Current users are rapidly growing more sophisticated, while newbies are flooding in at ever-increasing rates. Content developers for the TV Web are going to have to consider that a large number of their users are new and don't know what they're doing yet, while the rest are experienced and impatient for new and sophisticated material. Maintaining a content approach that does not intimidate new users, does not condescend to experienced surfers, and remains fresh and exciting will be a challenge. The Net already is slow, and with all of the new traffic, it's going to get worse before it gets better. Yet the consumers' expectations of the service that cable and high speed modems will provide is probably unrealistically high.
Viewers relate to content differently from across the room.
Much experience needs to be gained before anyone can consider themselves expert in developing for the TV Web. As they proceed, content developers will need to consider the following characteristics. It will contain much more text than TV, much more video than the Web, and may be used either by consumers with fully-capable PCs or those with a consumer electronics box, minimal keyboard, RAM and hard disk, and a TV display. Users have an entirely different relationship with material they view across the room on a TV than they do with content viewed from 18 inches away. The creation of content for TV Web sites should not be based on any one manufacturer's technology until and unless it becomes a standard on all possible sites.