Ryan MacMillan

The Venice Project has finally launched its BETA version. The much awaited and discussed IPTV project from Skype founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis is creating a buzz around the net and in true new media style the easiest way to get on the beta program is to be invited by an existing tester - community kudos already! And its the community aspect that TVP is promising will be integral to their platform. Yes things like DRM are interesting but for me it’s the idea of creating community around broadcast content that is interesting.

From their site TVP say: “But we’re also bringing something back from that old TV - of having a shared experience with your friends, something you can talk about, rally around and enjoy with others. And it is that latter part - embodied in the community tools and APIs - which we expect will play a prominent role in this early beta.”

But if there’s no ‘appointment to view’ if you can’t replicate the extraordinary reach of I Love Lucy and have that ubiquitous water cooler moment, then how could this work? I suppose it kind of already exists with shared video clips. Links to YouTube and Google Video always prompt a ‘have you seen this from x’ across our office, and no points if you’re flagging up a video that went round months earlier. So we accept that there’s a kind of long tail TV moment happening around the virtual water cooler thing happening already. So what tools and features might TVP be adding that aren’t already on YouTube and the others services?

Perhaps some of the answer lies in the streamed aspect of it (as in not downloaded for later viewing) - but surely it can’t be reliant on a set time broadcast model. And if its not then how can there be any shared moments during the broadcast; texting and IM-ing each other at crucial points makes little sense if you’re al watching it at different times…curious. If anyone has a beta testing token they can spare - I’d love to go and have a play.