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Monetizing the 2nd Screen – the debate continues with "Cost per Touch" introduced

May 16, 2013 A few weeks ago in a blog post on the same subject, I presented the current approaches to monetizing second screen companion and converged viewing experiences in the market place.

Last Thursday, we had the opportunity to put the heart of the discussion to a live debate (audio available here) at the Jefferies 2013 Global Technology, Media & Telecom Conference held in NYC.  We had a "Star-Studded 2nd Screen panel" including Jesse Redness (@JesseRedniss) from USA Network, Tara Maitra (@TiVo) from TiVo, Adam Rymer (@MLB) from MLB, AJ McGowan (@UnicornMedia) from Unicorn Media and Rick Liebling (@RickLiebling) from Young & Rubicam.


We kicked off the panel in discussion with Adam Rymer, discussing how MLB has pioneered both video streaming and second screen in the industry for more than 10 years.  Adam described not only their content syndication revenue approach ($20 a season for the "data only" second screen experience, $125 a seasons for the converged streaming video experience) as well as their experience with 4 Major League Baseball parks for in-park commerce (tickets, concessions, integration with the jumbotron, etc).

Jesse Redniss and Tara Maitra spent a good deal of time discussing display ads on second screen, with Tivo surprising the room as Tara discussed their ad network approach for on demand viewing including "Tune-in" links for major shows (ironic for a product that is often thought of as an ad killer).  Jesse discussed USA Network's approach to metadata syndication, giving them the ability to push their brand and synchronized ads to multiple 3rd party second screen apps.

As we started to discuss interactive advertising and how the market is reacting to a CPM model on the first screen and whether the sync'd ad on the second screen will be monetized in a CPM approach (i.e. a 10% uplift on the CPM) or a CPC model (web ads attract $0.50 - $1.00 per click-thru), Jesse coined the phrase "Cost per Touch".  He illuminated the investor-packed room by describing not only the power of measurement of the clicks themselves, but that we will soon be able to truly understand how consumers are engaging with the brand and content on the first screen (are they switching apps, are they clicking into the actors or the sync'd content, etc).

Rick Liebling did a great job reminding all of us that this is still a very nascent market and the both ad agencies and their brand advertising customers need to be educated on what is possible and what is working for this to continue to gain momentum and achieve real scale in the market place.

AJ McGowan brought us full circle between the analog and digital video worlds, describing why it has been so hard for the last few years for brands and TV networks to monetize their video content in mobile in the same way they have been monetizing broadcast streams.  Essentially, until very recently, video links shared via Twitter and Facebook or even email have been challenged by the need for a client-side app (to count streams for the advertiser, etc), resulting in very low viewing rates as consumers either have to hunt for and download the app or become frustrated while the device switches from streaming the ad to streaming the actual content.  Now that the technology exists to stitch the ad and the content together "on the fly" combined with an industry recognition of matching the pre-roll to the size of the content (ie no 30-second pre-rolls for 30-second videos), networks are starting to see their ad stream viewing rates climb and their resulting effective CPMs climb (they only get paid for completed ad views).  With ad targeting servers from companies like FreeWheel and VideoPlaza targeting consumers in real-time with more and more personalized information, we should expect to see CPMs meet and exceed those of the analog broadcasting world...soon.

So, while I expect this to continue to be the most popular debate in the industry, one thing is for sure--the entire industry is focused on figuring out a way to monetize those consumers we have been smart / lucky enough to engage in second screen companion and converged viewing experiences.

Interested in discussing this with us further?
Check out our Webinar on May 23rd on 2nd Screen Strategy Basics or join us live in NYC at the Chelsea Clearview Cinemas on June 27th for our 2nd Screen Summit NYC @ CE Week where will will continue the discussion on monetization strategies in addition to engagement and the challenges companies large and small face in the industry.

Send us your feedback on this blog or on Twitter
@ChuckParkerTech
@S32Day

Second Screen turns the corner towards monetization with clear examples in sight

May 2, 2013 In 2012, it seemed that everywhere I turned, analysts, pundits and critics were saying either the second screen was distracting or that while second screen usage seemed to be a new consumer behavior, those consumers were all just checking email, playing angry birds or on Twitter/Facebook.  Sometime in early 2013, the shared view in the industry seems to have changed, with some general level of acceptance of both the potential of consumer engagement in content and brands, but now there is a new skeptic demand--"Engagement?  So What. Show me the Money!"

The Masters 2013 – another strong showing for sports in second screen

April 11, 2013 Last year, the Masters 2012 had one of the strongest showings as a second screen app. Building on a converged experience use case (both as a companion experience while in the living room and presenting a viewing experience for consumers on the go AND for video footage not shown on television), the 2013 version has continued to emphasize its strongest features (the ability to follow your favorite players, get alerts when they are on live TV, the ability to see video recaps of their efforts, etc) and has developed the converged viewing experience opportunity even further (integrating "free" broadcasts and Pay TV authentication when appropriate).

The UI is clean and easy to navigate and the alert setup is well done (letting you know when you turn on live streaming to see your favorite players live).  While they still have not embraced the Social TV side of second screen, they are knocking the ball out of the park on delivering an Enhanced experience (Stimulating) and have used a converged experience to deliver the Control and Discovery feature sets.  Expect this trend to continue in dedicated sport event apps (Enhanced experienced combined with a Converged companion and viewing experience) similar to the other apps shown in this graphic (ie March Madness).

2nd Screen Sunday @ NAB 2013

April 11, 2013 With NAB Show just about to wrap up, we thought this would be a great time to recap Sunday's second screen event in Las Vegas.

Registration kicked off a little early on Sunday as were expecting "a few walk-ups"--we ended up with an incredibly long line that would not abate and actually had to start the program late to get the most of people into the room for Hardie Tankersly's keynote, which kicked off the event to standing room only of 350-400 people.

Hardie delivered a great keynote in a fireside chat format (lead by Seth Shapiro), helping the audience to understand why getting the metadata that powers the rich second screen applications syndicated to key partners is so important.  Those key partners joined Hardie on stage after the keynote to talk through the challenges and take audience Q&A.

We tested the waters with a "2nd Screen 101" session where we expected 15-30 attendees to join in a parallel program track--and were surprised when 100-115 joined the 45-minute session.  The industry is clearly now mature enough that we need to facilitate great thought leadership to at least two segments of participants: 1) experts who live and breathe this stuff every day, and 2) new entrants who are just starting to figure out what all the fuss is about.  Expect to see more of this type of content from us at our 2nd Screen Summit in NYC in late June.

iPowow, one of our newest members, delivered an incredibly engaging live second screen experiment during a technology spotlight, engaging the audience in 3 live voting scenarios and show the results live on stage and then showing the parallel scenario that was recently aired on a live broadcast with the same live voting technology.

Kit Digital launched their "2Si" social discovery platform at the event, with industry thought leader Alan Wolk on stage guiding the audience through the features and consumer use cases it was designed for.

We had an incredibly engaging session on the direction of the second screen app market moderated by Marty Shindler, with industry veterans such as Alex Terpstra from Civolution and Tom Engdahl from Magic Ruby trading views with Tracey Garvin from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.

Joe Inzerillo from the MLB dazzled the audience for 30 minutes, taking all of us through an incredibly detailed case study of their MLB At Bat product and how complex it is to have the level of success they have captured as the industry's #1 monetized app in the iTunes Appstore.

That was followed by Andy Batkin moderating a very engaging sports panel with Tyler Slocum from the NFL and Joe Inzerillo from the MLB discussing their brand engagement needs with industry startups TOK.tv, Kwarter and iPowow.

Jason Kint from CBS Interactive Sports had the closing keynote, taking the audience through a Super Bowl 47 case study and reminding everyone just how far reaching second screen can be for major events and the brands that sponsor them.

The conversation over cocktails buzzed along for quite awhile before a smaller group broke off  to engage further in second screen dinner that was sponsored by Kit Digital and Civolution.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, about 30 of us gathered in a conference room on Monday to conduct a 2nd Screen Society Advisory Board meeting, discussing and progressing key industry initiatives around the DIAL protocol for device access and ad agency measurements.

Add all of the focused action to the incredible buzz of the NAB Show floor (which seemed to scream 2nd Screen and 4k) and it was an 2nd Screen packed week in Las Vegas.

You can check out the Twitter engagement during the show (#S3NAB) and, for conference attendees, we will be posting the audio and presentations under a password protected link shortly (with an email notification).

