December 16, 1996
Is the Internet Really Like TV?
By Bob O'Donnell
Good analogies are a great way to teach people about potentially confusing subjects.
And in the world of the Internet and the World Wide Web, where new ideas and concepts seem
to appear every week or so, analogies can do wonders to clarify the relevance (or
irrelevance) of new technologies -- that is, as long as they're accurate.
Regarding the introduction and rapid acceptance of technologies that push information
from a Web site to individual users, the latest analogy to be applied to the Web is that
the Internet is like TV. PointCast's and Marimba's products, for example,
employ channels you can tune in or subscribe to and provide information on the subjects
you're interested in. Best of all, goes the argument, as with television, you don't have
to do anything to receive what you want other than turn to the channel. From that point
forward, the information flows to you.
OK -- to a point. The above analogy points out the difference between these mechanisms
and traditional Web browsing, where individuals go out and search for information on their
own. The problem is, the analogy also suggests certain characteristics of television --
ease of use, consistency, and universality -- which none of these push technologies can
even begin to offer.
For example, a TV and its accompanying remote control essentially define ease of use:
You can turn a television on or off and change the channels. That's it. Things don't get
much easier than that. Setting up and configuring something like Marimba's Castanet, on
the other hand, is a decidedly nontrivial task. The installation software certainly helps,
but getting the information you want needs to be a lot easier. Of course, the fact that
the beta version hangs up my machine on a fairly regular basis doesn't help, either.
Televisions are also consistent. Once you've learned how to use one TV, you know how to
use any other. Different Internet push mechanisms use widely divergent means to deliver
information to end-users, and learning how to use each of them requires a good deal of
work -- more than most people are willing to make.
Finally, and most importantly, television service is universally available and
consistently delivered so that you can watch any channel on any brand of television.
Internet push mechanisms, on the other hand, are only supported by an infinitesimally
small percentage of Web sites, and different systems are used by different content sites.
To turn the Internet and TV analogy on its ear, you'd need to use one type of TV to watch
CNN, a different one for HBO and Cinemax, and yet another for ABC. And to add insult to
injury, you may not even be able to watch your local news station because it might not
have been broadcast yet.
It's no easier for the content creators because there's no clear consensus on which
mechanisms are best for delivering their content. It would be as if there were multiple
broadcast protocols, and TV stations had to try and pick which one they wanted to support.
(Of course, given the horrendous new HDTV "agreement"
being considered by the FCC, which essentially condones two different digital television
transmission standards, this analogy may not be too far off -- but that's a topic for a
different column.)
The result is a mess, and with an increasing number of new push technologies being
introduced at a rapid pace, the situation promises to get a lot worse before it gets
better. There's certainly no denying that the concept is appealing. Having the information
we want delivered regularly to our fingertips would be a great thing. Until a single,
easy-to-use standard becomes established, however, we may be stuck with grappling for
haphazard chunks of non-related data under the pounding of our frustrated fists.
©
Copyright 1996, by InfoWorld Publishing Corp., a
subsidiary of IDG Communications, Inc. Reprinted from InfoWorld,
155 Bovet Road, San Mateo, CA 94402. Further reproduction is prohibited.
