Verizon at Home

[#1]

 In an era when even the Pope has a Facebook page, it’s clear that social media have forever transformed the way we communicate and interact with one another. 

The swift cultural shift to social media—Facebook and Twitter, for starters—connects us to an unprecedented degree and global scale.  And because we are constantly using the Internet, it has become a part of the daily lives for people of all ages, according to a recent report by The Nielsen Company ("The Global Online Media Landscape, April 2009”). 

Verizon FiOS TV is now helping people expand their online lives to the biggest screen in the house, the TV, with the launch of the Widget Bazaar applications store and, later this month, Internet Video direct to the TV screen.  These new features will let people interact while watching their favorite shows, movies and sporting events or show their own photos and videos effortlessly on their entertainment center big screen. 

These developments are the latest in a series of innovative features from FiOS TV that include the Interactive Media Guide and Home Media DVR.  You don’t get these kinds of features on cable.  Parks Associates Vice President and Principal Analyst Kurt Scherf notes that major cable companies have yet to say when they’ll be able to deliver interactive social media applications, which further cements Verizon’s reputation as an innovation leader. 

The Widget Bazaar will launch with free Twitter, Facebook and ESPN Fantasy Football applications.  Viewers can follow Tweets related to the program, movie or sporting event they are watching or read Tweets on any subject on their TV.  They can log onto Facebook to update their status or view their own or others’ profiles and albums.  They can access their personal ESPN Fantasy Football points and statistics. 

This is just the beginning.  Verizon will add dozens of applications developed by the company and Verizon partners over the coming months.  Ultimately, customers will be able to select applications from the Widget Bazaar and place them on their Widgets dashboard. 

Another new feature rolling out this month is Internet Video.  FiOS TV Home Media DVR subscribers can access the new Internet Video service to search and view user-generated online videos from sites such as blip.tv, Dailymotion and Veoh. 

The whole family can also enjoy a new My Videos feature that will let Home Media DVR subscribers view via FiOS TV personal videos stored on their PCs. 

You can read more about all the new features in our news release.

[#2]

It would be nice if the My Videos feature would be able to read files directly from the PC instead of requiring the PC to transcode the files and stream them.  I have a slower computer and the My Videos feature works very poorly and could easily be corrected by allowing the set top box to read video files directly...

[#3]

Great to see that Interactive TV is Back.  What's old is new again.

[#4]

There have been a few questions  about why we didn't make it easier to post comments on the FiOS TV Widgets for Facebook and Twitter.  Frankly, the task of entering text via a remote control is a little cumersome, and our test group didn't think it was worth the trouble.  Particularly for Twitter, adding your own Tweets via cell phone seemed to be the perferred way to go.  In both cases, we designed the apps to be an enhancement to the TV watching experience and to let you see material posted by you or others.  It's great to see a lot of people are already having fun with these new additions. 

BigPete82, I get your point but the current STB requires the transcoeding.  Maybe someday we can figure out something along the lines of what you suggest.  Thanks for the comment which I'll pass along

-- Eric

[#5]

I find it ironis that you tout the IMG as an innovative feature.  From my own experience, and as a frequenter of the Verizon user fora, I can assure you that many share this view, Verizon's IMG is falls woefully short of almost every other TV provider's in terms of usability and features.  Particularly weak are the data ("new" vs. "rerun", synopses, perforrmers, teams, etc.) adn the searcha nd sort features.  I would suggest NOT holding the IMG as an example of "innovation" until it becomes a really first-rate tool, which unfortunately, it has a long way to go before it can be called that.

[#6]

Since Verizon is quickly converging the TV and PC areas, it would be prudent for them to allow the use of a standard 101 key keyboard for data entry. This could either be via IR, such as the remote, or by hard-wire to the STB or over

the user's wireless network.

Dave