Miss World launches its new interactive global website and IPTV channel. Now fans can engage and interact with Miss World through unique TV programmes and exclusive content. The Miss World final has a global TV audience of 2.2 billion people. That’s over a third of the world’s population, watching the world’s largest annual TV event. These figures are only surpassed, every four years, by the Olympics opening ceremony and the football World Cup Final.

To meet the demands of this staggering worldwide audience, Internet Television Productions launched the official Miss World website, targeting this vast fan base. The global opportunities for advertising and sponsorship are huge as each country is tasked with driving its local audience to the Miss World website.

Online video's cost

In the past three years, investors have dropped more than $8 billion into the online video market. What did they get in return on their investments?

Interactive TV Awards

Three finalists named in Deutsche Tekekom's last and decisive round of the Interactive TV Awards. The decision wasn't easy for the jury but after heated discussions, but the three winners from the second round been officially announced:

• creamBOTS (Germany) Live Media Recommendation Network - "Networked World"
• Trenfield/Regner (Austria/Switzerland) PIN: An Instant Information System - "Independence of Time and Place"
• and 3-frogs (Netherlands) FamilienFun - "Family Network"

Efforts to accelerate the deployment of IPTV by combining the expertise of key telecom operators, consumer electronics manufacturers and network infrastructure providers in the Open IPTV Forum are gathering further momentum, and the first release of the specifications that will allow IPTV to develop into a mass market service is close to completion.

At its meeting at the headquarters of Telefónica in Madrid from 10-13 June, the Open IPTV Forum, the pan-industry initiative that was established to produce the end-to-end solution specification which will open up access to the interactive and personalised services offered by IPTV, significantly expanded its membership. These companies join the founding members - Ericsson, FT Group, Nokia Siemens Networks, Panasonic, Philips, Samsung, Sony and Telecom Italia - and many other major IPTV industry players from the communications and entertainment industries, bringing to 37 the number of companies which are working together in the Forum.

blinkx announces the availability of blinkx BBTV helping add dimension and context to the viewer’s experience. Launching with a library of premium independent films and a variety of high-quality programming from existing partners, blinkx BBTV is a small download (0.5 MB) that is available free of charge starting April 2nd, 2008.

With hybrid peer-to-peer streaming and a simple, point-and-click channel interface, blinkx BBTV delivers a new kind of online television: full-screen, TV-quality and truly immersed in the Internet. Until now, Web video has simply used the Internet as a new distribution mechanism, failing to exploit its true potential. By fusing TV and other video with the Web, blinkx BBTV enables users to instantly browse or interact with online sources related to what they are watching, whether it’s Google, Wikipedia, IMDB or other Web sites offering relevant information – from news and entertainment, to travel and sports.

Pioneer Telephone launches CloverLeaf's DotDaily localized interactive television service providing localized news and information to IPTV subscribers in 72 exchanges in Oklahoma. CloverLeaf's interactive localized news & information TV service (often known as a walled garden), provided to Pioneer Telephone and other telephone and cable companies, includes news and sports coverage from Associated Press, local weather from AccuWeather, local cinema guides and horoscopes; as well as local content including community events calendars, school lunch menus and community slide shows, published by community organizations using CloverLeaf's DashDaily community content publishing tools.

Streaming21 announces the success of its new Karaoke-on-Demand service for Chunghwa Telecom. Due to its enhanced and intuitive user interface, new personalization features (such as My Jukebox) and abundant selection of popular karaoke songs, CHT has achieved significant growth with its new KOD service. The new service successfully reached over 300,000 hits in the first month since launch and becomes a leading pay-TV service, making considerable contributions to CHT's overall IPTV revenues.

Orca and muvee announce an agreement to develop and market LivePhotos, the first-ever application for automatic movie-making over IPTV platforms. LivePhotos combines Orca’s use-generated content capabilities with muvee’s automatic video editing and photo movie software to produce a groundbreaking new service designed to enhance IPTV service offerings. Orca will demonstrate LivePhotos, which is based on RiGHTv scalable architecture, at the IBC exhibition in Amsterdam in booth 2.230 from September 7-11, 2007.

World Wrestling Entertainment is working with ConcurrentMicrosoft to develop a new, cutting edge interactive video experience at WWE.com based on the Microsoft Silverlight cross-browser, cross-platform interactive plug-in. WWE will make this interactive video player the primary front-end tool for delivering all streaming video, as well as providing a rich and compelling “web 2.0” experience to the WWE fan nation. WWE.com currently attracts more than 20 million unique visitors and streams more than 40 million videos each month.

