TV: The TV Guide Channel
Our cable system and TV combination make channel surfing a chore (the picture takes a couple seconds to refresh every time you flip to a new station). The easiest way to find out what's on, short of going on the Web or buying a newspaper, is to watch the TV Guide channel that constantly scrolls listings at the bottom of the screen.
In olden days, this space used to be filled with commercials or infomercials, but the TV Guide Network now pipes in entertainment for the attention-span-starved masses while they browse for something they really want to watch. I caught myself actually enjoying the "Look-a-Like" portions, where an average person is made up to look like a celebrity. It's a weird little show, and I'm pretty certain it'd fail miserably if it were a standalone series, but somehow, in that small space, it works:
posted by Mulliga @ 12:06 AM
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1 Comments:
I used to work for StarSight - we had the first fully functional and completely interactive on-screen Guide, and I worked on the UI and interface. We were bought (sold out by the investors) by Gemstar, who then bought TV Guide - and which was then overthrown in an internal coup by TV Guide's voting bloc on the Board. Interesting eight years there...
TV-G never had an actual, functioning, interactive guide that ever worked or was deployed - they only had the paper magazine. What they did have was a faked-up computer simulation they ran at the trade shows, and their people were all a bunch of $200 haircuts - society wanabees - men and women who wanted to be on TV, and their little show provides them that opportunity.
Their booth at the Cable Show was like walking back into High School with the gnarly and upper-crust stuffy Junior Business types...
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