Look out for our webinar series on "Successful 2nd Screen Strategies" and join us in NYC during CE week June 24-28 to continue the discussion at our 2nd Screen Summit NYC, jointly presented with Broadcasting and Cable.

@ChuckParkerTech
@S32Day

First Quarter, 2013: Are we on track? An update to the definitive research "The 2nd Screen: Transforming video consumption"

April 7, 2013 The first 3 months of 2013 has been explosive for 2^nd Screen.  Apps have improved, new apps have continued to launch, clear evidence of growth in the revenue associated with the market can be seen, and the convergence of 2^nd Screen companion experiences and 2^nd Screen viewing experiences has continued.

Second Screen by the Numbers – infographic

April 4, 2013 How did the first quarter stack up vs. our projected growth of the industry?

Come join us in Las Vegas for 2nd Screen Sunday @ NAB this weekend to discuss from 1-6pm (cocktails follow).

We have a content-packed program being kicked off by Hardie Tankersly from Fox and being closed by Jason Kint from CBS Interactive Sports with a lot of great panels and presentations in between.

www.2ndScreenSummit.com

(if you have trouble with registration, please follow the instructions here)

• zeebox reportedly had over 3.7m
downloads and Viggle is approaching
2m active users
• 2/3 of Americans under 44 years old who
own tablets and smartphones are
shopping on them while watching TV
• NBA games have been garnering 1-3m
social impressions, making the games
consistently the highest socially active
events each week
• The Academy Awards, Grammy’s
and Super Bowl 47 each were given their
own “network developed” special
purpose app, helping to drive incredible
increases in engagement year on
year:
– 13m+ social impressions for the
Academy Awards
– 19m+ social impressions for the
Grammys
– 52m+ social impressions for the Super
Bowl

NCAA’s March Madness Second Screen App–a great 2012 app made even better for 2013

April 2, 2013 If you haven't been paying attention to March Madness, then you may still appreciate this for the second screen value alone.  Last year, this app demonstrated one of the best UIs and second screen feature sets in the industry (see last year's review here).  Developed by Turner Sports, the app continues to lead the way in terms of a Stimulating or Enhanced experience and is leading the market in Converged Experiences (where the app behaves both as a Companion experience and a Viewing experience).



They added some great new features this year, while maintaining
the most desirable features from last year.  I took the opportunity to try the app out in a number of scenarios this year: live while watching a game in Philadelphia (thanks Digitalsmiths), as a companion app while watching at home, and as a converged experience (companion and viewing) on the iPad and iPhone while in a long car trip.  The best features of 2013 are:

• Ability to authenticate with your Pay TV provider and see the game anywhere (presumably only in the US) streamed live to your device.
• Ability to set alerts either for your favorite teams or for close games or potential upsets (allowed me to catch a number of great game finales).
• Ability to observe a "Twitter heatmap" of the most socially engaged moment, and then to share a video clip from that moment on Facebook or Twitter.
• The ability to enter and maintain your bracket picks as well as observe the actual tournament bracket.

Examining Second Screen through the eyes of "TV Experts"

March 12, 2013 Last week, Noel Murray wrote a well-thought out piece on his recent second screen experiences called "The 'Second Screen': Is This App Really Necessary?"  He did a good job at describing what many consumers experience when they encounter new technologies or new experiences driven by technology.  Noel did a decent job of trying different apps during different major events (Super Bowl, Oscars, Grammys) and during every day television, but I think his logic erred slightly when he made his conclusion.  Let's briefly examine.

First, he describes himself as someone who does not understand the seemingly popular desire to participate in social media (whether Twitter or badge driven experiences like GetGlue).  But as Noel himself states, "But the second-screen phenomenon has become increasingly difficult to ignore."  That fact that this is a phenomena means by definition that it is a change in consumer behavior--perhaps fueled by social media or perhaps by the uber-availability of smartphones and tablets, but it is a set of activities that many people are participating in despite the fact that most experiences are poorly designed.  Now that is powerful--imagine what might happen if the consumer was consistently presented with a strong UI/UX--it might be like the change in smartphone usage when Apple entered the market place and created the first experience for the "everyman" vs. the techie.

Second, Noel does a good job at working through what feature sets he would like to see as a consumer himself (though he is self-admittedly a niche demographic).  He starts to describe "Stimulating" features to Enhance his viewing experience.  When we look at most consumers, we find that they tend to pick up a device in the living room for 1 of 4 major reasons: 1) To Control the first screen (think of your classic remote), 2) to Discover something to watch (either an archaic EPG or a sophisticated Discovery app), 3) to Enhance their viewing experience (the companion experiences Noel desires), and 4) to Share their experience (yes, the Social TV aspect of second screen).  While I agree that not all of the apps Noel tried are great at Stimulating features (to Enhance the viewing experience), the apps he did try do have some strengths.

Finally, Noel comes to a conclusion that the apps he tried didn't seem to solve the use cases he was after and seemed to be trying to solve problems he didn't have, and that the networks are just trying to slap a logo on top of Twitter and Wikipedia functionality to call it their own--which presumably leads us back to his title that the app isn't really necessary.  And this is where I think the error in logic exists.  What we know is that a very large percentage of consumers who own smartphones or tablets are engaging in second screen behavior.  We know that the majority of "developed" experiences need improvements, but that a majority of consumers tend to find an app better than a self-developed collage of Wikipedia and Twitter experiences (otherwise apps on Smartphone would never have taken off and we'd still be using a web browser on our small devices instead).  And as to the intention of the publishers of the apps (very often the TV networks or 3rd party start-ups), we can rest easy in knowing that regardless of the business model intent, no app can succeed that does not first create utility or entertainment enough for the consumer that they come back to it on a continuous basis.  So, rest easy Noel.  This nascent market will find its way forward and app user interfaces and user experiences will improve, and you will eventually be able to point to your own use cases desires and say "There is a second screen app for that."  

And for the industry, this is a great reminder that the user experience is paramount to any particular apps success.

If you are interested in more discussion about this topic, join us at NAB on April 7th for 2nd Screen Sunday at the Encore Hotel in Las Vegas 1-6pm (cocktails follow).  If you would prefer to read about it, I would encourage you to check out our 252-page research report on the subject at www.2ndScreenSociety.com/research/

@ChuckParketTech
@S32Day

Robert Tercek: Inventing the Future of Second Screen

March 7, 2013 Last Tuesday, a little over 250 industry professionals gathered for a 2nd Screen Summit in Beverly Hills.  No one in the audience had any idea that they were about to see the most thought provoking keynote presentation on the future of TV and Second Screen.

Robert Tercek has been "Inventing the Future" of media and entertainment throughout his 25-year career.  He is passionate about inspiring audiences to seize their own destiny by thinking creatively and taking decisive action. His business strategies are informed by his personal experience as a pioneering executive for MTV, Sony and OWN, and as an entrepreneur in disruptive startup ventures.


During his 30-minute presentation at the summit, he explored parallels of the music and TV industry, and explored the concepts of a sports video and Pay TV carriage fee "bubble", rounding out the discussion of risk in the TV industry with a brief review on the march of organized video piracy.  He additionally explored the opportunities that the digital transition presents both premium and ad-supported video content, focusing on potential value of the changing consumer behavior and exploring the opportunities of fragmentation with second screen devices.

To listen to the audio of his presentation and see his slides, click here (http://www.2ndscreensociety.com/events/s3-la-keynote/).

Follow him on Twitter @SuperPlex.

Special Purpose vs. Multi-screen: the second screen debate continues

March 7, 2013 We've spent time in blogs (including this one) and on conference panels debating the subject: as the industry evolves, will there be one app "to rule them all" or will the market evolve into a collection of specialty apps for major events or niche interests?


Super Bowl 47 was the first big opportunity to explore this debate in 2013, but the results were somewhat undecided.

The Grammys and the Oscars were the next major events presenting opportunities to debate the direction of the market (and the value of the consumer experience).

• However, beyond the red carpet experience from E!, there wasn't really a bespoke experience for the Grammy's and the multi-purpose apps (zeebox) or specific function apps (Viggle) seemed to have won the day (see the write-up here).  
• But the Oscars was a different story, with multiple camera angles during the red carpet experience and during the awards ceremony and a voting capability that while not perfect, was not to be found in other non-Oscar specific apps (see the write-up here).

The Oscars and Second Screen

February 26, 2013 I am not sure how you felt about the Oscars, but while the show was entertaining, I felt like there was a seriously missed opportunity between how the brands were advertising and how social media and second screen was being used.



