Videotex

Designed in the late 1970s to mid-1980s, videotex was an information delivery system for the home, and one of the earliest incarnations of “end-user information systems.” Typically, videotex systems were menu-driven systems designed for display on television sets. Videotex information included news, weather, and local information and services (such as bus schedules, entertainment event listings, etc.). Many large media firms implemented videotex systems in the United States, and several countries (notably England and Canada) invested large amounts of money in videotex. However, by the late 1990s, with the exception of the Minitel system in France, videotex was defunct.

Videotex systems comprised three major components: information retrieval and display terminals, typically television sets with an attached decoder that translated digital signals into an audio display; transmission lines for interactive communication, usually the public-switched telephone network, a cable-television coaxial-cable network, a communications-satellite system, microwave facilities, or a combination thereof; and computer hardware and software as the delivery device.

In the mid-1980s, giant media firms in the United States such as Times Mirror, Knight-Ridder, Warner, and Time invested large amounts of money into developing videotex systems, only to see them fail. For instance, Knight-Ridder's Videotron service in southern Florida was launched in 1983 with 5,000 subscribers, but three years later lost $50 million in revenue. The reasons for failure were numerous: Videotex operators found it difficult to attract customers, and advertisers [Page 467]were reluctant to sign up; delivery by telephone line meant that customers' lines were tied up; the decoder boxes were notoriously difficult to use; and the touted interactivity was negligible.

Unlike in the United States, where commercial interests (including many newspaper chains) developed videotex systems, in Europe several governments developed and funded them. In England, the British Post Office (now British Telecom) developed the Prestel system in 1979. Initially predicting 100,000 users by 1981, in 1989 Prestel had only 90,000 customers. Canada's Communications Research Centre, the research arm of the federal Department of Communications, developed Telidon, which was widely touted in policy circles as key to positioning Canada as a leader in technological innovation. However, as with other videotex systems, Telidon failed miserably in the market.

Minitel, developed by France Télécom in the early 1980s to provide an online telephone directory, has proven to be a resilient and popular videotex system. Minitel accesses the Teletel Network, a distributed information network for email and diverse information resources. One of the reasons that Minitel became so successful was the popularity of its messageries, or chat services; particularly popular are the messageries roses, or adult-oriented chat lines. In 1998, Minitel was more popular in France than the Internet, with 6.5 million Minitel terminals used by 14 million people, and 24,600 services provided by over 10,000 companies.

The failure of videotex systems can be attributed to their technical limitations, and to their lack of varied social uses; many customers were deterred by awkward interfaces and poor interactivity. Despite the prognostications of information-society theorists, the commercial content provided on videotex was just not compelling enough, nor was it sustainable for advertisers and content providers.

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