Interactive Television. The two way exchange of data. Interactive TV is one of those technologies that enable so many services but yet we know so little about what makes it tick...

One of the first interactive experiences available on TV was analogue teletext, here the user selects from pages either by directly typing in a number or by 4 coloured button options to make navigation easier. The main difference in the Sky Digital system is that the set top box runs small applications which use this data and control screen presentation to achieve some pretty impressive effects.

The Red button is the start key of the Sky Interactive platform, pressing this will load the application the broadcaster wants to run on that channel, the application will have already been downloaded to the unit when you last watched the channel.

Interactive TV is a very clever piece of technology which has the might of the SKY marketing machine behind it but it has to do battle with the very nature of television as being a 1 way couch potato medium, viewers are far more likely to use the internet for true 2 way interaction.