Mobile, IPTV or Web - Who will Dominate the Future of TV Applications?

written by: Richard Kastelein

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Published on Monday, 13 September 2010 23:36

Axel Technologies, a pioneer in mobile TV software technology, will introduce Fuugo to Intel Developer Forum (IDF) visitors and showcase how Fuugo unites live Broadcast TV with Internet TV. Or, in other words, how will the mobile app development community cross over to TV and how much influence will they have?

One has to hold in mind - the IPTV community in France -  they have been building for interactive TV for almost a decade - such as companies like Wiztivi who helped shape the hbbTV standards in Europe. They will play a huge roll in the migratory web, mobile and IPTV shift to Connected TV, with years of experience in building UI's, TV Widgets and TV applications for the emerging TV space.

How will the mobile and web developers make the shift? The code is simple enough - but who can truly tap into the ultimate user interface? Google TV? Apple TV?... even Intel is sniffing the turf. 

When the decision was made to package IPTV STBs during post-Minitel to French consumers, it ended up evolving into a lopsided global IPTV landscape where 8 million French viewers were hit with interactive  bundles in telecom packages. That's 45 per cent of the world IPTV market. In other words, they know what they are doing. They have been there and done that... and have been developing for TV for a decade. 

Toshiba has embraced the French and at IFA 2010 Toshiba Places and Toshiba Marketplace was launched. Which alledgedly connects all your screens, allows you to easily access and purchase content, and make storing and sharing content easy. Places should be launched sometime during Q4 2010 initially in France but then the rest of the world.

The web development community has ample skills in building for the monitors, but how will they cross over to the big screen?

Back to Fuugo... they claim it is the one of the first TV applications for personalizing a content stream by blending content choices from broadcast, mobile, and Internet TV and they tap into social media, recommendations, and various content sources for presentation of TV and video programs that match favourites, interests, and  social networks.

Fuugo made its industry entry at Mobile World Congress 2010 in Barcelona this February. Two months later Fuugo Broadcast TV was live at NAB in Las Vegas in April. Now at IDF, Axel Technologies is demonstrating how Fuugo unites Internet TV and live broadcast TV.

“Regardless of the changing landscape of TV and strong growth of Internet TV, live Broadcast TV is still the most popular form of TV. With Fuugo, TV viewers can enjoy the benefits of both worlds seamlessly. Fuugo combines different content streams and makes the discovery easy. It is the most user friendly and advanced TV application out there,” comments Petri Kalske, CEO of Axel Technologies.

Fuugo now supports all Intel enabled devices including laptops, netbooks, smartphones and tablets. But they don't do TV?Or does it matter when Google TV is launched and the web becomes part of your living room and bedroom TV experience?