|
TV marketplace unlocks e-commerce potential By Trevor Datson, European consumer goods correspondent LONDON (Reuters) - Book a holiday, juggle your bank accounts, order that Beatles CD, bet on the big match, choose a new car, buy your Thanksgiving turkey -- but whatever you do, don`t get up from in front of the television. That at least is the message of the T-commerce evangelists, and in a world where neologisms have become a badge of current awareness, you`d better know that it means buying stuff via your interactive TV (iTV). If this sounds like just the latest in a series of things that promised to change your life but didn`t -- the Apple Mac, WAP phones, digital photography -- then think again. Some of the industry`s most reliable forecasters believe T-commerce will provide exactly the fillip that e- commerce needs if it is to avoid relegation to the preferred pastime of technology nerds. "It`s going to be a fairly major part of e-commerce -- it will probably make up around 25 percent of e- commerce spending in Britain and 15 percent in Europe, by the end of 2005," said Tim Grimsditch of technology research company Forrester. It`s already growing fast. In Britain, some 10 percent of digital TV subscribers have made some form of iTV purchase, a proportion that is growing by roughly two percentage points every six months. This is not because Britons are more committed couch potatoes than their European counterparts. Interactive TV is a mainly digital medium, and Britain has one of the highest digital TV penetrations among Europe`s 9.5 million digital households. Even in the United States, where interactive TV has yet to take off on any real scale, Forrester believes interactive consumerism via the TV set will generate $25 billion in new revenues -- i.e. not taken from Internet retail -- by 2005. NOT JUST THE NET There is a tendency to think of iTV as just another form of access to the Internet, and in fact it can be -- Britain`s OnDigital, a joint venture of Carlton Communications and Granada Media, offers exactly that. But there is another model, known to industry buffs as the "walled garden". Here, digital broadcasters such as British market leader BSkyB offer their own proprietary universe of interactive gaming and information services -- and T-commerce. Retailers pay top dollars to be included in walled garden platforms such as BSkyB-controlled Open, aware that such systems hand them a whole new customer base focused on a limited number of shopping services, rather than randomly surfing the Internet. "We can integrate with what people are accustomed to. It`s a way of enhancing the viewer experience of television -- one that doesn`t go far from the entertainment environment," said Ricardo Tejada, spokesman for Open, the world`s leading iTV platform. Because shopping on your TV remote control is what is called a "lean-back" experience, as opposed to the "lean forward" nature of shopping on the Internet, some types of product and service lend themselves better to T-commerce than others. Goods often bought on impulse are one such area. Impulse buys via iTV often constitute inexpensive items that can easily be displayed to their advantage on TV, such as music, video, convenience goods, toys, concert tickets and some clothing. TRAVEL BY TV Leisure travel is another area expected to show exponential sales growth via iTV. Watching a travel programme on, say, the Maldives, a viewer could choose a link to a travel agent offering that destination, and once there, call up video footage of the island and hotels available. But it gets better. Eventually, users of an iTV system could even talk live via a videolink to a travel agent, overcoming the main limitation of current e-commerce: the Internet is a poor environment for window- shopping, and buyers generally have to know what they want before they log on. Such levels of interactivity will probably be seen first on "walled garden" systems, since it will take some time before Internet TV link-ups offer enough bandwith to carry high-quality duplex (two-way) video. Another service seemingly tailor-made for iTV is gambling. Online betting in Europe, estimated to be worth just $55 million last year, is expected to soar to $5.5 billion by 2004, according to recent market research. And the potential in the U.S. is even greater. The American gambling market is already worth over $70 billion, and a lot of the gaming that will take place on iTV will be new business only possible through this medium. And what could be easier? Bet on a soccer result right up to kick-off, or on who spins off first in the Monte Carlo Grand Prix, or the points spread in the Cowboys/Redskins clash -- even while the match is in progress. "Gambling is going to be a big one, as will anything you already shout at your TV for," Forrester`s Grimsditch said. "Game shows, footy (soccer), quizzes -- there`s going to be a lot of work on play-along game shows." HITTING THE WALL Banking and financial services could also be a big seller (one broadcaster said banks were "lining up" to get on iTV), but here we run into one of the main problems of the walled garden -- what if your bank (or stockbroker, or tailor) isn`t there? Because they may well not be. BSkyB`s Open platform only hosts 30 to 40 retailers, with roughly as many again in its own virtual department store, Open Extra. Defenders of the walled garden say this is an advantage. The choice available on the Internet is too bewildering, they say, and Net websites designed for reading on a PC screen don`t work on a television screen, usually several metres across the room. But of course it does mean a limiting your choice, says Andrew Marre of Internet-by-TV provider OnDigital. "In many cases a website will work perfectly well on the box. We believe in the long run, the Internet will be delivered to most people on the TV. In a walled garden, people eventually hit the wall." Some experts believe a hybrid, stripped-down version of the Internet will prevail, but whichever model comes to dominate, interactive television could just be the thing that finally brings e-commerce to the masses. |
|
| aus der Diskussion: | Banks were "lining up" to get on iTV |
| Autor (Datum des Eintrages): | SunSeeker22 (07.12.00 15:14:06) |
| Beitrag: | 1 von 8 (ID:2489493) |
| Alle Angaben ohne Gewähr © wallstreetONLINE | |