• by Steve Smith , Staff Writer @popeyesm, April 12, 2007

I am now a week or so into my AppleTV experience, and it is helping me tune into the real cumulative effect of portability media on the overall media landscape. AppleTV is really the iPod in reverse. Each evening I now have on my TV all of the content I also have on my iPod when I am away from my desk, and on iTunes when I am tethered to my desk.

As I have said here before, the most striking aspect of this new loop is its sheer seamlessness. For the first time I am seeing and feeling my content liquefy. It literally pours out of the three most important content delivery spigots in my life. As I write this, my morning refresh of podcasts is gushing into the Desktop iTunes client. Done. And as I write this next sentence the client is syncing the content with both my iPod and my AppleTV box upstairs. Done. I am synchronized. And it goes without saying that I am also cooler than thou, except for the fact that my preferred content is still all about tech, movies, and games. I am now the same hopeless geek but on multiple, seamlessly integrated platforms. Done.

There are several missing pieces in this equation that have become more frustrating over time. Two of the spigots are too stupid and passive: TV and handheld. I can't order or manage the content from my TV or iPod. Other vendors have already conquered these weaknesses. On-demand digital TV and TiVo access the marketplace in ways AppleTV will in the near future, I am sure. On the portable side, both Sprint and Verizon music services, for instance, already let me order and download tunes to a handheld that also show up on my Web service. The little-known WiFi MusicGremlin of last year actually had a usable storefront for sampling and buying from the MP3 handset. I am guessing that the iPhone and the inevitable WiFi iPod ultimately will complete the merchandising and e-tail loop for Apple and also enable remote media purchases. If Microsoft's Zune survives long enough to evolve, its built-in WiFi surely will link to an online store, which in turn should sync with a Desktop media player client and the Xbox 360.

There is also the problem of wildly uneven video quality on the three screens. ITunes passes the same video file across all three platforms, and some of it looks atrocious on the 60-inch HD monitor all of us will have some day. We need content to be platform agnostic, but the file formats themselves must maintain faith with their target technology.

Along with more adaptive file formats we will need dynamic ad serving as well. Right now, most sponsored video podcasts have their pre-rolls and post-rolls baked into the content. And yet, I often watch these shards of media weeks after they first fly. Time-sensitive spots like movie promotions are starting to pop up in equally time-sensitive programming like the CNN "In Case You Missed It" news summaries, but for the most part multi-platform distribution is going to need something like the Kiptronic system. According to CEO Jonathan Cobb, Kiptronic technology can insert audio and video spots into content dynamically as it gets served to a Web player, downloaded to a handheld or iTunes or, eventually, to a cellular handset. For now, Kiptronic is working with a number of indie publishers who serve ad campaigns into Flash video players or downloadable audio/video.

This approach will make possible ad support that pours with the content but also can stay fresh or be targeted to discrete audience segments. Call it liquid advertising. "What we are aiming to do is really try to change the siloed viewpoint that many publishers have," Cobb tells me. "As a means to reach more audience I want to understand the nuances of each channel, but at the same time I want to offer consistent media content set across all channels."

Take Cobb's concept one step further, however, and the ideal liquid ad would not only pour into each container but conform to its contours. What if that sync process that occurred at the beginning of this column had been agile enough to serve a somewhat different version of the sponsor's message to AppleTV for the prime-time lean-back experience? Any future sync with my iPhone would also know to serve perhaps a shorter version of the same ad that also contained a click-to-call link or a phone coupon for use in-store. Online, of course, I would get the wraparound ads that link me to the sponsor Web site. The content needs to be platform-agnostic in order to ensure a seamless experience across platforms. The advertising probably needs to be smarter than that, however.

A week of AppleTV has surfaced yet another issue about liquid media, with deeper undercurrents, that I want to discuss in the next part of this floating rumination. Liquefied content also seems to be changing the quantity and range of my video media tastes. Mobile media is starting to affect my approach to the bigger screens.