Just back from IBC at Amsterdam.  The big broadcasting conference where all the world’s supplier get together to show off their latest wares and celebrate a market which grew circa 20% in the last twelve months.  Despite the credit crunch, real people seem to be watching and paying for television as much as ever and suppliers are scrambling to deliver the latest solutions to support that trend.

The key topic is TV 2.0.  Social TV. Web 2.0 on the large screen.  It is a compelling vision.  All the interactiveity which is working so well on the PC Internet transferred on to the television.  However we all know that the TV is a 10 foot, lean back experience and the PC is a one foot, lean forward experience.  So the paradigm does not simply translate and those who achieve that translation successfully stand a chance of ruling the world.

When I created BT Vision – some four years ago – my business plan was full of interactivity up-side. But as always, market adoption has been a lot slower than I expected.  To paraphrase Bill Gates – ‘Nothing ever happens as fast as you expect but when it does happen it goes much faster than you can imagine’.  I wonder if we are at that point now.

I’m seeing demos which show what my Facebook friends are watching and how much they rate those programmes.  I see Voice-over-IP channels opened up between two households to allow my shouting at the Spurs match to be heard by my mates in their living room.  I see widgets filling the screen informing me of the weather forecast, my stock portfolio performance and the traffic issues on my route to work.  I see content from the open internet – referred to as Over-the-Top or OTT video – appearing alongside my favourite broadcasted content. I see my music, pictures and video stored on my home network filling my TV screen.  I like what I see but I know that the appeal will be to my kids who expect this and see all this innovation as ’so what’.

So exciting times ahead for all of us.  The landsacpe is shifting, the consumers are more demanding and providers are scrambling.  Bring it on – I intend to ensure Amino is front and centre and what a blast it will be.