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INTERNET TV – A NEW TYPE OF E-BUSINESS

Poland August 2008

Dr Zahid Hussain Lecturer in organizational science and

information systems(Adv.Dip.IT, Dip.HE, BA, MSc (IS), PhD (Computations),

MSc (HRM), MA (Ed), Fellow HEA)

Member of the Operations and Information Management group

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ADOPTION OF HOUSEHOLD ICTS IN US

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ADOPTION OF HOUSEHOLD ICTS IN THE UK

4Source: Eurostat, Community Survey on ICT usage in enterprises, eEurope (2005) Information Society Benchmarking Report, © European Communities 2005, http://europa.eu.int/information_society

ADOPTION OF INTERNET AND E-BUSINESS SERVICES ACROSS EUROPE

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INTERNET USE IN POLAND

YEAR UsersPopulatio

n% Pop.

Usage Source

2000 3,700,000 38,181,844 9.7 % ITU

2005 10,600,000 38,133,691 27.8 % C-I-A

2007 11,400,000 38,109,499 29.9 % survey

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• The next figure shows that the EB applications are supported by infrastructures, and their implementation is dependent on four major areas (shown as supporting pillars) people, public policy, technical standards and protocols, and other organizations.

• The EB management coordinates the applications, infrastructures, and pillars. It also includes Internet marketing and advertisement.

E-BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT

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A Framework for E-BUSINESS

Electronic Commerce Applications

•Jobs • On-line marketing and advertising

• Home shopping • Auctions • Travel • On-line publishing • Internet TV

People:

Buyers, sellers,

intermediaries,

services, IT/S people,

and management

Public

policy,

legal, and

privacy

issues

Technical standards

for documents,

security, and

network protocols

Payment methods

Organizations:

Partners,

competitors,

associations,

government services

Infrastructure

(1)

Common business

services infrastructure

(security smart

cards/authentication

electronic payment,

directories/catalogs)

(2)

Messaging and

information distribution

infrastructure

(EDI, e-mail, HTTP)

(3)

Multimedia content

and network

publishing infrastructure

(HTML, JAVA, VRML, CGI, PHP)

(4)

Network infrastructure

(Telecoms,

wireless, Internet)

(VAN, WAN, LAN,

Intranet, Extranet)

(5)

Interfacing

infrastructure

(The databases,

and

applications)

Management

E-BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT … cont…

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E-BUSINESS MODELS

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INTERNET TV – B2C (C2C)

● The use of the Internet is taken for granted in many parts of the world.

● Along with playing a significant role as a source of information it is now serving as a host or a backbone for many applications (Sarker and Wells, 2003).

● More recently it has led to the development of online television service (Sreenan and Van Der Merwe, 2006; Shannon, 2007) in countries like the UK and Poland.

● Internet TV is a new service in which the digital technology of television and the Internet are successfully coordinated or combined.

● Internet TV could run on a number of different technological artifacts (Computer terminal, Mobile phones, iPod, Sony PSP, Nintendo DS, and, PDA).

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DO PEOPLE WANT INTERNET TV● Internet TV can be watched on a number of devices. ● Internet TV enables viewers, or consumers, to watch TV programmes without

restricting time. ● Consumers could watch the old TV programmes as well as the new ones,

and can demand an increase in particular contents (Nishi, 2005). This could pave the way for consumers to watch a significant number of programmes, including those from overseas.

● However, relevant coordination and collaboration needs to be put in place to take a full advantage of this technology.

● As Shannon (2007:13) writes: “So now all that remains to be seen is which company, which service provider, which programming genius will make it easy and affordable for the average consumer to benefit from it [Internet TV]. Oh yeah, and do consumers really want it?” So a key question is do consumers actually want to watch Internet TV and whether they see it useful and easy to use. Another key question is: which technological artifact would they like to use the most?

Therefore, we investigate whether the consumer, most of whom are Internet users and TV viewers, will accept this technology and to what extent they see it as useful and easy to use. In order to achieve this objective we use a well known theoretical approach called Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) (Davis, 1989; Szajna, 1996; Lederer et al., 2000; Lu et al., 2003).

