Should the quality of Web TV be just like the quality of traditional television? Please share your thoughts.

According to Dina Kaplan, the Co-founder of blip.tv, “Content [Web TV] that does well shouldn’t just look like television production made with less money.”

She went on to say that people should not embrace Web TV as a last resort to not having the budget for traditional TV. There is actually a big difference between the two and each option has its own advantages and disadvantages.

For instance, Web TV has more freedom than traditional television has. (Kevin Pollak addressed this aspect in an interview here.) Traditional television, on the other hand, typically has more resources than Web productions have.

But again, these advantages and disadvantages are a result of the differences between the two offerings. For example, both Web TV and traditional TV serve two completely different audiences.  Web TV shows serve a very specific audience and can establish personal connections with its viewers.

Fans that watch Web shows have the ability to write comments that provide immediate influence on the plot of a series. However, by the time a traditional television show reaches its audience, the next several shows have already been filmed.

Because traditional television and Web TV are so different, Kaplan said they “should look different.”

“I think we’ll see over the next year Web shows really emerge as their own form of media… and it will look, act, feel, smell very different from television,” she added.

Do you agree with her and believe that Web TV will evolve into its own form of media within the next year?

As you may know, Yahoo! has created a platform called Yahoo! Connected TV that delivers content via TV Widgets to Internet-enabled TVs from Samsung, Sony, LG, VIZIO and Hisense. To date, Yahoo! Connected TV has shipped on approximately 3 million TVs in more than 100 countries across North America, Europe, Asia and Latin America. Yahoo! expects millions of additional OEM TVs and other CE devices to ship with Yahoo! in 2010 and 2011.

Currently, there are 50 Yahoo! TV Widgets available for the service and over 150 in the pipeline. Yahoo!’s Widget Development Kit (WDK) is publicly available for developers at http://connectedtv.yahoo.com/developer.  There are approximately 9,400 registered developers. 

According to that survey, which we mentioned in another article, global shipments of internet-enabled TVs will amount to 27.7 million units in 2010. That’s quite a bit more than the expected shipments of 3D TVs, which iSuppli pegs at 4.2 million this year.

While I have no doubt Yahoo will find itself into a significant amount of living rooms, Google’s strategy may be a hard one to top, as it integrates Android and includes a deal with Dish Network, which could be a key to its success in that it will provide (as the company noted frequently throughout the announcement) a "seamless" experience between television content and web content, particularly when it comes to searching for content, an area where Google has clearly won in the past.

In addition, while Yahoo’s widgets provide some interesting use cases, they may also have a hard time competing with the ever-growing Android market full of apps.

The Future Of Web Video

The possibility of web video doing to cable TV, what cable did to network programming is the larger issue. Will people be willing to break from the comfort of their couch to watch longer form web video content instead of tuning into Dancing with the Stars?

In a blog posted by Wendy Davis for blogs.mediapost.com, this question is raised. Kevin Shiveley from TVWorldwide.com commenting on a mediapost blog said, “Internet TV has the potential to do to cable broadcasting what cable did to network TV, which is to expand the range of content (topically) and depth of that content on subjects that could never be feasible on network or cable broadcasting.”

The quality of the content in the longer video form becomes another issue. To attract viewers, it would have to be something well written and extremely compelling to generate a large audience along with advertising dollars.

Some in the industry see it another way. In an interview with Justin Kownacki, creator of the web based comedy Something To Be Desired, I asked him his thoughts on longer web video content. Kownacki stated, “I see “longer-format” web video continuing to grow in proportion to both the audience and the market. As the viewers and the web economy adapt to support web video from 10 to 60 minutes in length, the quantity and quality of shows offered will continue to expand”. On competing with traditional TV and cable he said, “Competing with cable / traditional TV programming is only a matter of time, not quality.”

The technology is currently being developed by several companies to allow users to view web video from the comforts of their own living room. AT&T is one company that has developed Homezone, which uses broadband Internet along with satellite TV through a home networking system. This allows the viewer the ability to watch web video as well as regular TV.

As the technology improves, people will no longer have to sit in front of their monitors to view the latest rage in the web video world. They will have the luxury of watching web video on their flat screens while kicking back on their couch.

The shift to longer format video seems to be promising and will most likely continue to grow to the point it will become “old hat”. Maybe in the near future the next innovative programming will not come from the traditional TV, but from the cutting edge of the web video world. Stay tuned.

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Mike is a staff writer for WebProNews. Visit WebProNews for the latest ebusiness news.