Sony pushes patent for interactive TV ads

Sony has aspirations for television commercials with interactive network games, recently published patents reveal. The Japanese firm wants its games consoles to detect when an advert has an interactive segment, which could then be turned into mini-games playable against other viewers glued to the box. Of course, these games …

[JetSetJim]

ITVPlayer...

...already does the "answer this question to skip this ad" on the currently showing British Gas advert. Not a great leap of imagination to do this, ergo invalidated due to obviousness (although filing date might be earlier than when ITV came up with their concept)..

[Archimedes_Circle]

Re: ITVPlayer...

Hulu already implemented this exact premise with that DS puzzle game, Dr something or other. There was an interactive ad where you had to finish the maze in x seconds or wait 30 or 45 seconds for it to finish.

[stucs201]

Only interaction required is...

...recognise I've changed chanels to avoid ads, then stop showing me that crap.

[SpaMster]

I'd rather they just build adblocker into their tv's to be perfectly honest

[Code Monkey]

Tellies with an OS - i.e. tellies you can root - will be commonplace one day. Then we'll have telly without meerkats and bloody opera singers telling you where to buy your car insurance.

Heck I want that more than I want a flying car!

[Anonymous Coward]

No Meerkats - No Telly

Then the advertisers won't be willing to fork up ££££ to advertise - since no one will be watching their adverts, and the TV stations won't be able to afford to broadcast the shows. Soon followed by no TV Stations - or only TV Stations where you pay big bills in advance.

[Anonymous Coward]

re: " I'd rather they just build adblocker into their tv's to be perfectly honest"

DISH tried that in the USA, and Fox sued the crap out of them, sadly. The only way to get away with it in the longterm is to use something like MythTV, where there is no-one to sue- so the rights owners will just try to lock such systems out of being able to show the content :(

Me, I cope with it by not watching TV.

[Field Marshal Von Krakenfart]

Prior Art

Product placement

QED

[frank ly]

"...filed in 2009 and was only made public this week"

I thought that if a patent was filed then it was automatically public knowledge (if anybody could be bothered to look for it).

[davtom]

I already interact with ads...

I push the fast-forward button when I see them. Or even better, the skip 2 minutes button, twice, usually does the trick.

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

one word

Invade-a-Load.

[Scott 2]

Re: one word

Oh how cool that would be :D

I used to load that up just to play it!

Maybe comps run by companies instead of a stupid advert?

[Eguro]

Well

It sure as hell beats those ads with the horrible horrible songs running through them.

I usually just ignore the ads, but some just have a horrid song playing - prompting me to mute the tv, prompting me to miss when the actual show starts again.

But when I sit down to watch tv - and not do something else whilst doing it (play games, talk to people, etc.) - then I usually like to not have to do anything; as in not have to play a game.

[Marty]

stop all this crying about adds...

I don’t know how bad it is for adds in programming in the USA but here in the UK its relay quite minimal.3 to 4 min every 20min of programming. its actually paying for the stuff your watching, live with it....

and for heavens sake, turn over to watch something else for 3 min? get a life are you so wound up that the burble of adds for a few minutes are going to drive you over the edge? most of the population use the time to grab a brew or reply to a text message, or look at some crap on facebook / twitter.....

if TV winds you up that much, find something else to do...

[Mike Brown]

Re: stop all this crying about adds...

agreed, here in blighty its fine, but have you seen the yanks tv? dear god. it seems as if there are more adverts than tv programmes. 30 min shows spread out over 1h periods. its truly horrendous.

[JetSetJim]

Re: stop all this crying about adds...

..well, the primetime shows like House & NCIS in the US seem to boil down to 42-44mins of show rather than half an hour, yet they are still shown in hour-long slots on the UK Freeview channels (e.g. Five US), so I'm wondering if our US brethren actually do get more ads than we do. Certainly from my recollection it seems to be a lot more, but I think that's more because they are interspersed more frequently, but in shorter bursts. F'r instance in the Simpsons the sequence seemed to be:

a) ads

b) opening titles

c) ads

d) Simpsons segment

e) ads

f) Simpsons segment

g) ads

h) closing credits

i) ads

There's regulations in the UK on how frequently you can break for ads, though: http://www.ofcom.org.uk/static/archive/itc/itc_publications/codes_guidance/rasa/foreword.asp.html