Me.TV : a visual programming language and interface for dynamic media programming

Abstract

The culture of televised media experiences has changed very little since the time it began in the 1930s, but new internet technologies, like Netflix, Hulu, and Youtube, are now quickly forcing major change. Although these new internet technologies have given the viewer more control than the historical dial, they have also left behind some of the greatest contributions of traditional television. These contributions include not just the well-favored simplicity of use, but also the sense of social experience and connectedness, the ease and continuity of scheduled programming, and the understanding that television is now, current, and pulsing. This thesis presents Me.TV, a web platform that combines the benefits of traditional television and on-demand viewing for a new experience that allows us to let go, watch the same channels as our friends, flip our preferences around, get constant, current content, and still have control over the type and timing of content. To make this experience possible, we present a visual programming language at the center of the Me.TV platform that enables users to create complex rules with simple interactions. The visual language constructs allow users to create static preferences, such as genre constraints, and plan for non-static ones, such as a current mood, in as many channels as they want. To support the Me.TV programming language, the platform comprises of an editor, translation engine, application programming interface, video player and navigation dashboard, which we prototype in this thesis as a javascript web application. Work reported herein was funded by the Media Lab Consortium and the Ultimate Media Program.