A Sneak Peek into IPTV During the Drilling Down on Local 07 conference, which was held last March in Santa Clara, California, attendees were given a sneak peek into Yellowpages.com’s IPTV Internet Yellow Pages channel.

PTV (Internet Protocol Television) is a system where a digital television service is delivered by using Internet Protocol over a network infrastructure, which may include delivery by a broadband connection. Instead of using traditional broadcast and cable formats, television content is received by the viewer through the technologies used for computer networks.

At the Silicon Valley summit, guests were given a glimpse of its first screen shots  a colorful video service that enables users to select and browse by popular categories, with details of nearby businesses also provided, along with mapping.

The service can also be browsed by name but isn’t ideally suited to the task. Advertisers, meanwhile, can set up microsites, wrote Peter Krasilovsky of the Kelsey Group in a recent report. It wasn’t clear from the screenshots how much of the service will be video oriented, and how much will be static.

According to Matt Crowley, CMO of Yellowpages.com, the service (which is already set for Channel 97) won’t be available until 2011. [Though it is already] built and running at the office, he added. Crowley emphasized that the IPTV service is not really a standalone product, but part of a three-screen approach for Yellowpages.com that encompasses mobile, PC, and TV.

From a sales channel perspective, Crowley stated that SMEs will have an opportunity to use the interactive television orientation of the service to order from an online ad store. He cited research showing that 35% of SMEs would be interested in such a self-service ordering process.