First Look: Sky Interactive e-Business Portal

1 August 2005

Those of us that attended the launch of Sky's first attempt at an interactive TV service, Open, lauded the vision but doubted the promise of adoption because of likely performance limitations.

Since then, Sky Interactive has come a long way in clearing the convergence hurdles and is to launch an e-business portal service, free to both companies and subscribers.

Announcing the service, as yet unnamed and scheduled for launch later in the year, Ian Valentine, Sky Interactive Technical Services Director, acknowledged that previous attempts at an interactive service "hadn't quite got there", but promised much for the future. Speaking at the BAFTA event organised by e-Consultancy, Valentine said that the new e-business portal "will make it easier than ever before for businesses to launch an interactive service".

He may well be right, but companies will not be able to seamlessly port their existing web content to the service. The portal requires content delivered in WTVML (Worldwide TV Mark-up Language), the system developed by Sky and later adopted as an ETSI standard specification.

Although WTVML is easy to learn and provides for rapid application development, it does mean that existing HTML documents cannot be used. But this was a necessary step as HTML was never suited for, or performed well on, TV.

The portal itself can work with websites that use almost any content management system, including Microsoft Content Management Server, and companies will need to configure dedicated capabilities on their existing servers to expose their content to the service.

All of this could constitute a considerable barrier to business adoption, particularly for the smaller merchants. It is likely a number of third party suppliers will come on stream to resolve this. Sky's partners demonstrated various mechanisms to help web site operators get to grips with WTVML, including a visual editor (WTVStudio.com), standard content management systems with Sky templates (Microsoft), hosted microsites for SMEs (CitiPages) and mainstream TV tools adapted for the portal from Tamblin and Press Red.

Registration

Actually registering your business on the portal takes about ten minutes and is entirely free, and wizard-driven. You need not have WTVML content ready to expose in advance, as the service will display an 'under construction' page if required.

As for the UI itself, Sky has completely redesigned the paradigm used. Most notable here is the use of SkyKeys. A SkyKey works pretty much like an SMS short code or 1-800 number. The alphanumeric keypad on the remote control allows you to enter 'FT', for example, to jump to the Financial Times.

SkyKeys are an optional, charged extra for businesses and are allocated on a first come, first served basis. The cost ranges between £2,500 and £25,000 per annum, depending on the length of the short code.

e-Commerce

Sky has also come along way in the charging model used for online retailing, moving away from a commission model to a fixed fee per transaction, which Sky claims can be absorbed by the retailer or passed onto the consumer via a P&P or basket charge.

Apart from this, the portal leaves companies with the ability to do conduct traditional revenue earners, such as click-through advertising and sponsorships, without sharing revenues with Sky.

Already, e-commerce experts Rocket Salad are already offering a range of e-commerce and payment solutions, including telephony and micro-transactions, which are sure to be a big inducement for businesses to join the portal.

Conclusion

The Sky Interactive portal bears little or no resemblance to previous iterations. The interface is highly usable, even with the constraints of the existing remote control. From a technical point of view, Sky could not have done more. The service appears robust and performance is greatly improved, thanks to WTVML and the content management system.

There seems to be little wrong with the strategy either. In giving priority to the needs of the consumer and enabling free entry-level registration for businesses, Sky has removed some of the traditional blockers to success. But the portal is now entering a critical phase before full launch later this year. The success of the service – adoption by both businesses and subscribers – will depend entirely on how well Sky conveys its marketing message.

But the service looks every inch a winner to us.