4oD introduces recommendations…

Posted by andrew pascoe on Monday, July 20, 2009 · 1 Comment 

… of a sort.

We left this out of yesterday’s related news roundup, but wanted to cover it.

A week ago Channel 4 released a little service (in beta) that makes use of Facebook Connect (the service that lets users login to external sites using their Facebook credentials) and applies it to the 4oD video content. The site is called Test Tube Telly, and you can find the full C4 intro blog post here.

Part of the functionality of Facebook Connect is that actions on the Test Tube Telly site can be fed into your Facebook news feed, and you can also see what your Facebook friends have been watching (if they are in fact using Test Tube Telly).

Why is this important? Because content/video recommendations is something that is becoming increasingly important as more and more archive video content becomes accessible on demand. The BBC iPlayer team have repeatedly publicly said the next major version of iPlayer will have a heavy focus on recommendations, revolving around knowing what your (explicit or implicit) friends are watching.  Test Tube Telly from C4 is a (albeit arguably crasser, but more immediate, present) version of this same feature.

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Comments

One Response to “4oD introduces recommendations…”
  1. Andy Pipes says:
    August 18, 2009 at 4:57 pm

    Well, I’m not sure about crasser…but thanks for the mention at any rate :). We’ve now got links to all iPlayer content too, and the ability to socialise and rate it, as with the 4oD and Youtube content.

    This is still a prototype remember, and the lessons we learn from it will go towards features in channel4.com and 4od going forward, I’m sure.

    My issue with iPlayer’s putative social features (and I’m speaking as myself, not my employer here) is that there’s no plans for including links to other broadcaster content in there, from what I read. But IMO, people want a place where they can socialise and recommend content from a wide variety of sources, not just the BBC or Channel 4.

    My suspicion is that in a few years, this socialising will migrate back to connected TV sets, and off the PC and laptop again, as devices get smarter and interfaces easier to use, but for now, there aren’t many playing with social features and long form content. Let’s hope some more spring up soon. Boxee’s certainly a contender.

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