The Lost Art of Channel Surfing

There is definitely something to be said about the curation aspect of it, too.

Scrolling using an algorithm is ultimately guesswork, and network television spent months putting together specific lineups to curate a specific taste for its viewers.

My favorite example is cartoon network, toonami, and adult swim. These are all on the same channel but have such distinct differences for the eyes that would be watching.

I think I also miss a lot of the hand made transition videos between commercials, or the ways they would advertise marathons. It always gave a bigger sense of the theme you were watching instead of just seeing dragon Ball z.

I have actually been working on a concept to bring this back. It's been in development for over a year, and allows you to create television channels from several digital media sources.

I have been polishing it up a lot and recently added a feature called Blocks which lets you create generative schedules akin to how traditional television aligns content to half hour or quarter hour intervals.

The hope is that it can carry on this torch of television, where content creators can band together and create themed channels. I think giving them a good toolset to do this will bring back a lot of creativity in being more than just a 24/7 stream of videos.

If you're interested at all, it's currently live at https://react.tv