from the TV Hackday

Had quite some fun at the TV Hackday in Munich. Together with @rjung, we built this litte app here. We called it Pinkelpause, or TV Leaks: a crowdsourced tv ad blocker. Which of course is not blocking any ads, but telling you when the commercials are done and you can safely come back and sit down in front of your linear tv set.

You choose your network, the current show gets displayed. If the ads start, you can click the red commercial warning-button. Some stochastic wizardry later, everybody who checked into the show will have his app set to “commercial break”. During the commercials, the display shows the approximate remaining time of the ad block. When the show comes back, you press the big green button, everybody get’s an alert. Stir in some gamifiction, and that’s it.

What device should this be on?
Mobile, of course. A smart tv app would be kind of self defeating. As watching the app count down would be even more annoying than watching some commercials.

Will we ever take it live?
Most likely, not. The smart phone wielding crowd tends to be alittle bit younger than the typical tv target. And well off tv aficionados do not have an ad problem. They fastforward with their digital video recorder. So we’re maybe ten years late.

Would there be a business model?
Sure. And no, I do not think an ad supported ad blocker is a valid proposition. So …