Similar to my Super Bowl experiment last month, I setup multiple tablets around the living room and kitchen (5 this time) for the 20 or so guests who came to watch the Oscars.  Similar to previous experiments, I spent the first hour of the red carpet helping people in the room either navigate the various apps (which I tried to do by having different apps running on different tablets) and helping them understand what they were looking at.  Once they had their feet wet, the audience quickly decided what they liked and didn't like abut the experiences.  For example, for the red carpet experience, they preferred the E! Entertainment video coverage on the first and second screen, but for the actual Oscars, they preferred the Official Oscars app with its multiple camera feeds and the Twitter heat map from zeebox.  As the night moved on,  the tablets in the kitchen ended up in the living room, and in the end, the "favorite" camera feeds and visuals (Twitter heat map) became permanent fixtures on the coffee table (being picked up by various guests every few minutes).

In my previous blog, I promised to run through a laundry list of apps and to comment on the debate of "special purpose" vs. "multi-function" in terms of UX (user experience).  The results:

• For the Red Carpet, E! Live from the Red Carpet was the preferred experience by far, but they fell short of a good user experience.  Some of the people in the room had used the same app last year at the Oscars and on other Red Carpet events and were upset that the navigation to find photos of the dresses was difficult and changed during the show (literally).
• For the actual Oscars show, the preferred app was the official Oscars app because of the multiple camera feeds, though zeebox was a very close runner-up, with guests preferring the simplicity of the zeetags and the ability to quickly look up an actor profile or trailer of a movie (though the experience of how the zeetags launched into IMDB was not a good one--took too long to load, was a different and very confusing/busy UI, etc).  The Twitter heat map from zeebox (full screen mode) was probably the most preferred method of monitoring social media.  The "stars" list of Tweets was enjoyed, but the "public" list was too random and too busy to be of much use.
• One of the biggest complaints across the board was the voting app experience.  Presumably, the order of the awards was known ahead of time, but with every app experience tried, my guests complained that they had to hunt for their choice because the voting was kept in an order that made sense when you voted but did not follow the order presented on the telecast.  
• Official Oscars app.  Liked the camera feeds, liked some of the photos.  Most popular voting mechanism (sharing on Facebook and Twitter).
• zeebox.  Becoming a familiar UI to the users (was the favorite app during the Super Bowl).  Twitter heat map, zeetags and a Twitter feed "from stars" were all very popular.
• Viggle.  They carried 122k active users on the day out of their nearly 2m registered users.  However, we tried the app at least 4 different times and while it easily recognized what we were watching, we were told (by the app) that it was a "limited seating" event and we could check later.  Odd marketing approach.  
• TOK Oscars.  A similar approach to the Super Bowl which was great if you were watching the event physically alone or with only a few people, trying to connect to a friend elsewhere.  However, the graphics were not developed the way they had been for sports (ie up to date visuals).  I like the concept of the application though, it just needs more feature development.
• Voting apps (The Race, Heroes, etc).  Did not get much attention because of the order problem.  Most of the guests ended up using the voting feature in the official Oscars app.  Ironically, The Race closed voting about an hour before the show started, while the other apps kept it open until the last minute.
• ConnecTV.  I am still trying to figure out the UI here--seems to be an uber social feed (combining Twitter and many other feeds).  I miss the old UI.
• Shazam.  Did a great job of identifying what I was watching, but beyond telling me what music was in the show, did not offer much of a companion experience.
• IMDB.  Had a ton of information for the Oscars and seemed like the right place to go for trailers and actor lookups, but the UI was too busy and too confusing and lost most of the guests interest very early.
• GetGlue.  Check-in worked, but there was not much offered in a companion experience beyond that.

• IntoNow.  Similarly enabled easy check-in, and the CapIt feature was very, very intriguing to guests.  During a few lulls (commercials, short film awards), guests were reviewing the various CapIts and really enjoyed the comedy--but when they wanted to create their own of the same early moment, they found they could only create a new post on current TV--which was a disappointment.  There is something there on engagement though that should be developed.
• Yap.tv.  Strong showing on the social and trivia side, but lost the battle pretty early to zeebox.

Need a #SecondScreen companion for the Oscars and the Red Carpetpreshow?

February 24, 2013 This is going to be a great test of "special purpose" vs. "multi-function" apps and I would love to get feedback / comments on my blog (below) or on Twitter (@ChuckParkerTech, @S32Day, hashtag #2ndScreenOscars).

My wife is hosting a Red Carpet and Oscars party and I plan to run a few iPads and a Samsung 10.1 Tab 2 on a mixture of different apps to see what the reactions are.

On special purpose, here is what I will review:
- The official Oscars app. Last year it sported 6 camera feeds for the red carpet preshow, but also sported some technical glitches. High expectations this year.
- E! Live from the Red Carpet. Tend to a do a great job at all of these events.
- TOK for Oscars. I love their Football and Baseball app (think of 2nd Screen and Skype voice combined) and am very curious to check out their Oscars version.
- The Oscars Guide and Awards Hero (both have voting and tracking features).
- The Race to the Oscars (from the Hollywood Reporter).

For the multi-function apps, I will be spending time with:
- zeebox. They did a great job on the Grammys and Golden Globes--I am expecting more here.
- ConnecTV. While I am still getting used to the new UI, they have promised a special Oscars experience.
- Shazam. Continue to develop their features and functionality in this space.
- Viggle. Gamification / trivia -- earn rewards while you and millions of others watch.
- IMDB. Also promising a special experience for the Oscars.
- BoxFish. I am interested to see what they do with their live speech to text capabilities.
- GetGlue and IntoNow. Hugh "check-in" numbers--curious to see what they do beyond that.
- Yap.tv. Tend to have a decent social and stimulating experience for most shows.

Share your experiences with me on the blog, on Twitter, or live on Tuesday at the Beverly Hilton (1.30-6pm) at our 2nd Annual 2nd Screen Summit in LA (www.2ndScreenSummit.com)

@ChuckParkerTech

Can second screen drive renewed growth in home entertainment?

February 22, 2013

The 2013 Grammys and Second Screen

February 12, 2013 Last year, the Grammys were the most social single event of 2012 with over 12 million social impressions.  CBS just released their stats confirming that the 55th Grammys were the most viewed Grammy show since 1993, with over 28 million viewers on CBS.

But for second screen, I cannot honestly say we made a huge leap forward in the last 12 months.  Somethings are better, some worse, and some continue to be interesting to watch as consumer engagements around the experiences drive the market forward.

The interesting:  This was the 2nd opportunity we have had recently to really test "special purpose" apps vs. 3rd party "multi-function" apps.  CBS deployed an updated "special purpose" app for the Grammy's a few weeks ago (with updates coming just a few days before the event itself).  zeebox, Viggle, and E! Live from the Red Carpet lead the "multi-function" effort for this type of event.  As a consumer myself, I can't say the special purpose app was significantly better than the 3rd party apps--in fact, because I am now used to the UI of zeebox, Viggle, and E! Live from the Red Carpet, I actually found them easier to use.

The negative:

• It was still time delayed by 3 hours for the west coast.  While some apps (Viggle for example) tried to keep out spoilers, most second screen apps didn't--and even my CNN app kept telling me who the winners were before I turned it on.
• The broadcasting network (CBS) had a very busy UI/UX with too many spoilers (including photos of the winners) that should have been better than third party apps like zeebox or E! Live from the Red Carpet.  They seemed to have attempted to make the web and tablet experience the same (perhaps to save money), but watered down both in the process.
• Most of the focus was around the "social" aspect of second screen, with little attention being paid to the "stimulating" side of the experience (unlike the Golden Globes and People's Choice awards from a few weeks ago, which were great at both).

The positive improvements:

• For consumers looking for an enhanced viewing experience, zeebox did a great job during the event, though it could not stifle the time delay of tweets.  They were not in the US last year. 
• Viggle did a decent job of managing the time shift and offering consumers a quiz-based experiences throughout the show that was decently compelling--this didn't exist a year ago.
• The E! Live from the Red Carpet app gave great pre-show experiences, mostly improved from 2012's efforts in many ways.
• The program itself paid more attention in on-screen graphics and commentation to Social TV (mostly Twitter) and Second Screen, which I think is great for the industry in total.
• There were decent showings from Shazam and GetGlue (neither of which did much last year), though some good app experiences from last year seemed to have waned in their efforts.

