Word: webriot
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Dates: during 1999-1999
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...Total Request Live takes e-mail video requests, and the network has held high-profile online auctions (as has Rosie O'Donnell, who's about as edgy as a Koosh ball). And Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy! and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire all have independent game sites. But webRIOT hopes to be the first to succeed with a broadcast in which online fans are integrated into the format...
...convergence has come for its audience: 56% of 12-to-24-year-olds with computers have a TV in the same room. But the knock against "interactive TV" has been that it's an oxymoron; no one's agitating for a choose-your-own-adventure version of Martial Law. webRIOT hopes to score with a sort of cheap-'n'-dirty, Scud-missile interactivity. The game (accessible at www.mtv.com requires no special hardware or complicated interface; players simply use the keyboard as a buzzer. And, notes MTV programming head Brian Graden, successful game shows already have an "interactive" element: yelling...
...them to direct players to online deals or to synch TV commercials with click-to-buy options. With a traditional commercial, says Aram Sinnreich, an analyst with Internet research firm Jupiter Communications, "the most the advertiser could hope for is to eventually send the user to the store." But webRIOT's online surfer-viewers are virtually at the store today, and the future implications make advertisers salivate. webRIOT is already selling on-air and online ads as a package...
...only a percentage of the hoped-for viewership will play at once, the show will help MTV stay on top of trends like Internet use, which is essential to keeping the music channel relevant to kids. The format rewards loyalty; in a sweepstakes at the end of the season, webRIOT will give away a Ford Focus to one lucky online player. The more games you play, the better your chances...
...game-show fan who has bitterly counted the prizes he or she should have won instead of those idiot contestants!, the chance to compete directly is alluring. On the other hand, there is a second-class element to webRIOT online: the TV contestants win bigger daily prizes (all-expense-paid vacations, for instance) and watching a show just because your name might appear on the air is a tad close to Romper Room. But, says MTV Online vice president Rick Holzman, viewers downloaded more than 750,000 copies of the game software before the show's premiere, and while...