, Gracenote, and Zeitera.

What is ACR? It's a variety of technologies that allow a device or service to recognize automatically a specific piece of content and synchronize to it within seconds. ACR can be based on audio/video watermarking or fingerprinting (i.e., cloud-based pattern matching used by mobile music app services like Shazam). Let your cell phone hear a brief bit of a song and Shazam will tell you what it is and even provide synchronized lyrics.

How can ACR be used in OTT [Over The Top]? It can synchronize interactive experiences for programs - whether viewed live or time-shifted - as well as advertising or e-commerce apps. Distinct from watermarking, which requires insertion in the content, fingerprinting can be done completely outside the realm of content providers, networks, and PayTV operators. That said, developing third-party synced apps without infringing on copyrights could be tricky.

With ACR, literally "the possibilities are endless" (to use a trite phrase). It's a powerful tool that needs to be put in the hands of creatives to realize fully its artistic potential, as well as clever business-side types to see how much "extended revenue" it can create.

But this is just the start. To look further into the future of advanced TV and video-based hypermedia, check out the section on "CoTV Tomorrow -- CoTV 2.0" on that new CoTV page.  A partial list of advanced features:

• Selectable, Alternative "Enhancement Channels" 
• Screen targeting
• Flexible session-shifting
• Link-and-pause (and sync bookmarks)
• Full hypermedia browsing  
• TV Context parameter/API
• Full Coactive Internet commerce and advertising
• Third-party linking rights/fees