5 great reasons to join the 2nd Screen Summit in Beverly Hills on Feb 26th

February 7, 2013
I was catching up with an old friend today in LA, discussing the latest with second screen, and how the market is growing so quickly.  He made a curious comment, and then asked a pointed question,  "Second screen seems to be only really valuable for ad supported television.  As a home entertainment executive, why should I come to a conference about second screen?"

While I can think of a very long list of reasons as to why I believe second screen matters to both live and on demand content, I thought I would answer this important question with five points:

1. Discovery.  The single most difficult challenge consumers are presented with in today's seemingly infinite choice for viewing is how to find something worthy of their time.  For the majority of their mythical 37 hours, they are in the mode of "find something for me to watch right now", which usually implies no additional fees for their experience.  But for a few of those weekly hours, they are in the "show me something worthy of my invested time" mode (a "date night" experience, Sunday afternoon with the kids, etc).  That is the sweet spot for home entertainment--a premium, time-advantaged position after the theatrical window.  Come and listen to the a discussion surrounding the challenges of leveraging discovery as a tool to help monetize the back catalog of on demand content and to drive digital sell-thru.
2. Creating Added Value.  For years, the industry has been spending money on bonus features for high-end titles, with clear data that demonstrated the more expensive SKUs were being bought as a gifts.  Come join the discussion about finding the best way forward to leverage the value of new companion viewing experiences and debating the best strategies for positioning the content for premium vs. commodity value.
3. An UltraViolet Companion.  UltraViolet continues to gain momentum, but can it join forces with the explosive market forces propelling second screen forward?  Are they together an unstoppable consumer value proposition for home entertainment?
4. Promote Sell-thru.  Can second screen be a catalyst along side UltraViolet to drive buy rates up from the current 7 titles per year to the 10 that the industry needs?  Is there enough differentiation in the current concept of digital ownership to drive the purchase or do we need to sweeten the pot?
5. Engage your Consumer.  If you know that your consumer has something in his hand, that potentially could interact with your content and brand on a regular basis, why wouldn't you want to learn more about it?  And, if that item provided you with insight into your customer's habits, patterns and preferences would the sweeten the deal?  How about if that item created a path or gateway for you to build more meaningful and profitable business relationship with other brands/companies who are interested in the same objective (i.e. engagement)? Oh and did I mention that you can build a direct relationship with that consumer as well?

Second Screen market growth evidence: 53m Tablets ship, Twitter wins the Super Bowl and buys BlueFin

February 5, 2013 So Twitter "won the Super Bowl", bought BlueFin and last Friday we heard that 53m tablets shipped worldwide in Q4 of 2012.  So what?

When a bird breaks through its shell to be born, the world shouts its a market "revolution", but the tiny bird itself has been making progress steadily for a long while--more of a "rapid evolution" with one very publicly acknowledged milestone.


Let's pretend for a moment you believe our research that estimates the current second screen companion experience consumer revenue at $490m in 2012.  Keep in mind this is made up of m-commerce (including Amazon/eBay but also content syndication -- content people purchase like MLB's data-only feed for companion screen experiences) and advertising (the current global mobile/on-line video advertising market is $6B, the current TV advertising market is $200B).

So if you believe that figure, you say to yourself that "it must be being captured by existing large players (CBS, Twitter, MLB) in the market as clearly my company is not getting a huge share of that" (CBS, for example sold $10-12m of second screen advertising in the Super Bowl).

But then you start asking yourself if you believe the market will grow to $5.9B by 2017, and ask yourself if can you find a way to take a share of that market.  If you believe you can, then you will be constantly asking yourself for evidence that the second screen market is moving on that kind of growth trajectory--because if you want for the egg shell to break, it is already too late to invest.

Evidence from the last 3 days:

• Twitter won the Super Bowl.  As discussed in many articles and podcasts yesterday, Twitter was in 26 of 52 nationally televised commercials from kick-off to game ending.  Facebook was mentioned 4 times and Google+ mentioned none.  Why is this significant evidence?  Before you can believe advertising revenue can transition from CPMs (cost per 1000 impressions/views) to CPCs (cost per click or action) you have to first get believe the individual consumer will participate.  Advertisers clearly believe that Social TV, an important component of the second screen experience, is valuable enough to push its message to that platform.  More importantly, it is instantly measurable.  Oreo was smart enough to Tweet "You can still dunk in the dark." during the blackout and while 15,000 retweets are not as valuable at the 100m people reached during their commercial, having their brand be relevant and engaging in real-time with consumers might be.  So the evidence is not only that consumers are grabbing their smartphones and Tweeting during the game, but that advertisers want to engage them in that manner because its engagement is very measurable.
• Twitter bought BlueFin.  Remember the web in the late 1990s?  Many of us sat around pondering the future of banner ads as click-thru ratios dropped from the 90% to 0.5% (where it sits today).  I remember arguing that it was non-sensical for a marketing manager to move advertising dollars from print, radio and TV to the web.  But then AdSense came along (whom Google wisely purchased), and it provided perhaps the most important catalyst to the growth of the online advertising market--measurable results.  So in the first year, most marketing managers experimented and threw 1-2% of their budget "online".  But as they measured the results, they could quickly and scientifically understand the cost of customer acquisition through various channels, only paying when someone was delivered to their store front.  Keeping that in context with the first paragraph above, and you can see Twitter clearly believes they can accelerate the pace of investment from TV advertisers into some form of enhanced second screen or social TV-based experiences by giving them the tools to measure the results.  Ask yourself the question again at the end of the first paragraph above?  What is more valuable, 15k engaged retweets (in theory, from 15k social influencers) or 100m "impressions"?  I guarantee BlueFin has a well-educated opinion on that question.

• 52.5m tablets shipped globally in Q4 2012.  Keep in mind that at least in the forecast presented from the Second Screen Society and the intersection, we don't believe that some amazing consumer experience, some super ad-syncing technology, or some massively developed user base will be the catalyst to the growth of the market from $490m to $5.9B in 5 years (while I am sure some of that will come to pass and be helpful).  We believe that it is the proliferation of tablets and smartphones and the consumer's apparent natural tendency to drift to them during lulls in programming that create the behavioral shift towards second screen companion experiences.  But as intended consequences or not, we are rapidly approaching a day where just about every consumer with cash in their wallet will have a personal second screen device that they are using to engage in and around the first screen (in-sync with programming or not)--and that will drive advertisers and retailers to focus their efforts more and more to driving measure revenue opportunities in the second screen space.

How was your Second Screen Super Bowl 47?

February 4, 2013 On Thursday, we suggested a few apps you might want to try out during the Super Bowl to see what kind of enhanced and stimulating experiences the market has dream-up for such an event.  How did they stack up?


I did my experiment in a room with about 15 people, using 2 iPads, a Samsung Tab2, and an iPhone.  At times, friends/neighbors handed me their device to help them find one of the apps I was testing (passing around).  For the most part, people were surprised that they enjoyed the experience, usually starting with a "this is a distraction" followed by a "how do I get to that feature again?".

I had high hopes for the CBS Sports iPad app.  I was a little surprised to see their experience push you to an HTML website (rather than perform the experience in side the).  I was disappointed that they had trouble populating the stats and then during the blackout, the experience seemed to vanish (all of us got kicked out and could not find thru their app again).  I was also surprised that the HTML5 app had no social sharing features.  You were able to watch others tweet, but there was no easy way to make comments of your own.  The commercials section in the app (finally populated in the middle of the 2nd quarter) was probably the most used feature in our room.  The camera angles were interesting, but as the video was delayed 20-30 seconds, it just didn't work for the live game.


The room gravitated to the zeebox app the most (surprising even me).  The zeetags gained lots of interest, especially since it was so easy to see the previous commercials seconds after it aired, the big plays from other games they discussed, and key stats from players, the announcers, etc.  I enjoyed chatting to a few people via the app as well (Alan Wolk, for instance).  It was also the only app that we left on which was able to circumvent the auto-shutoff, helping to make it a permanent visible fixture on the coffee table.  The only negative comment was that during the blackout, I went ahead and loaded their Friday update, which re-arranged the UI, confusing those in the room that had already gotten used to the layout.

The other engaging experience we tried was TOK.tv's TOK Football. I was able to open up an audio session with Fabrizio Capo (the CEO of the start-up) in San Francisco, though admittedly it was hard to hear his comments over the rest of our room (he could hear our room quite easily...).  I thought the graphics we as well done as NFL '12 or ESPN ScoreCenter and they even launched a feature to sync the game with your DVR in case you were behind.