DigiSoft.tv announces the release of DigiTracker to the global market. DigiTracker is a world first for digital interactive TV. The product is specifically designed for global IPTV operators to allow tracking of mobile phones by viewers. This new opt-in application will allow TV viewers such as parents to see the current location of their children's mobile phone on their TV screen. It will also allow text or SMS messages to be sent to that phone. DigiTracker uses integrations to Location Based Services and mapping systems to enable the plotting of a mobile location on a map and display it on the TV thus allowing for the first time ever, parents to know exactly where their children are at any time.

emuse absolutely have been appointed as a preferred supplier of next-generation interactive advertising services for BT Vision, BT's digital TV service. emuse absolutely and BT will jointly develop, promote and operate the service, working with major brands and their advertising agencies to deliver interactive advertising and other interactive applications on BT Vision.

BT Vision's interactive advertising will showcase a compelling experience on the TV, drawing on the power of broadband to offer high-speed, video-rich advertiser locations that include sophisticated data capture, search and a quick and intuitive response mechanism.

Imagine watching an archived episode of a popular show like Desperate Housewives via the Internet and clicking onto Eva Longoria's sweater to find the name of the designer with an information bar that allows you to add the garment to a shopping bag, and purchase it when you're done watching the show.

"Popular TV shows generate significant income from product placement on their shows, but until now a viewer couldn't purchase clothes or get information on a new car without a significant amount of research," said Greg Nakagawa, BroadRamp's chief executive officer. "Now, with a click of a mouse, someone can someday purchase the same sweater that Eva Longoria wore on Desperate Housewives and have it shipped to their home within a couple of days."

Our take: The technology could definitely be cool, i.e. if I could see the artist and title of every song I heard throughout a show. However, there is a question in the back of my mind on how much work it would take to tag different products throughout an episode. This reminds me of the many content management workgroups I've attended where subject matter experts dream of tagging and chunking every piece of information in the enterprise. That sounds great in theory but would take thousands of man hours to even make a dent.

MOJO Mediaworks has licensed and customized the OpenTV Participate system to support the interactive program Slingo TV Game Show which will air primetime in the Philippines. The system comprises secure servers and software to handle large volumes of incoming SMS and internet requests, a critical component to a successful show where cash prizes and valuable merchandize are at stake. Slingo TV is the first of many titles that MOJO will support with its OpenTV-enhanced interactive platform.

"The OpenTV system is an important addition to the eWorld/MOJO multimedia platform," said President of MOJO Philippines Garrett Openshaw. "The flexibility and customization allows us to roll out services across multiple titles in our portfolio. The OpenTV technology also enables us to provide one user account across multiple access points, including SMS, internet and -eventually- remote controls via set-top boxes."

CBS Corporation announces the creation of the CBS Interactive Audience Network which will initially include new content deals with a host of online distributors including AOL, Microsoft, CNET Networks, Comcast, Joost, Bebo, Brightcove, Netvibes, Sling Media and Veoh. The agreements, building on the Company's existing arrangements, solidify CBS's position as the most widely distributed professional content provider on the Web.

All content will be advertiser supported and free to the consumer. CBS will begin selling the CBS Interactive Audience Network in the coming weeks, including the upcoming Upfront marketplace. Advertising revenue will be shared between CBS and its partners. All content will be available domestically with select clips and full-length sports programming distributed worldwide.

Accedo Broadband and WorldMadeChannel, a user generated TV channel, have partnered to bring a new on-demand experience to Accedo's IPTV offering.

The WorldMadeChannel On Demand service contains thousands of videos created by consumers all over the world, packaged for quick and intuitive usage on TV. The content is structured in categories such as children, animals, nature and sports, and is constantly updated with new videos, which have been selected through a quality and content validation process. This partnership will give consumers the possibility to offer their own TV channel.

France's leading cable operator, NOOS, has launched series of themed interactive video mosaics based on the new httv Prime//Mosaic solution.

NOOS' interactive video mosaic presents all the channels related to a dedicated theme, such as sports, music, kids, etc., on one page. The viewer can then navigate with the remote control from one thumbnail to another, with synchronized audio or to an interactive service available on the themed portal (real time info, scores, games, etc). httv's new solution is a fully integrated system featuring video, audio, and interactivity, which increases flexibility and dramatically reduces the cost of creating mosaic channels.