While 100 million adults in the United States go on line every month, only about 1 million were subscribing to an Internet service provided through their television set by the end of 1999, alluding to the fact that interactive television - even in the mighty USA - is still very much in its infancy.
"Many people and companies were very bullish about the potential adoption of interactive TV. But while the Internet - including on-line purchases by the man-in-the-street - is in a steep uphill curve, interactive TV is relatively unpopular because of its perceived lacked of functionality."
This is according to Douglas Reed, managing director of leading Internet Service Provider (ISP) and network integrator, Data Pro, part of the JSE Securities Exchange listed Control Instruments group.
He said the new-age TV was touted as the usurper of the PC as the next great communications tool. But this just doesn`t seem to be happening. And if it is not happening "big time" in the United States, then it isn`t likely to "catch on fire in South Africa" anytime soon.
TV users still like to sit in front of their screen and flip through channels. But the latest research, conducted by Cyber Dialogue, shows that seven out of 10 adults are just not interested in any form of interactive TV. Only 27% of Americans say they are interested in navigating the Web from their TVs. Meanwhile, just over 30% concede that they are interested in any type of interactive TV service.
"TV users are used to high quality and fast responses. Quality and speed is not quite there with interactive TV,. What it is lacking is functionality - it is lacking some kind of killer application," said Reed.
He said people are just not going to accept slow download times, jerky screens and poor sound quality.
"But, like any new technology, you get the early adopters They are the techno-guinea pigs. As the technology grows in popularity, so does the functionality and the overall speed and quality.
"Interestingly enough, a country like SA could take to interactive TV much faster. Less of the population have PCs. Far more have TVs. If these consumers are able to link to the Internet via their TVs it will be a wonderful experience for them. They won`t have any quality comparisons to make like the Americans. To them it may appear to be fantastic. It`s possible even now for interactive TV to start finding a home among consumers," said Reed. "DS-TV, for instance, can hook into the Internet via a digital decoder. It is also possible for the more advanced users to download Internet data via satellite decoders. But there are no real signs of large scale use at the moment."
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