I tried Shazam and the audio sync worked.  I was impressed they had live stats, but the UI (from my phone) wasn't really designed to leave it "on" while watching.  Later, when I did see a Shazamable ad, I was able to successfully grab my phone from my pocket and "listen" fast enough to activate--first time ever.  The rest of the room, however, didn't see the point (esp. since it was for a commercial).

I never got Viggle to work during the game.  I thought at first it was ambient noise, by tried Shazam and Yahoo's IntoNow and both worked fine.  I tried "shhh-ing" the room, etc, but no joy.

I felt Yahoo's IntoNow experience was a bit like Shazam's.  It worked, but the UI wasn't conducive to leaving it open during the game--more like a use case of check the stats while in the kitchen grabbing a beer or something.

ConnecTV's new UI/UX is still perplexing.  I let the room play with it, but they thought it was just a Twitter feed (vs. the previous zeebox-like UI).  I will investigate further on my own this week.

We spent about 15 seconds on the Official Superbowl XLVIII Program and the online Guide.  As the room reminded me, that is stuff you read in you seat while you are bored--$9.99 down the drain.

We all really enjoyed the Coke commercial and the Doritos commercials, but no one felt the experience of trying to go online worked--should have been in an app or partnered with an existing app.

Everyone love the brand meter that zeebox had in their experience, surprising the room that the Calvin Klein ad hung onto the top spot for so long.











How did all of this stack up against our graphic from Thursday where we rated these apps against the "Stimulating" feature set for the game itself?  I would leave TOK Football, zeebox, NFL '12, and ESPN ScoreCenter in their "high" rating and move CBS Sports, ConnecTV and Viggle down.  I would probably bring Yahoo's IntoNow up to Medium.  Keep in mind that one game does not define an app, but there you have it.  You can see more about our methodology for app experience segmentation at www.2ndScreenSociety.com/research/.




Enjoy the week!  Grammy's coming up this weekend.

@ChuckParkerTech
@S32Day

Dijit Acquires Miso, the second screen consolidation continues

February 1, 2013 Dijit, the company lead by CEO Jeremy Toeman which has developed second screen apps NextGuide and Dijit Remote TV, has announced the acquisition of GoMiso, Inc, developer of the Miso second screen app and its signature SideShows.



While this is an obvious continuation of the consolidation phase of the industry (see our research), what does it really mean for the ecosystem and the consumers?  NextGuide was launched in the fall of 2012 and quickly iterated on its UI and UX, creating a powerful consumer second screen app that provided very strong Seamless, Discovery, and Social features--strong enough that we segmented it as a multi-function app.  While Jeremy had discussed his roadmap for NextGuide in the Simple set of features to control the first screen, there had not been much attention paid to the Stimulating set of features that enhance the users experience while watching a show.  Essentially, consumers could use the app to find what they wanted to watch, launch it to the 2nd screen (and in some cases the 1st screen), and then leverage their social networks for sharing their view of that feature or to help them discover content.

Miso on the other hand was probably the first strong entrant into the Stimulating feature set, clearly being segmented in To Enhance category of apps.  However, they did not consistently create the SideShow experiences for a wide range of shows, and as a result, user interest languished.

The challenges for Jeremy and team going forward seem straight forward:

• how do they maintain their hallmark quality approach to a great UI/UX while integrating the Stimulating set of features into what is already a great Discovery app?
• how do they create SideShow ubiquity the way some of their competitors (zeebox, ConnecTV, etc) have done with their synchronized companion experiences?
• do they integrate the apps entirely or still offer consumers more focused experiences as well?
• how do they monetize all of it?

Are you ready for a Second Screen Super Bowl? (#2ndScreenSB)

January 31, 2013 The big game is on Sunday and by now everyone has been reading articles about how 36% of viewers plan to use a second screen as a companion to the big game.  With 84% of Americans planning to watch the game from their (or a friend's) house, this is a second screen industry opportunity like no other.  We are even being told that the CBS has sold more than $10-12m of advertising on the second screen alone (forgetting the $3.5m per commercial for the 1st screen).


If you remember last year's Super Bowl second screen experience, there were at least 15 potential experiences for consumers to try, with the NFL delivering a great experience through their own app (NFL'12) and NBC broadcasting the experience live on their web site.  The Coke Polar Bears even got their own show going, and all of that earned NBC an estimated $2m in second screen advertising revenue.

So what experiences are worth of your limited time during the game this year (as you balance trying to enjoy the wings, beer, and friends with your passion about this space)?  We tried to segment the apps based on the kinds of experiences they will deliver for you (click here to see more about our segmentation on second screen apps).

www.2ndScreenSociety.com/research/

• Classic sports companion apps (suggested, not exhaustive).
• NFL '12.  Released a new update for the Super Bowl, with guides to the town, the pre-game line-up, etc.  Great stimulating features to enhance your viewing experience.
• CBS Sports.  A re-vamped interface and the ability to choose camera angles should make this an stimulating experience.
• ESPN ScoreCenter.  Still one of the better sports companions with live stats (stimulating) and decent social features.
• TheScore.  Also a great way to follow the game, with pre-populated posts for your social networks (easier to share).
• TOK Football.  An innovative way to have the stats and graphics on your second screen while being able to talk thru the app to your friends (similar to a Skype voice session)--with buttons to cheer and boo during plays.
• There are dedicated team and game apps.
• Baltimore Ravens.  The latest news on players and game day stats.
• 49ers GameDay Live.  The latest news on players and game day stats.
• NFL Mobile.  The game streamed live, sponsored by Verizon.
• Super Bowl XLVII Guide.  A free guide built for those attending the game in person.
• Super Bowl XLVII Program.  An electronic version of the actual program guide that is available at the game.
• Multi-purpose TV companion apps.
• zeebox.  Deliver a great sports experience and I would expect them to be all over this game on Sunday.
• ConnecTV.  Have delivered decent football experiences in the past and this will be a test to see of their new UI engages fans as much as the old UI.
• Alternative enagement apps.
• Viggle.  Still attracts a large audience of viewers who answer real-time trivia to earn points that result in real-world rewards.
• Yahoo's IntoNow. (Animal Planet's Puppy Bowl Plus)  While the sports experience for IntoNow is ok, they are teaming up with Animal Planet to create a second screen experience for their Puppy Bowl Plus show.
• Browser-based engagement experiences.
• Doritos.  Has been hosting a voting experience to determine which of their ads "Crash the Super Bowl".  http://apps.facebook.com/crashthesuperbowl/
• Pepsi.  Has their own half-time engagement experience.  http://halftime.pepsi.com/
• Coke.  Is letting consumers choose the ending of a series of commercials during the game through this voting app.  http://www.cokechase.com/

Connected TV Ad Revenue, Monetizing the Second Screen

January 24, 2013

• 25% of all TV's shipped in 2011 were "smart" and the market penetrations is growing at 60%
• 90% of viewers of connected TV notice ads on them
• Ad supported viewing was preferred over subscription and transactional for TV and short form (subscription preferred for movies)
• the average ad viewer is 34
• an overwhelming majority watch from their family room/living room
• more than 50% of consumers are streaming TV and movies at least weekly (half of that is daily)
• short form content that is not available on TV/cable is growing rapidly on the web, garnering 81% viewership from all consumers

Netflix’s DIAL and the Second Screen Ecosystem Battle

January 24, 2013 One things is certain about the second screen industry--it is rapidly developing.  As we have discussed at conferences, over cocktails, through dinners, and in this blog (recently including 2013 trends, the coming ecosystem war, and our comprehensive industry report), one of the biggest challenges to deploying a second screen app is to create consumer utility.  That means the consumer needs to find more reasons to pickup that second screen with your app than with other devices (eg Harmony One remote) or app options.  While there are a wide range of apps chasing Social and Stimulating feature sets for  companion second screen experiences, there are an equal number of players trying to solve Discovery and Simple control of the first screen.

The real challenge with this approach is getting the content to launch on the first screen.  If you are the Pay TV operator, controlling the first screen is "easy".  If you are the game console or CE device manufacturer, it's also "easy"--you own the protocols.  But if you are a third party app, trying to create consumer utility (and hence value) by allowing him/her to search across multiple video services and launch their chosen content to that service on the first screen--hard.  Today, most of them are becoming adept at launching the video content onto the second screen itself, deep linking into the Hulu, Netflix, YouTube, or Amazon Instant Video app directly, but only a few third parties have mastered multiple devices for the first screen (eg BuddyTV)--and most of them only work with Live TV.  Imagine the complexity in the living room: you have 5 different devices by now that have Netflix or Hulu installed, so even if you could talk to anyone of them, how do you launch the right device and get the main screen to switch to that device?

