So, the participation TV event we ran for Discovery in the US back in June is up for a few awards: Best Use of Interactive Television and Best Use of Mobile at the BIMAs, and the Eureka awards at World Telemedia. The latter is a particularly good fit, because it's for bizarre projects that actually have legs: precisely how we've always seen Ghosty. And behind the supernatural ghost-hunting front-end we think it demonstrates a few principles that really hold water:

• Broadcasters and programme makers want to interact with audiences, but find that SMS is limited in expressiveness, sluggish in response and not exactly trusted by consumers or regulators nowadays;
• Programme audiences enjoy getting involved with TV formats - just look at the rise of voting or of user-generated content over the last few years;
• Traditional red-button interactive TV has failed to deliver mass interactivity, is based on staid, fragmented and closed platforms, and mobile provides a much better hope for getting the public engaged with TV than iTV does;

So here's the bit where I blatantly start shilling: the Eureka awards are accepting public votes by text or on the web site. It looks like we're up against strong competition (hi Alfie!), but I can't see anyone coming close to us on the "wild and wacky" front. If you'd like to strike a blow for all that is ludicrous, please do head over there and vote for the mobile ghost detector :)