New Interviews with AETN's Mark Garner and Jinni's Mike Pohl

[itvt] has just published interviews with Mark Garner, SVP of distribution, marketing and business development at A&E Television Networks (AETN), and with Mike Pohl, CEO of "mood-based" search-and-recommendation company, Jinni.

Garner discusses AETN's interactive TV plans for its various networks (including A&E, History and Lifetime), its tcommerce partnership with Delivery Agent, his views on OTT platforms, ranging from Google TV to the Apple iPad, and much more. Pohl, meanwhile, discusses Jinni's technology (which the company bills as based on "content genetics and user psychographics"), its partnerships, including its recently announced partnership with Google on the latter's new Google TV platform, its product strategy and roadmap, and the TV search and recommendations space in general.

We have also just published the latest edition of Rick Howe's regular column, "The iTV Doctor Is In!" This week, the iTV Doctor continues his quest to answer the question: "Can the operator enable a process wherein the linear channel PAUSES while the viewer goes to an interactive application, possibly with a VOD asset, and then RESUMES the linear channel when the viewer clicks back?" (note: see also the iTV Doctor columns published on itvt.com April 23rd and May 13th). The column features responses from Jim Owens, senior product marketing manager, on-demand video, Home & Networks Mobility, Motorola; Ben Hollin, senior manager, advanced advertising solutions, Cisco Media Solutions Group; and Tara Maitra, VP and general manager, content services, TiVo.

In addition, [itvt] blogger, Michael Collette, managing director of MediaTech Strategies, shares some thoughts on Google TV and responds to Ellen Dudar's recent opinion piece, "Google TV: Why It Will Fail" (published on itvt.com, May 26th).