Bringing UGC content to TV

Current TV is a content sharing and aggregating site that is making a brave effort in bringing in amateur web content to the mass TV audience. Just last week, it launched a brand new programme called Webmash, an all round entertainment programme that beams the weirdest news, the funniest videos and other unmissable web gems onto your screens.


It may not be in everyone’s taste to watch yet another “Harry Hill’s TV Burp” type of content, but the programme makers at Current TV seem to invest quite a bit of time rifling through the internet and cramming the best bits into a thirty minute entertainment show.

What I like about the idea is that unlike traditional TV shows the content is 100% user generated, meaning the cost is almost next to none. Who knows, programmes like this could become a perfect watershed lull breaker before we settle down in front of our TV screens for mainstream favourites like TopGear and the Apprentice.

Webmash airs at 8pm, Monday to Thursday on Current TV, which is available on Sky 183 and Virgin Media 155.

The Future of interactive TV revealed

There was a great story in the Metro last week picking up on some predictions from interactive technology research house Future Laboratory based around the future of interactive TV and networked homes. Although the mainstream media has been riding on the TV on Contact Lenses headlines, I particularly enjoyed the following predictions:

1. Intelligent home entertainment management system based on humanoid avatars will be huge. What’s more these interactive avatars will eliminate the need for content search through a remote control as it will enable viewers to control TV through voice recognition or dialogue.
2. The choice for channels will continue to grow but user generated content (UGC) will equally dominate viewers preference for home entertainment
3. With TV screens networked to the internet, viewers will be able to tailor their home entertainment the way they customise social networking sites like Myspace
4. Watching a telly will no longer be passive as people will be share preferences and connect with others through their networked TVs
5. Multi-sensory technology planted on our bodies will enable highly immersive TV watching experience

Although some of these may seem a little too futuristic for some we’ve already seem some of these themes demonstrated at shows & exhibitions in the last 12 months. UGC, Avatars and Social Networking sites on the TV are more than just ideas.

You can read the full story here