Imagine your Tivo Series 5: you tell it to record ‘Days of Our Lives’; it doesn’t need to know what time because it examines the content identifiers to select that show as the digital data comes into the “tuner” (which is really just a set of digital filters).

I really don’t know if content producers are using these fields, but I’m hopeful we’ll get there.

Dan

The technology is already in place to allow such an experience. Any scripting language like PHP, ASP, ColdFuison can make this happen right now.

All it requires is an innovative web entity to implement it.

I have also thought about this and favor tagging stories and matching them for affinity.

You would tag for geography (zip code, for instance) and substance. A story would have many tags, so Paris Hilton’s latest foray might be sent to criminology fans who wouldn’t have gotten stories about her shopping or clubbing.

This seems to be (reasonably) doable using current technology, like a MySQL database, php, javascript and flash encoded videos. And, I believe it’s scalable.

Google is a fine example of weighing affinity to produce satisfying results.

Over time, as a viewer watched stories, he/she would have the opportunity to de-weigh aspects, further sharpening the focus.

Where I worry, and the real shortcoming in this scenario, is the loss of serendipity which is so evident when I read a newspaper or watch TV news. I subscribe to the NY Times and read it online and always find stories in one that I’d missed in the other!

Geoff Fox

(Of course their ratings might be stronger if they ran that GGW informercial on a continuous loop, but they’ve already tried to ban the commercial in Tennessee, so it probably wouldn’t take long for the other states to consider the issue)

Clearly, they’d fill the intervening time with commercials. Lots and lots of forclosure and debt relief commercials.

Perhaps as the two technologies merge, something similar would become readily available for the tv, but right now, you’re either stuck with the online experience or you could buy one of those ATI cards that reads the closed-captioning. It’s been several years since I played with the ATI card, but you set the keywords in the software and whenever it sees them in the captioning, it triggers a record of over-the-air or cable broadcasts.

Of course, either of these technologies would force you to view the clip after it aired, but so would Mr Winer’s solution. Otherwise, you’d have a lot of black screen as Ed noted, while other stories were being broadcast.

I’d rather sit and watch a previously assembled block, than wade and watch clips one at a time.

In our vision of an online streaming experience, it would be because there are vastly more clips available than can be meaningfully displayed in an interface.

I’m not sure how Dave’s vision could ever work, as you would quickly outpace the flow of content in a linear newscast, and you’d be stuck staring at a black screen for most of the time.