Microsoft is burying webTV, the service which was equally notable for being
an internet television pioneer and for being the first of two decades worth of
subsequent failures at such an effort. WebTV was followed by products ranging
from Apple TV to Google TV, none of which resonated with the mainstream either.
Microsoft tried to keep webTV alive over the years, renaming it to MSN TV to no
avail. And now it perishes at a time when few are aware it ever existed, and
even fewer were aware that it was still around. Yet the future of internet
television may still be around the corner.
Apple is preparing to build its Apple TV technology directly into televison
sets in the hopes of putting it in the hands of more consumers. Samsung just
acquired Boxee, yet another internet televison niche, in an effort to go head to
head with Apple. And Google is far from done trying. But the jury is still out
as to whether the mainstream public wants web surfing and television on the same
device. Renting a digital movie on a TV set, or watching a TV episode in iTunes
on a computer, is one thing. Marrying the two appliances entirely is another.
Most of the public have shown they prefer to maintain separate devices with only
casual crossover. But attitudes on the subject have shown they can evolve.
Around the time Microsoft was launching webTV, Steve Jobs correctly
predicted it would fail, positing that people used their computer for when their
brain was turned on and their televison when it was turned off. But by the end
of his life, Jobs was claiming he’d figured out the ideal interface for marrying
the two devices, which Apple still has yet to reveal. By shutting down webTV,
Microsoft is either admitting that a market it helped pioneer was only ever a
solution in search of a problem, or getting out just when the getting is about
to get good.
没有评论:
发表评论