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Here is a round-up of some other interactive TV-related stories we didn't have room for in this issue:

Here is a round-up of some other interactive TV-related stories we didn't have room for in this issue:

At the VideoSchmooze event in New York City Tuesday evening, Comcast's SVP of new media, Matt Strauss, said that the MSO will leave decisions about commercial placement in programming offered via On Demand Online, its implementation of the TV Everywhere distribution model, in the hands of programmers, according to a report by Todd Spangler in Multichannel News (note: the "TV Everywhere" model, which has long been championed by Time Warner and its chairman and CEO, Jeff Bewkes, seeks to make programming that pay-TV customers have already paid for through their cable, satellite or IPTV subscriptions available to those customers on mu

Advanced advertising technology provider, BlackArrow, announced Tuesday that its VOD ad insertion platform has gone live with Comcast in Jacksonville, Florida.

Espial, the Canadian digital TV software company that last year bought US IPTV and video-on-demand technology provider, Kasenna (note: the deal valued Kasenna, which had raised $90 million in funding since its launch in 2000, at around $6.5 million), will today announce that Chinese tier-one cable operator, Chongqing Cable TV Network, has selected its Espial MediaBase VOD platform to power its VOD services. Espial acquired the MediaBase product line through the Kasenna purchase. Chongqing Cable TV Network, which is located in southwest China, claims to provide analog and digital TV services to 4.2 million subscribers.

Paris-based interactive TV games company, Visiware (note: the company claims that its games are available on 30 cable, satellite and IPTV platforms, including DISH Network, Bell TV, Wind, Videotron, Canalsat, TPS, Numericable, Sky Italia, UPC, Nova, Multichoice, Dish TV India, StarHub, True Visions, Austar, Foxtel and Sky New Zealand), announced last week that its Playin'TV ITV games channel has launched on Darty's DartyBox THD service.

[itvt] has just published an in-depth interview with Stuart Waite, head of interactive media at Alcatel-Lucent, and Mark Janes, the director of business development and marketing for the company's Digital Media and Advertising Product division.

In a posting on a Verizon blog, Wednesday, the company's SVP of media relations, Eric Rabe, announced that it is upgrading its FiOS TV Interactive Media Guide in order to "make on-screen purchasing and navigation faster and easier." According to Rabe, the upgrade was in response to feedback from FiOS TV customers: "FiOS TV customers wanted more detailed program information, interactive video-on-demand, more shortcuts and easier ways to upgrade their FiOS TV, and I'm happy to say the folks in the FiOS lab have come up with some pretty neat responses," he wrote.

As [itvt] reported yesterday, Evolution Broadband, a reseller of digital equipment to independent cable operators, has abandoned a strategy based on tru2way headends and set-top boxes because the economics "simply don't add up" for tier-two and tier-three operators, according to an article by Jeff Baumgartner of Cable Digital News.

Evolution Broadband, a reseller of digital equipment to independent cable operators, has abandoned a strategy based on tru2way headends and set-top boxes because the economics "simply don't add up" for tier-two and tier-three operators, according to a new article by Jeff Baumgartner of Cable Digital News. The company told Baumgartner that it now believes that broadband-connected HD DVR's from TiVo are a more cost-effective alternative than tru2way for smaller operators looking to launch advanced interactive TV services, even though it had lined up a number of overseas set-top box manufacturers to supply it with tru2way boxes.

Canoe Ventures, the company tasked with implementing the US cable industry's plans for interactive and addressable advertising (note: its backers are Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cox, Charter, Cablevision and Bright House), last week announced the formation of a "Partnership for Innovation in Television Advertising" with the VCU Brandcenter, the graduate advertising and branding program of the School of Mass Communications at Virginia Commonwealth University. According to the company, the partnership is intended to support VCU Brandcenter educational activities that are designed to teach graduate students to apply new technologies that are transforming television into a more compelling and competitive marketing medium.

Here is a round-up of other interactive TV-related news stories we didn't have room for in this issue:

New York-area MSO, Cablevision, on Wednesday announced the launch of a new interactive TV advertising service called Optimum Select.

Digital video networking specialist, BigBand Networks, said Wednesday that Time Warner Cable plans to deploy its switched digital video (SDV) solution to free up bandwidth for HD VOD, DOCSIS 3.0 and other new service and programming options in its Los Angeles, New York City and Dallas systems. "We have launched SDV in over 20 markets to date and know firsthand that, if we want to deploy new programming options for our customers, SDV is the fastest, most cost-effective method for our existing network," Kevin Leddy, Time Warner Cable's EVP of technology policy and product management, said in a prepared statement.

TAG Networks--an interactive TV games company that has developed a games-on-demand service, called TAG, which it says integrates with existing VOD infrastructures (note: the company works closely with ActiveVideo Networks and is believed to be involved in the latter's deployment with Cablevision; it has also collaborated with ActiveVideo on deployments with Time Warner Cable)--said Tuesday that it is introducing a new version of its high-density game streaming platform.