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ACCEPTABILITY OF DIFFERENT ARTIFACTS FOR INTERNET TV

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

4

4.5

B1 C1 D1 E1 F1

Computer terminal Mobile phone iPod Sony PSP

Nintendo DS PDA Other

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ACCEPTABILITY OF DIFFERENT ARTIFACTS FOR INTERNET TV …CONT…

● Computer terminal (3.78) and Mobile phone (3.65) were perceived as most useful artifacts for watching Internet TV.

● Degree of popularity dropped slightly at the perceived ease of use (3.61 and 3.39 respectively).

● This may be because the idea of watching TV on these two artifacts is still novel despite them being aware of the potential use of these artifacts being capable of delivering Internet TV.

● However, despite this dip, the ratings climbed back up again for the Computer terminal (3.78) and the Mobile phone (3.34) when asked about the attitude toward use.

● This may be because they believe that it is worth using these artifacts for watching Internet TV despite the perceived slight difficultly in their usability.

● The views of respondents remained consistent (Computer terminal 3.79, Mobile phone 3.35) when asked about the behavioral intention to use. So they were very determined to give it a try.

● Finally, when asked about the actual system use most respondents gave a higher importance to using the Computer terminal (3.85) for watching the Internet TV and gave a slightly lower importance to the Mobile phone (3.16).

● Perhaps due to the practicality of gazing at a small screen for prolonged periods of time, and doing it in a fairly unsociable way.

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IMPACTING FACTORS

● Demographics

● Culture and social acceptance

● Amount of time spent on watching TV

● Terrestrial digital broadcast

● Internet TV services

● Legal issues and administrative regulation

ExternalVariables

PerceivedUsefulness

AttitudeToward

Use

BehaviouralIntentionTo Use

SystemUsage

PerceivedEase of Use

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IMPLICATIONS FOR THE FUTURE OF TELEVISION

● Internet TV is likely to affect the sales and use of conventional TV sets, as consumers may consider alternative artifacts for collective family entertainment.

● For family entertainment they may consider buying large screen Computer terminals.

● On the other hand, different family members may want to watch different programmes using their preferred artifact.

● Sales of various artifacts may increase dramatically.

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IMPLICATIONS FOR ARTIFACT DESIGN AND USABILITY

● Our results indicate that despite the initial optimism of consumers in the form of high rating of perceived usefulness, attitude toward use and behavioral intention to use, there was a slight drop in the ratings for perceived ease of use and then the actual use.

● This may be due to foreseen difficulty of actually using these artifacts and the idea of gazing at the relatively small screens compared to that of a conventional television.

● There is a need to overcome this apparent reluctance of consumers.

● Although the convenience of using different devices is appealing, the design of these artifacts would, perhaps, need to change in order to accommodate Internet TV.

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IMPLICATIONS FOR THE FUTURE OF LEGAL AND

REGULATORY FRAMEWORKS

● The coming together of the telecommunications and the broadcasting industry in providing Internet TV has several major implications for the broadcasting and telecommunications legal and regulatory frameworks.

● There is a need to reconsider these at governmental level to protect the broadcasting and telecommunications companies and the consumer.

● For example, the latter needs a protection from unsolicited and unsanctioned Internet TV programmes that contravene the ethical guidelines.

● There is also a need for the broadcasting and telecommunication companies, especially Internet service providers, to engage in dialogue to deal with issues, such as the ownership and programme creation.

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SUMMARY● We look at the acceptability of Internet TV by consumers in the UK.

● We evaluate the perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use and eventually the actual use of Internet TV on at least six technological artifacts (Computer terminal, Mobile phones, iPod, Sony PSP, Nintendo DS, and PDA).

● We found that consumers actually do want Internet TV, and that Computer terminal and Mobile phones were the most favored artifacts that had a high degree of perceived usefulness for consumers.

● Although consumers also believed that the other four artifacts (iPod, Sony PSP, Nintendo DS, and PDA) were also useful.

● However, despite consumers perceiving the six artifacts were useful they were skeptical about the perceived ease of use, perhaps, due to sophistication of technology or the possibility of gazing at relatively small screens in comparison to the conventional TV screens.