PVR and IPTV Nonsense Ideas..

Having used a PVR now for about 10 full hours (I'm way behind the curve here), I can see that a PVR/IPTV can be pretty powerful. There are all kinds of features that would be useful...

• Allow customers to create/customize the program guide interface. This is probably your best bet for creating something awesome. People out there will customize the thing to death and I'm sure a few of them will be pretty impressive. Blogging is a good example, the basic funtionality exists among all blogs, but people can make it their own.. resulting in more than a few pretty cool templates.

• Tie the interface to online forums/profiles/whatever.

• Imagine if each program in the program guide was a different shade based on popularity? The darker colors are more popular? It's similar to tagging, which is used all over the place - http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/ (larger font here = more popular). Networks may or may not like this, depending on whether their show is popular or not. It would be interesting to take it a step further and localize the results -- i.e. popularity within Toronto, popularity within Ontario, popularity across Canada, etc.

• I read something about this yesterday, but recommendations based on your previous viewing history would be cool. i.e. if you watch 'family guy' all the time, you might also like 'drawn together'. Given the number of people viewing (and tracking their viewing habits anonymously), this should be fairly straightforward.

• Link the program guide listings to websites. Those descriptions in the program guide are garbage, why not link to the networks official episode guide online?
  

• Remote Interface. I think LG made a commercial about this as their vision of the future, but why not allow customers to access their box via the internet over their cell or browser? I can't tell you how many times I've left the house and forgotten that a movie was on, or a special that I don't normally watch was on that I should have taped. Other than making it secure, this shouldn't be too crazy.

• Tie a website to the aggregate viewing results. Using the flickr example (http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/), allow customers and non-customers to checkout what is popular, submit comments on an episode, whatever. It's the next generation of neilson ratings.. why should that select few determine what shows make it and what shows don't make it. Currently, the networks don't consider online downloading of episodes (i.e. torrents or newsbin - credit JMG) in their "popularity rating", which accounts for a huge number of "views" that completely skew their results. Why not try to consider it?

• You can also leverage this online venue to sell additional services. If channel X is super popular, and has lots of awesome comments from real viewers on it, maybe I should pick it up? Right now, my only exposure to extra channels is through my friends (limited to those who have digital cable) or nonsense network websites (no trust there).