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In 2009, Netflix offered a $1 million prize to whoever could build it a better recommendation engine, and wound up with a simple, easily navigable star-based interface that remains the standard for content discovery platforms. Other streaming services, such as Hulu, also seem to have a handle on search, with simple, visually pleasing systems in place.
Live TV, however, is another matter entirely.
Many a cable subscriber has endured the TV guide channel and its excruciating scroll through mountains of content. In many instances, it’s arguably not any better than good old fashioned channel surfing, and yet there seems to be little other recourse for those viewers seeking to sift through the universe’s mountains of broadcasted content for something they actually want to watch.
Enter Boxfish, a new app now available for iOS and Android that takes every word being spoken on television in real time, loads it into a database, and makes it searchable as Google does with the Web. A viewer who wants to watch something about Tiger Woods, for example, can enter that search term into Boxfish on his or her mobile device, and the app will instantly reveal every place across the spectrum of live TV where the golfer is being discussed at that present moment. It also turns the mobile device into a remote control, letting the user instantly tune in to the Woods-related program they wish to see with the touch of a screen. Boxfish also, in the vein of Twitter, features trending TV topics being discussed, and sets up alerts so that the viewer can receive breaking news when their given search term gets mentioned again somewhere.
In indexing live TV content and letting the viewer control what appears on their own personal TV guide, Boxfish is turning TV watching from a passive to an active pursuit. Streaming services like Netflix are popular not just because of what content they provide, but because they let their customers tailor that content with such extreme precision. Live TV on the other hand has always been a waiting game; sit there long enough and patiently scroll through the guide, or flip through hundreds of channels, and something worth watching’s bound to pop up. Boxfish is a step forward in alleviating that frustration, even if it seems to have some limitations.
Currently, the app seems more useful for news, sports, and reality programming discovery – not so much for shows in the realm of fiction. Searching “Ashton Kutcher,” for instance, would be limited to entertainment shows discussing his next film, or CNN reporting on his next business venture, or “E! News” reflecting on his romantic travails. Those hoping to use Boxfish to find the actor’s film and TV work somewhere in the live ethos would have to search for terms that would be actually spoken on a specific show or movie, such as one of his characters’ names. And that’s when things start to get complicated. Enter “Steve Jobs” into a TV search engine, for instance, and you’re sure to find thousands of results that have nothing to do with Ashton Kutcher. However, you might have a little better luck with “Walden Schmidt.”
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