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Our Blogs Core Dump Why Hiro is not my hero
Our Blogs Core Dump Why Hiro is not my hero | Why Hiro is not my hero |
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| by Stephen Withers | |
| Tuesday, 27 May 2008 | |
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Page 1 of 4   
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The business model is that ads are dynamically inserted as the content is played, providing a revenue stream for the rightsholder. That still sounds fine to me, as long as the ads aren't too intrusive. The problem broadcast TV has is that ad breaks are so long and so frequent that they've become a major barrier to enjoying the show. Consequently, people channel surf, use technology to fast-forward or completely skip over ads, or simply leave the room. Consequently, they never see many of the ads. (It's interesting to hear that the Fox network in the US is going to experiment with shorter and less frequent breaks in some shows, charging more for the spots that are available to make up the difference as well as the cost of the higher proportion of program material.) Hiro's approach is to prevent fast forwarding or rewinding during ads. Furthermore, the ads are dynamically inserted along with pieces of the show that were omitted from the original file. Once the Hiro software has collected these items, the file will play locally for a few days, after which a new set of ads fetched from the server before it can be played again. So what are the snags? |
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