Television, seven years from now

The Origin of Brands by Al and Laura Ries, is the book I’m reading at the moment. One of the chapters I just finished talked about convergence and how all the major media companies said 5 and 10 years ago that TV would be interactive.

You’d be able to check your e-mail, host meetings, have shows and movies suggested, change the camera in focus, communicate with others watching the show, etc… Many of which are available but as a whole have failed miserably at revolutionizing the “boob tubeâ€?.

The closest we’ve come to such an interactive experience is TiVo, allowing us to record shows without requiring tapes or media, skipping commercials, and finding somewhat relevant content. Still a far leap from what the big boys said would be available in this day and age.

I think there are some obvious clues that hint as to what television will be like several years from now. The three that I see most important are YouTube, obviously, Pandora, and StumbleUpon’s Video app.

Here are a few attributes of those sites that when combined, dare I say converged, paint a pretty accurate picture of the future of television in my opinion.

On-Demand: Watch what you want when you want. You can’t watch an episode before its air-date, but you can watch it as many times as you wish after it originally airs, where and when you want.

Intelligent Search: If I can remember a line from a show, but not the name of the show or episode, I’ll be able to find it in seconds with the new television. I can find and view everything an actor’s been in, a director’s directed, or a camera man’s filmed. I can then view that specific segment without having to crawl frame by frame through the entire episode.

User-Powered Filters: I can rate an episode, movie, or commercial with thumbs up or thumbs down when I want. I’ll never see another lawyer commercial because I told my television that I hate them. Instead, it replaces them with movie, electronic, and sport ads, from brands I mentioned that I don’t mind.

Relevant Suggestions: My television notices that I’ve yet to watch that movie I had recorded two weeks ago. It notes that there’s not much good on Saturday night and if I’m available, that might be a good time to watch it. Oh, and the star has a new movie coming out next week. Its trailer has gotten an average of 83 out of 100 on all the movie sites, would I like to watch it now?

Random Viewing: Like StumbleUpon, I can click the random button and my TV takes me to a program that relates to what I’ve said I enjoy watching. I can do this as many times as I wish and through my feedback (thumbs up/thumbs down like Pandora) the randomness gets smarter and more accurate over time, until I’ve pretty much created my own station comprised of hundreds of channels, shows, themes.

Charts and Metrics: I can view what’s hot right now, how many people have watched it, the amount of positive and negative ratings its received, whether any of my friends and family have watched it, and read/see/watch commentary and discussions from viewers.

Channels Replace Channels: As opposed to watching a channel like Fox or ESPN, I watch a channel like Political News or Extreme Sports. I can dig deeper into these channels and watch only Liberal News or Freestyle BMX. These new channels aggregate what we consider to be channels nowadays based upon their relevancy, content, and theme.

My title says that this will be television in seven years. I say that because 1) seven is my lucky number, 2) I have no idea when this will come to fruition. It could be a couple years or a decade. But at some point, this will be the new television.

There are other clues that give a sneak peak to the future of television, Apple’s iPhone and tv. Both challenge the norms of usability, interface and design. You’ll see the same standards challenged and reinvented in television and the viewing experience altogether.

I’ll be interesting to read this post a few years from now and see how accurate my predictions were. Until then, I’d love to hear what you think the television of the future will be. By television of course, I mean the content and format within the display device. TVs themselves will get thinner, brighter, cheaper, lighter, faster, bigger, smaller, or any other adjective you can think of.

As we’ve learned from all the failed attempts at creating this interactive television in the past decade, its not about convergence, its about freedom and intelligence. Two qualities that I’d sure as hell wouldn’t mind associating with my “boob tube�.