The Zipityzap Internet Television Blog

As Zipityzap starts to come together, I thought it would a good idea to share my ideas and solicit feedback from you - the internet television user.  So here it is, The Zipityzap Blog, and I’ll start off by giving you a brief history and roadmap for Zipityzap.

I’m always looking to stay in the internet forefront.  You know what happens when you get behind - a guy here in Baltimore just sold the pizza.com domain for millions of dollars.  Who knew?  Certainly not me, I didn’t get on the internet until AOL added it as a part of their service in the mid-90’s (?).

There have been some technologies that everyone knew was going to become mainstream - computers, cell phones, etc.  And some that will become mainstream - solar power, electric vehicles, and internet television.  So I picked up a book called “IPTV Crash Course.”  This was an exciting book as it talked about disrupting an industry generating billions in revenue per year.  Hmmm, I thought, it sure would be nice to get a piece of that.  Especially since my stagnant airline pilot career was paying less than the TSA folks who dig through your underwear looking for bombs.

My initial plan was to develop a combination portal/platform for internet television.  Lots of content providers/ programmers /networks are now experimenting with ip delivery (my personal favorite is Hulu).  Most of this content if FREE - that is, ad-supported.  There are a handful of premium (read: you have to pay for it) sites such as NFL, Cycling.TV, etc.  If the premium model prevails, then surely there would be a need for a central site/service to allow users to sign up for accounts, subscribe to premium services, and watch TV.  Nobody would want to go to each and every website and do that on an individual basis.  I still think such as service will emerge because all television will someday migrate to ip delivery (everything will migrate to ip delivery, but that’s another topic altogether).  But it will have to be developed by someone with deep pockets.

The second part of Zipityzap was to be a common distribution platform to enable content providers to broadcast their programming over the open internet to an existing subscriber base.  I thought this would really empower the small, niche-content providers who are at the mercy of big cable and satellite providers.  Programming was to be available on an “a la carte” basis - you only pay for what you want.  However, I discovered, this model won’t work due to cost.  Streaming television on a small scale is expensive.  You have to stream hundreds of thousands of gigabytes per month to bring the cost down.  So if content provider “A” was to offer a monthly subcription for unlimited viewing, they would have to assume that you didn’t have any other channels and could possibly stream their content for many, many hours.  This would result in a high monthly price for just one channel.  On the other hand, a package plan provider can offer you more channels because you are paying a higher price.  The higher price will cover more hours of monthly streaming - whether you watch just one channel or many different channels.  The expensive part here is not paying the content provider, but paying for the internet streaming.  And so ended the original Zipityzap.

For now, I’ve decided to concentrate on the free model.  There is lots of great content available on the internet.  Unfortunately almost all internet television sites are designed the same:  somewhere on the page is an embedded media player; then there is annoying advertising blanketing the rest of the page.  When you click on the channel links, a lot of them don’t work.

This is how Zipityzap will be different:  Zipityzap will simply be a GUIDE to help you quickly and easily tune internet television channels (and movies).  You will have quick and easy access to the Zipityzap guide from a toolbar link button.  When you click on links in Zipityzap, you will be taken directly to the stream - whether it is a website or a media player.  I’m also working on programming to allow you to navigate the guide with your arrow keys, that way you won’t have to use your mouse.  Once this feature is working, I’ll show you how you can get a wireless remote control to work with Zipityzap.  Then you’ll be able to kick back on your couch and tune internet televison like a true couch potatoe.  Stay tuned!