A Spider Moves Into the Garden

BY DAN MITCHELL

?YOU DON'T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT WHAT PLATFORM YOUR SHOWS WILL BE RUNNING ON ? WE RUN ON ALL PLATFORMS.?

Spiderdance, a maker of interactive-TV software, is moving deeper into the ?walled garden? market.

Last week it signed on to the Microsoft TV Content Builder Initiative, which will enable Spiderdance to deploy its interactive-TV applications on Motorola's DCT-5000 advanced set-top boxes.

With the deal in hand, Spiderdance said it will launch a series of interactive TV shows on the Microsoft TV platform. The company isn't saying what those shows are or where they'll appear, but CEO Steve Hoffman said the company is in talks with ?the larger networks.?

?There are shows on the air right now that will be optimized for the Microsoft TV platform through Spiderdance's technology,? said David Witus, Microsoft TV's director of content programs.

For most of its history, Spiderdance has concentrated on so-called two-screen interactivity ? where home viewers interact with TV programming via their computers. Such a setup has been seen as, at best, a stop-gap measure as true interactivity via the television screen is developed. For now, two-screen interactivity is vastly more popular, simply because it's essentially all that's available.

The research outfit Dataquest recently said that 44 million U.S. viewers regularly surf the Net while watching TV. And network shows such as ABC's Who Wants to Be a Millionaire draw huge numbers of Web surfers who play along with the game show on their PC.

While Spiderdance thinks the future is in true convergence on the TV screen, it will continue to work in a dual-platform environment for at least a few more years, Hoffman said.

Spiderdance, which is trying to get on as many platforms as possible, also has deals with Microsoft competitors Liberate Technologies and with AOLTV.

?Our goal is pretty simple,? said Hoffman. ?We go to TV producers and say, ?you don't have to worry about what platform your shows will be running on ? we run on all platforms?.?

So far, two shows are using Spiderdance's technology: the History Channel's quiz show History IQ, and the Game Show Network's Inquizition.

Companies that compete with Spiderdance include GoldPocket Interactive and ACTV. But Hoffman said his biggest competitor is Disney's in-house enhanced-TV group, which developed the interactive elements of Millionaire.