In the mid-1990s, the only effective way to access the growing World Wide Web was with a traditional computer and a dedicated browser. For the vast majority of the public, that meant absorbing technical knowledge and advanced concepts that in practice acted as a filter. That is what gave rise to the WebTV project, whose goal was to adapt the Web's resources to a much more familiar device: the television. “Internet in the living room”, with a remote control, and the whole world on the screen…
The Challenge
It wasn't easy. It may seem intuitive to us today, but it truly wasn't simple. Let's think about it for a moment: the mid-1990s. Windows was advancing in its world conquest. The personal computer had begun to install itself in many homes as the new thing or the future... and it cost a fortune. A mid-to-high-end system could demand 3,000 dollars or more at that time, but exploring the world from a PC asked for even more. A telephone line. A modem. A web browser.
Web. The Web. Internet. Words and expressions that were repeated constantly on tech shows. Working on the Web. Playing on the Web. Communicating on the Web. Even ordering a pizza on the Web! Huge, almost magical promises. But the price to pay wasn't only economic, but also technical.
Computers were intimidating; people didn't know them. Some visionaries managed to detect that problem. One of them was Steve Perlman, better remembered for QuickTime and the streaming service OnLive. What was his solution? Adapting Web access and its content to a more familiar, more direct environment. In other words... bringing the Web to the television.
WebTV Networks
WebTV Networks was founded by Perlman himself, along with Bruce Leak and Phil Goldman, in July 1995. A year later, the access device began to circulate, distributed by giants like Philips and Sony. But the hardware was only part of the equation. All of the Web's content had to change, mutate, to be reproduced on a wide range of televisions. In essence, WebTV needed its own version of the Web, deployed inside a sandbox that was in some ways in line with what America Online was doing in those years.
Despite their efforts, the initial results were not good. The user experience was poor, pages had very limited visual quality, load times became torture, and it was even complicated to read the Web on a CRT television. Even during public presentations, company representatives were forced to maneuver to minimize the impact of technical difficulties. If we add the fact that the user had to use the remote control to navigate... I think we can imagine the rest.
Microsoft Steps In
But the potential was there. The specialized press knew it, and so did other companies... with Microsoft at the lead. Less than eight months after its launch, the Redmond giant put $425 million on the table and absorbed WebTV Networks. By late 1999, WebTV had nearly a million users, and even recruited stars like William Shatner for its advertising campaigns.
However, the Web didn't stand still. It was a moving target, incorporating new technologies at every step. WebTV, with its rigid and proprietary structure, found itself unable to compete. Microsoft's answer was a wholesale transformation. WebTV became MSN TV, and it gave the hardware away free to MSN subscribers to keep them from leaving the service. The first and only major update came in 2004 (MSN TV 2), with a profile closer to the original Xbox and the incorporation of Internet Explorer.
Decline and Legacy
It wasn't enough. WebTV had a fairly loyal user base, but the whole platform was climbing the stairs while the Web was taking the elevator. In September 2013, Microsoft gave MSN TV the definitive thumbs down, with one small detail: a good part of WebTV's vision and what was learned during its existence found a privileged place in Xbox consoles. Many WebTV team members participated in the development of the Xbox 360, and if we analyze it for a moment, there is still a bit of WebTV in the Xbox One.
In its 17 years of existence, WebTV also experienced some very strange moments. For example, its encryption system was so strong that the United States government even considered it munitions (the same thing happened to PGP), blocking its initial export.
And in 2002, a certain David Jeansonne created the first WebTV virus, which changed the service's official number to 911. The virus affected fewer than a dozen people, but the justice system was particularly harsh with Jeansonne: six months in prison, six months of house arrest as part of two years of supervision, and more than $27,000 in fines.
WebTV disappeared, but from a certain point of view, it is still with us. Freeing the Web from the desktop computer wasn't a bad idea, although the final destination of that vision wasn't the living room, but our pockets, through mobile devices, and many, many apps.
Source: Vice
