Perhaps something new is developing underneath: this is the main feeling I brought away, back from the ipTV World Forum in London.

Of course the big players had large stands and released powerful features. But a back-to-the-basics mood spread out from many presentations. Moreover, maybe because of the current recession, much more interest than expected has developed around the Open IPTV association, whose aim is to develop end-to-end specifications for IPTV, based upon existing technologies and open standards, for either managed or unmanaged networks.

Let’s say it: most of the current IPTV deployments really fit the definition of Cable TV in Telco’s clothes. They support everything with huge investments, but still don’t know which business they really want to be in. Thus the adoption of standard technologies might be a winning strategy: not only for cost reduction, but even in order to deliver new services and get the market response in a very short time. Essentially a perpetual beta approach.

Would this drive us to eventually enjoy the Internet potential within a television box, like the oncoming IPTV technology has promised years ago?

Of course I don’t have this answer. I just believe that indirect competition is highlighting the urgency of a route change. I’m especially referring to those services which rely on the open Internet, delivering quality content through an outstanding experience: the multi-platform BBC iPlayer is the european best-practice by now, while devices such as Roku and TiVo make the US video-rental offers handier every day.

A few months ago I’ve been guest of the Telco TV Summit.

The aim of my speech, titled like this post and based on my experience with Bulldog Broadband in the UK, was showing how user-centered design can effectively lead an IPTV interface development, in order to bring some of the Internet potential into the television box.

The starting point is necessarily the Internet. A medium? A technology? Every definition would be reductive. Instead, let’s give a look at the sketch Tim Berners-Lee conceived the hypertext with. It’s displayed at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View and appears so ingenious in its (relative) simplicity.

Doesn’t it look somehow like Doc Brown’s flux capacitor chart, the one he draws in 1955 after clashing against the toilet? Unforgettable!   But let’s remain focused…

The Internet has changed our lives because it allows users to customize, interact, build relationships. Everybody is the main character in the world-wide-web, because can build up his personal way of collecting, managing and enjoying unlimited content and amazing tools.

On the other hand, television is the typical passive medium. In front of the small screen we’re all spectators, ads viewers, recipients of a programme schedule that somebody else has defined for all of us.

The great advantage of traditional TV? Being prompt, immediate, outrageously easy-to-use. The real challenge for IPTV? Delivering the unlimited Internet potential onto the TV screen, without losing that easiness. Interactivity would be eventually available for everyone!

Consider the basic customer, threatened by these computers that send information throughout the world. Then give him a remote control. He’ll suddenly feel confident, and will gradually get ready to discover new amazing possibilities, as long as you provide them through a great user-experience.

Very soon he’ll play a movie whenever he wants, check the weather forecasts, share photographs and thoughts… And he’ll build his own TV schedule, as easily as I manage my iGoogle personal page.

A few weeks after ABC-Disney, Twentieth Century Fox joins the online content challenge. Therefore, beside popular ABC series like Lost and Desperate Housewives, we’re going to enjoy The Simpsons’ episodes and much more content online, free of charge and 24 hours after it’s been broadcast. Of course some ads will be conveniently placed.

Hollywood Studios have probably learnt the lesson from what happened to the recording industry. They don’t want to let piracy threaten their opulent revenues. Why forcing a series-addicted customer to postpone an appointment, or (worse) to purchase a TiVo which puts advertising revenues in danger? Introducing new chances to watch content is probably a more effective solution.

The upcoming moves in this sector will be interesting to observe. Meanwhile, we already have a winner: the end-user, of course!