Radio and TV were designed to be simple, to require minimum involvement. Our grandparents sometimes chose to change channel, but this was strictly optional. Today's technology has brought us more choice, freeing our viewing and listening from set schedules. However, alongside this choice, we users must deal with complexity. Increasingly, we are asked to decide not only what we would like to watch or listen to, but also via what route. PVRs, 'on demand' TV platforms, streaming websites and downloads each add to our technology choices.

Broadcasters have traditionally provided a simpler experience for audiences, but their recent technology and commercial choices are adding to the underlying complexity. Together with rights owners, they attempt to control the consumption of content through DRM, geo blocking, etc. Thus, content distribution via broadcasters' websites, hubs like YouTube, search engines and P2P downloads requires serious efforts on the side of the user—not our grandparents' experience.

URIplay aims to restore simplicity to the experience without reducing choice. We compile and publish metadata files listing the URIs at which content can be played. Each URI is described in terms of media data format, revenue model, and restrictions applied. Developers will be able to use this information and our open API to refer precisely to the content and select appropriate URIs for their users.

URIplay will succeed via a community effort to design it, import data, improve its accuracy and then use it in applications. Below you will find the roles we have identified in this project.

Since the project started, we have defined an ontology, built a website and an API, and imported data from BBC—our first sponsor. We published these results in March 2009. To become an architect, join our Google Group.

We do not intend to run the only server; quite on the contrary. As architects, we have designed the URIplay service so that it encourages splitting data across many servers, controlled by many organisations. If you want to hear more or need help in setting up your own server, join our Google Group.

There is a wealth of legally available data online that needs to be translated and indexed according to the URIplay ontology. Whether you write code to be included in the URIplay reference software or write separate code, this is the time to join the import data forces. Let's talk about it in our Google Group.

The website will soon be populated with an increasing collection of media files' descriptions. More servers will hopefully be set to index data, as well. The accuracy of all this wealth can only be ensured by passionate, hands-on-the-keyboard editors. If you care about the collection at large, your media consumption, or a certain TV series, you're in charge. URIplay will provide you with a free editor's account, wiki-style. In the meantime, join our Google Group.

We can imagine a long series of practical uses for the infrastructure we've put in place and the data we're collecting, and below you'll find a few examples that particularly appeal to us, as media consumers. However, you shouldn't let these limit your imagination. There must be countless applications and business opportunities tomorrow. Here's the story at large, and details about what you can do right now.

The new, simple ways of distributing media made possible by URIplay are endless, in our view. Do consider the examples below as mere starting points in designing the future. We hope you will be inspired to create more and better.

For both people and machines, what could be more useful than permanent links where media can play? Such a link wouldn't change over time—only the media file's description may change; for example, to include or exclude encodings and locations. Some of this can already be done with our API.

In an ideal world, I would be able to send you a single link to a file and you would play precisely the right format on the device of your choice. Today that is impossible, and just sending a link at which media can play takes a lot of effort with platforms, devices, and settings—even then, it may not work. URIplay makes it possible to create smart links—one link per one media file, regardless of how and when you will use it. Fancy a link?

Wouldn't it be lovely if we could watch content from various sources on say, our TV, including broadcast, online broadcast, video blogs and hubs like YouTube? Someone will find it easier to make it happen now that URIplay exists.

Why can photographs, music files, and blog posts receive tags, and not other media files? We'd love to see someone change the status quo. We'd love to be able to watch a documentary tagged startling, for example. We'd love anything else along this line, in fact.

Real-time TV chat? Reliable schedule data for PVRs? TV bookmarks? Perhaps ad-hoc channels built on tags or interests? Sky is the limit, and time has come that someone more fit for the job takes the envisioning of applications upon one's shoulders. Good luck!