Enter Netflix and DIAL.


While the analysts are already calling DIAL an "AirPlay" killer feature, it is so much more than that.  AirPlay is about pausing a video on your iOS second screen viewing device and launching it via your Apple TV to your first screen.  DIAL is about enabling many video services (or at least Netflix and YouTube) to detect a first screen device that it creates a link to, and then launching an environment (a "sister" app) that allows it to control that device.  Don't think of this as content mirroring, but as an app master-slave relationship similar to the way movie companion apps work with Blu-ray players or Xbox SmartGlass works with the Xbox itself.  It will enable not only the deep linking of launched videos from 3rd party Discovery apps to the first screen, but will also enable new, bi-directional control experiences that give app makers a chance to have a robust ecosystem without owning the device itself.

“We realized in the fall of 2011 that we could create some potentially useful 2nd screen experiences,” Scott Mirer, director of product management at Netflix, according to Gigaom.

“At about the same time, we learned that the YouTube team was interested in much the same thing – they had already started to do some work on 2nd screen use cases. And so we approached them on collaborating… We also felt that having two major video services define and promote DIAL would help get it more widely adopted as a common solution to a common problem, vs. taking a proprietary approach. It’s been a productive partnership and we’re confident that we’ll get wider adoption because of it.”

But more importantly, “Once apps from the same provider are running on both screens, there are several feasible methods for implementing control protocols either through the cloud or on the local network. And not every service or application is focused on the same kinds of use cases. Rather than try to get universal agreement on these protocols and use cases, it seemed best to leave room for innovation.”

According to Scott Mirer, director of product management at Netflix, “expect to start seeing (other DIAL-enabled devices) in the next several months.” Appadvice

We thought Netflix would follow the Xbox SmartGlass development with something of their own quickly--and this looks promising (if shared beyond themselves).  Now, when will iTunes announce their second screen ecosystem?

Enjoying the conversation?  Join us in LA in late February at our next 2nd Screen Summit or in Las Vegas in early April for our 2nd Screen Summit @ NAB (www.2ndscreensummit.com)

@ChuckParkerTech

Taking Social to the next level – TOK Football

January 22, 2013 We've been gathering together to watch live sports in the living room for many, many years.  As our society has become busier, travelled further apart, and gotten socially reconnected with our geographically diverse friends, we have used Facebook and Twitter to stay in touch, comment on the score of a game, and even talk some trash.  But nothing replaces live conversation as well as the conversation itself.  If you don't believe that, check the monthly minutes plan on your phone or review Skype's usage explosion.

So if you wanted to watch the playoff games last weekend with your good friends who happen to be in different cities, you can use several sports related second screen apps to post comments on plays and scores or you could open a Skype multi-party session to experience the trash talking, but what if you tried to combine the two experiences?

Meet TOK Football.



I spent part of the game watching the Ravens beat up on the Patriots Sunday while test driving the TOK Football experience.  The sign-up was relatively painless.  I gave it my Facebook credentials and it offered to easily invite people to join me from there or from email.  Once I was connected to Fabrizio Capobianco and Emanuela Zaccone, the CEO and CMO of TOK.tv, I got to enjoy watching the game on the first screen, checking out the graphics of each play on the second screen, and listening to comments, cheers, and pre-recorded sound bytes (from the app) that ranged from "Defense, Defense, Defense" to a loud belch (the effect from the "beer button"--great fun).

The audio was surprisingly good despite the fact that I was in LA, Fabrizio was in San Francisco, and Emanuela was in Rome.  While the app has some low hanging fruit on its development roadmap around leveraging "more classic" social sharing features within Twitter and Facebook as well as making the graphics more interactive (clicking into the players bios for example), the experience was novel and refreshing and I think takes the "social" concept, especially for sports, to new heights.

The stimulating features are great and I think the next version of this app will be giving NFL '12 and ESPN ScoreCenter a run for their money.

Test it out for yourself during the SuperBowl in two weeks and look out for a much improved, ready for prime time experience for TOK Baseball coming in the spring (where many of the second features will be addressed).

Summary:
Simple.  None.
Seamless.  None.
Discovery.  Some ability to what games are on that day in a map view (where the games are being played).  Low.
Stimulating.  A very strong start in this feature set, already in similar ranks with apps like ShoSync and USA Anywhere.  More importantly, it is a fresh take on the sports app and give consumers new options for the experience.  Medium.
Social.  While just on the edge of the low rating, the ability to speak live to your buddies while watching the game is certainly a new social experience and will improve the sports app genre in 2013.

Interested in comparing TOK Football to other sports apps in a detailed research report?  Check out www.2ndscreensociety.com/research/

If you are in San Francisco on Feb 7th, come check us out at AppsWorld.
If you are in LA on Feb 21st, come check our our 2nd Screen Summit (2nd annual in LA).  This is the link to last year's event.

@ChuckParkerTech

Speaking a common Second Screen Language – Launching the 2nd Screen Lexicon

January 17, 2013 When we sat down for our first advisory board meeting last June in NYC, we discussed which topics and challenges to try to tackle as a team, where the issues were on one hand not competitive and on the other hand would genuinely help move the entire second screen ecosystem forward.

Within a few short minutes, we were in a heated debate over what second screen was or wasn't.  It is very tough to work together without a common language or lexicon.

So we worked with more than 40 advisory board members to develop an initial set of 25 terms  that we felt like were the "25 Essential 2nd Screen Terms" to deal with the problems facing all of us now.

The terms were made publicly available during our CES event in Las Vegas on January 7th.  You can review them at www.2ndscreensociety.com/lexicon and you can deep link the individual terms (look for my blog to do so going forward).  The terms range from the obvious (what second screen is and what isn't) to the technical (several forms of ACR or Automatic Content Recognition).  We are already working on the next set of 25 advanced terms, so if you have suggestions, feel free to send them to me.

While we are on the subject of the 2nd Screen Summit @ CES, below is a collection of great articles written from press who attended the event.

• Engadget.  The State of the Second Screen
• Reuters.  The Second Screen: Finally Ready for Prime Time
• The Verge.  App makers highlight...[discovery]
• Zatz Not Funny.  DISH Explore Second Screen App Unveiled
• Zatz Not Funny.  The Second Screen Invasion is Upon Us

Already seen the articles?  Check out these video interviews of key industry execs at the event, including Hardie Tankersly from Fox, Ian Aaron from ConnecTV, Alex Terpstra from Civolution, Alan Wolk from Kit Digital, Rob Gellick from CBS Interactive, and our own Guy Finley from the 2nd Screen Society and MESA.

Other 2nd Screen Summit @ CES factoids:

• 47 industry CEOs, 10 CTOs, and numerous marketing professionals flew into Las Vegas on Monday the day before the big show to join
• 357 eager attendees to see
• 59 industry experts enlighten us from 2 stages across 8.5 hours of programming (cocktails not included as programming...)

Members and attendees should be on the look out for an email soon with a userid and password that will give you access to the presentations and video of the sessions from CES.

Look out for us at AppsWorld on February 7th in San Francisco, and then in LA on February 20th for a content focused 2nd Screen Summit.

Then we are back in Vegas for "2nd Screen Sunday @ NAB" on April 7th, focused on TV and sports.

Looking forward to seeing all of you.

@ChuckParkerTech

Second Screen and the 2013 CES

January 14, 2013 We kicked off the 2013 International CES show last week on Monday with a 5-hour, program-packed 2nd Screen Summit--working hard to get the "right" people on stage and in the audience.

But was CES the "2nd Screen CES" we predicted it would be in mid-December?



