Stewart Schley, DST Correspondent

Ever stood at the lectern facing a room of stern faces, taken a deep breath…and realized you left your 27-slide PowerPoint presentation back at the hotel room? Then you still have only an inkling of what Yahoo Inc.’s COO, Dan Rosensweig, must have felt like at the Consumer Electronics Show when a technical gaffe halted what was supposed to be the public unveiling of a nifty new Internet-TV service.

In a room packed with journalists, onlookers and electronics executives, he was about to show off Yahoo’s new “Yahoo Go TV” service. Running from a Microsoft XP personal computer system, it’s designed to take digital media content from PCs – like stored digital photos and recorded TV programs – and play them on living-room TV sets. Plus, the “Go TV” service makes it possible to search the Internet for television content and, again, play it on a traditional TV screen. “The new service will allow consumers to take content from their personal computer or from the web and extend it onto the biggest screen in their home,” said a Yahoo press announcement.

It’s a provocative idea, but alas, on stage at the world’s biggest electronics show, it didn’t work. When Rosensweig attempted to demonstrate the “Yahoo Go TV” service from a mock living-room set on stage at CES, nothing happened – the fault, according to an article by CNET.com, of a failed Internet connection. Rushing to improvise was Yahoo’s chairman and CEO Terry Semel, who at least had the good fortune to be able to introduce actor Tom Cruise to the CES crowd. (Note to self: Remember this tactic the next time you’re in trouble during a presentation.)

“I’m here for you, Terry,” said a smiling Cruise as he bounded up on stage.

The demo glitch was an embarrassing reminder that some of the newly minted ideas for marrying Internet and stored-PC content with traditional living room media appliances may not yet be ready for prime time. Despite general industry optimism that the era of digital media “convergence,” or the merging of computer technologies with traditional media services, is finally here, the achievement of a seamless, foolproof marriage between PC content and the television remains elusive.

That’s not to say convergence isn’t alive, well and performing admirably in some respects. When you snap a photograph of your best friend from your mobile telephone, you’re certainly engaging in a blend of formerly disparate mediums and technologies. Likewise, popular digital music download services like Apple Computer Inc.’s iTunes showcase the best attributes of convergence – they’re accessible, reliable and relatively easy to use.

But there’s still lots of work to be done before a critical mass of customers is going to embrace the idea of a convergence between the jumbled content maw that is the Internet and the trusty big-screen television downstairs. Indeed, one of the reasons most U.S. cable companies have continued to rely on a digital TV delivery technology known as MPEG-2, rather than embrace a different approach known as IPTV that borrows from Internet transmission protocols, is that MPEG tends to perform very reliably in a highly demanding environment where the average person watches television for 4 hours and 39 minutes a day, according to Nielsen Media Research.

There’s no doubt here that interesting applications and empowering features will result from the continuing flirtation between the Internet and television. But to make it big in the real world, developers must recognize there’s zero tolerance on the tube for “error” messages and blank screens.

Stewart Schley writes about media and technology from Englewood, Colorado.