The race is on to turn your TV into an open content platform. This will bring more programming to your set and much of it won’t come from the traditional networks. Conspicuously absent from the game are your local cable and satellite providers. Should they fail to act, they all run the risk of turning into commodity services.
If you wanted to, you can already ditch your cable or satellite provider. Wired news ran an experiment a few months back showing that it is possible to get a lot of content on your set without them, though there are still lots of caveats. As the big technologies players continue to refine their IPTV strategy, the need for cable TV programming will diminish.
Already, some of the highest quality content created by users is finding its way on to your set. Rocketboom, for example, has long been available on your TiVo. Further, there’s a lot of new gizmos that will hit the market this year to bring even more stuff to your TV. Microsoft, an Edelman client, is turning the Xbox 360 into an IPTV receiver. Every TV set sold from Sony will be able to connect up to “the cloud” through home wireless networks. And of course, Apple has their own solution – Apple TV.