Here are some thoughts from my tour of the show room suites and booths "on the floor" from CES:

• Dish Networks (combined with their sister company Sling Media) had one of the most innovative consumer experiences on the market, all leveraged by an amazing, well-designed second screen app that allowed "the Hopper" set top box to record all of the shows each day in prime time and made them accessible for streaming or download in a second screen app (integrating companion screen experiences chalk full of social and stimulating features and allowing viewing screen experiences that rivaled most OTT experiences available today).
• Samsung showed some very sexy-looking second screen apps off in their booth, allowing you to push video to and from their TVs and to gain companion viewing experiences at the same time.
• Nintendo showed off their Wii U with a built in second screen experience, declaring themselves that "TV will never be the same."
• Microsoft continued to display its SmartGlass features with live sport and movies.
• Countless third party developers showed off their apps for to enable Discovery, with one of the B2B providers even demonstrating a UI allowing you to choose (from Facebook) who you plan to watch a show with and getting a suggestion on which shows you would both like.
• In fact, I visited every major CE manufacturer on the floor from Panasonic to Hi-Sense and Toshiba to Haier, and every one of them showed me some sort of second screen companion experience or viewing experience (multi-screen) that was already deployed or would be deployed.  
• Additionally, every Pay TV operator I had time to visit plus Tivo had some experience to demonstrate that included a second screen Discovery element.
• Even Engadget and the Verge wrote something interesting up on second screen during the show.

Watching The Golden Globes with Second Screen or The "multi-function" app vs. the "special purpose" app

January 14, 2013 If you read the news much, you would have seen E! Entertainment pushing their updated second screen app in a big way for Sunday's Golden Globe awards and you would have seen NBC and others pushing zeebox for their second screen experience.

We thought this would be the perfect opportunity to explore the "multi-function" vs. "special purpose" app debate that we (as an industry) debated last Monday during CES at the Second Screen Summit and that we explore in our recently published market report on second screen, "The 2nd Screen: Transforming Video Consumption".



Honestly, I thought I would be testing the afore mentioned E! Live from the Red Carpet (there was no special Golden Globes app) that I noticed has a new update earlier this week vs. zeebox, TVplus, Viggle, ConnecTV and Shazam as they are clearly leaders in the functional feature set of "Stimulating" and are either segment leaders in either "Multi-Function" or "To Enhance".  But, at least for the Red Carpet, I was mostly disappointed:

• the TVplus "Sync" feature did not work (their consumer facing app is now a "reference" app and does not have an experience for all shows), 
• Viggle allowed me to check-in but did not have an experience ready (for the red carpet), 
• Shazam let me check-in, but only had links to IMDB, etc., and
• ConnectTV launched a new interface which besides being portrait only, seemed  to have no experience setup for the live broadcast either.

2nd Screen Society announces definitive Second Screen market research study

January 9, 2013

• The technology status and future developments: how ACR and the “system level” 2^nd screen platform from Xbox SmartGlass will have significant impact on the marketplace
• A segmentation of the market and a scoring of hundreds of companion apps: that are used to control, discover, enhance, share and multi-task.
• An analysis of the players in the ecosystem: why studios and TV shows focus on enhancement and pay TV operators focus on control.
• A full-blown usage analysis, business models and market sizing with detailed data to 2017.
• A detailed review of the Top 50 apps:  what works and what doesn’t and identifying key feature sets
• A detailed look at trends and future state of the 2^nd screen market
• An 18-month detailed forecast:  describing trends we believe will have a short-term impact on this emerging marketplace for applications and 2^nd-screen technologies.
• A deep review of second screen as a viewing device

Digital Video By The Numbers, Q4 and 2012 Infographic

January 7, 2013 It's getting harder and harder to pull apart "Second Screen as a Companion Experience" and "Second Screen as the First Screen Viewing Experience".  The living room and the tablet are converging so quickly.

• UltraViolet has 7m subscribers, but only carries 59% of the Top 100 titles and 50% of currently popular video titles
• Best Buy / CinemaNow launched a Disc-to-Digital beta last week
• Flixster's iPad experience now has download capability--giving UV consumers the opportunity to travel (without a laptop)
• While HBO Go, Hulu, and Amazon Prime are garnering press, the traffic shows that Netflix out streams them nearly 30 to 1
• Netflix has now tied HBO in total subscribers (albeit with some international ones)
• Xbox is the underestimated player in the digital living room with 30m subscribers and a recent commitment to launch 40 new content channels
• The Wii U deployed multi-screen services for its platform and promises to combine it with its second screen controller and then "TV will never be the same"

While everyone know Netflix, Hulu, HBO Go, and Amazon Instant Video (as an app), have you tried Matcha, NextGuide, Flixster, or Plizy?  Interested in case studies on great apps that help consumers discover and watch content on their tablet?    Click here

Join us at the www.2ndscreensummit.com today at the Wynn (1-6pm, cocktails to follow).

Second Screen by the Numbers Q4 and 2012 Infographic

January 5, 2013 As we head into CES Monday, I thought I would post a teaser of some of the data we will present at the 2nd Screen Summit (held at the Wynn, 1-6pm, cocktails to follow).  2012 was certainly one helluva year for second screen, finishing with a "tablet Christmas" which delivers us into a "second screen CES".

See you Monday.

• In 2012, Social TV grew 363%, ending the year with 800m+ social comments about TV
• 40% of tablet/smartphone owners use a 2^nd screen daily while watching TV
• 40% of tablet owners seek further information about the TV program
• 29% of smart phone owners shop online while watching TV
• 46% of smart phone owners check social networks while watching TV
• Viggle acquires GetGlue with 4 million potential subscribers in total, 61% of Viggle subscribers planned to use Viggle points for Xmas gifts
• 35 million tablets were expected to be sold in the US during the holidays
• The most social TV event was the Grammy's at 13m+ impressions, the most social TV show was The X Factor, with move than 600k average social impressions per show
• Currently, 52% of engagement comes from iOS, 30% from Android

The Future of ACR: A Major Weapon in the Digital Video Ecosystem Arms Race

January 3, 2013

• Contextual advertising.  The holy grail for interactive advertising, allowing for placement of appropriate brand messaging not only based on demographics of the viewer, but based on what is happening on the first screen, reinforcing brands in immediate fashion.
• Contextual commerce.  The opportunity to finally deliver the “Jennifer Anniston’s Sweater” use case by making buy (or want) clicks presentable with immediacy for the consumer.  
• Enhanced contextual content experiences.  Delivering relevant information to the consumer when it is happening (the background music, explanation of that geeky joke in Bing Bang Theory, links to actor bios and director’s notes, etc) creating a more compelling super-fan experience.
• Contextual and spoiler-proof social feeds.  Imagine being on the West Coast and not knowing the ending to your favorite show just because you are following it on Twitter, and then taking that to the next level and allowing for asynchronous connected experiences where social comments are available at the right time during the programming instead of only working well when the programming is live.

• Advertisers.  They need scale.  Today that means a technology which can span across multiple second screen apps to pool enough potential consumers to have scale.
• Device makers and OTT content distributors.  Would prefer to have a proprietary ACR capability, allowing them to create enough value for themselves in the chain to insert some level of control and attract a fee.
• Operators.  Would prefer to continue to use the same scale systems they use today to manage their subscribers, but are unlikely to reach out to 3^rd party apps and experiences.
• Broadcasters.  Would prefer to team up with their advertising partners and find a way to create scale, focusing on the interactivity and data reporting this technology provides.
• Content creators.  Would prefer to have the best experiences for their content, focusing on fail over techniques when preferred methods are not available and to develop a system that allows them to publish to many ACR systems with as little cost as possible.

• Audio driven ACR will continue to remain the most prevalent.  It is relatively cheap and easy to deploy, even though it is perhaps the least effective at the consumer level.
• Stream capture (NOC) ACR will begin to deploy in the industry.  Advertisers and broadcasters will team up with a few 3^rd party technology and service providers that can create a triggering system that multiple apps can easily adopt and deploy.
• Video driven ACR will begin to deploy, with systems in the devices working to using video finger printing to create event triggers—but this will face the same scale problems in 2013 that multiple second screen apps present today—lack of a large install base.
• “OS level” ACR will create a digital video ecosystem arms race.  The industry will quickly realize that Xbox already has 40m+ active installs in the U.S. and that its SmartGlass platform gives it an immediate capability to deploy “OS level” ACR to any and all content (video, music, games).  Netflix, iTunes, and Google Android will not sit idly by to watch this unfold and will deploy systems of their own in early- to mid-2013.  The majority of Pay TV operators will be caught flat footed, with Comcast and DirecTV leveraging their currently very capable second screen apps to respond by late 2013 or early 2014.  However, the challenge this leg of the ecosystem war presents is that is requires and ability for the platform to work with multitudes of developers through a well-structured SDK and publishing system.  iTunes is already set up for this, as is the Google Android system.  Microsoft has already deployed an SDK and already has a publishing platform for Windows 8 phones, but Netflix will be the most challenged to respond in this fashion.  Additionally, the Pay TV operators will struggle to engage in this manner, preferring to attempt to develop solutions internally and to closely guard APIs as the gatekeepers rather than the marketplace operators they could become.

