Interactive Television

I had my first experience with interactive television last night during the Olympics. I was watching the Oxygen Network Olympic coverage. I subscribe to Directv.

A message on the screen said to press the red button on my controller.

A very sleek and well-designed menu box appeared in the left-bottom corner of the screen. It was not your old "two-tone, square, windows95-looking menu." It had nice color, gradients, and bevels. I was impressed.

Best, was what it actually did. I could answer trivia questions about the Olympics, or view stats. I was able to view a list of all countries and total medals won, and a break-down of gold/silver/bronze for each country. This was great information, and at my fingertips. There was more on the menu but I didn't get to it in time.

I exited the menu during the commercial break. Unfortunately during the break, the menu was unavailable. And due to my attention span, before the break was over I had changed channels and moved on to other things, on my laptop.

I look forward to using this during the remainder of the 2008 Summer Olympics.