10 Predictions for the Second Screen Industry in 2013

December 30, 2012

1. To Control.  While perhaps the hardest to monetize, this is the most important feature for device makers and those hoping to win the digital video ecosystem war (see 9 and 10 below). Recurring app usage starts with utility.
2. To Discover.  Trying to find content to watch, with many in the ecosystem seeking to influence that decision through some form of advertising.
3. To Enhance.  This will come in the form of a) searching for or receiving additional (perhaps synchronized) related information to the program and b) second screen-based commerce (a subset of M-Commerce).  Just a few weeks ago, Nielsen reported that of consumers using a tablet while watching TV, roughly 40% are using them to check information related to the program and 29% of 25-34 year olds are shopping while watching TV.
4. To Share.  Already hyped in the press to the nth degree, expect to start to see attempts to measure how impression affect viewership across demographics and how they influence others decisions to view content.

2nd Screen expected to dominate the news and exhibits at CES

December 20, 2012 Already being dubbed the "Tablet Christmas" in London as retailers are seeing tablets fly off the shelves and into shoppers baskets at the rate of 1 per second, there is a large surge expected in tablets this holiday shopping season--so large that IDC has increased their 2012 forecast for tablet sales by 5 million units to 121 million units worldwide.  While the Huffington Post believes the driving force will be the wide spread availability and lower price point of 7-inch Android tablets, one thing is for sure, it is going to be a "2nd Screen CES" as a result, with major TV service providers working hard to attract revenue as more than 70% of table owners use their devices while watching TV.

A Review of The Dark Knight Rises experience on Xbox SmartGlass

December 13, 2012 Last week, the Dark Knight Rises finally entered the Blu-ray/DVD and digital download window for consumers.  While I am warming-up to the concept of "owning" a digital title on Xbox (portability issues still remain), I was very interested in digging into a premium experience on their new SmartGlass second screen platform.  It delivered premium and then some, offering what I think is currently the best UX to date for a movie companion second screen experience.


When you play the movie after purchasing on Xbox Video marketplace, SmartGlass (on your tablet or smartphone) automatically recognizes the feature that is playing and looks for an enhanced SmartGlass experience (no need to install a movie-specific app on your device).  Similar to Blu-ray experiences for other movies, SmartGlass lets you perform all of the obvious remote control use cases (skipping chapters, pausing, syncing the movie to your point in the SmartGlass or syncing SmartGlass to where the movie is, etc) and has all of the great Stimulating rich, related metadata you would expect (character bios, director interviews, behind the scene videos, etc), but where it really out shines other movie companion experiences is in the UX behind the Enhanced Stimulating experience.  To this point in the industry development, most well-designed experiences have been smart enough not to inundate the consumer with too many synchronous events, usually waiting at least 45-60 seconds in between events, often broken up by scenes.  But the Dark Knight Rises experience took this to the next level, grouping 6 potentially engaging experiences together in a chapter UI, giving the consumer the option of where to explore during the chapter, and then opening 6 new experiences when the next chapter begins (synchronously).  This allows for a few improvements from the consumer's point of view:

1. The consumer gets to choose when and what to explore (within the chapter).  This means he can disengage at different points then potentially anticipated by the experience developers and can choose what interests him.
2. There is not an overwhelming choice of possibilities (6 choices is thought to be potentially optimal in the decision making process for a UX).

Analyzing the Disney – Netflix Deal

December 6, 2012 This already much discussed content deal was announced fresh on the heels of our discussions together Monday at the Forecast : Hollywood event where we discussed at great length the digital subscription window and how it impacts content owner profitability and why it is driving the vast majority of growth in digital video consumption.

But the more I discussed this Tuesday and Wednesday with various industry colleagues, and the more I read articles covered by various newspapers, the more I realized that there are details and nuances in how content windows work and what is driving servicer provider profitability and consumer consumption that not everyone is fully aware.

So let's examine a few of them from the three most important views in this equation: Disney, Netflix and the Consumer.



1. The Consumer. This is the easy one. Assuming that price for the Netflix subscription doesn't increase, this is clearly a win for the consumer. They get access to movies as they move through the Pay TV window (typically 3-6 months after DVD street date for 6 months. Keep in mind, that regardless of who the consumer is, it is cheaper to have Netflix than it is HBO or Starz (on my AT&T package, HBO is $14 a month, Starz is $10 and I pay $8 for Netflix streaming only). For those parents with young kids--this is really, really good value.

2. Netflix. The articles sight analyst estimates that Netflix paid as much as $300 million per year for this deal when Starz only offered $100 million per year. The journalists further mention the concern that Netflix is financially over extended already, having paid significant sums of money already for Relativity and DreamWorks catalogs. But keep in mind how this works for Netflix. This isn't a $25 million per month cost to them (roughly $1 a day at current subscriber levels), bur rather this is an investment in attracting more subscribers. Let's assume this is a 3-year deal. To keep the math simple, we'll assume that any new consumers are only on board for 18-months of service (ie the linear average of all new sign-ups over the forecast period). Let's make one more simple assumption--that the average Netflix subscriber pays $10 per month (meaning some mix of streaming only and streaming + disc). So, while currently at roughly 25m million subscribers, Netflix would need to sign up an additional 5m subscribers to break even over the forecast period (meaning if they don't renew the deal after 3 years, every single subscriber who joined perhaps because of the Disney content leaves the service). I realize growing by 20% seems like a huge growth curve, but keep in mind that it really means they need a linear growth of 7% (1.67m new subscribers per year). And keep in mind that between tablet, SmartTV, and gaming console forecasted growth over this period, only a very small percentage of them would have to join to achieve these numbers. So, in both the short and long term, this looks like a win-win for Netflix, and more importantly, this gives them a steady stream of content for their consumers that is considered both "premium" and is fully of kid-friendly titles. What about additional costs? Likely to be very minimal (bandwidth costs continue to decline at a steady pace).

3. Disney. After our discussions Monday, this certainly seems like a perplexing decision on the surface, but let's analyze the details. First, a quick reminder on windows:

- A movie comes out at the theaters and stays there for 10-12 weeks.
- Then it gets released on DVD/Blu-ray and is mostly available the same day for digital rental and purchase.
- Then it his the Pay TV window (HBO, Starz, Showtime, EPIX, and now Netflix), which typically carries some level of exclusivity for 3-6 months.

So in theory, to the consumer, this is no different than Disney movies being available on Starz or HBO, which should mean that physical and digital buy rates should not be impacted. Keep in mind that for the majority of movies, the consumer makes a decision of when to see it based on their trade-off of price and time--the movie theater being the most expensive but earliest during the marketing hype cycle, and the pay TV window being the cheapest but forcing the consumer to wait as long as 6 months after the movie was released to theaters. So, unless the Disney deal does not move the titles through the Pay TV window (meaning they are available on Netflix, then are unavailable after 3-6 months), this will not impact the other windows--all they have done is potentially triple their revenue (and profit) and have impacted other pay TV window aggregators.

So, while perplexing on the surface, this is a good deal for every player involved and will likely create subscriber growth for Netflix that surpasses that of HBO (30m) before the deal is completed in 2019.

Want to discuss further? Join us at the 2nd Screen Summit on January 7th at the Wynn during CES in Las Vegas (www.2ndscreensummit.com).

@ChuckParkerTech

Driving digital video ownership

December 4, 2012

• UltraViolet now has 6m user accounts
• an estimated 30% of U.S. households have tried an OTT streaming service
• 31% of consumer households view their video entertainment on both physical and digital formats
• a substantial number of subscription streaming households (Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime) also purchase and rent content on eiher Amazon or iTunes 

There has been substantial growth in digital subscription services (Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, soon to be RedBox Instant by Verizon), physical rental kiosks (RedBox) and disc-by-mail subscription services (Netflix)--all of which earn about 1/3 of the profit per viewing of their "digital transaction" cousins (digital rental and sell-thru) and physical retail sell-thru.  To exacerbate the situation, there is no equivalent concept of "digital ownership" in the consumers' eyes, and as a result as consumers migrate to digital consumption models, they are rarely choosing to replace a physical purchase with a digital purchase, opting instead for digital rental (same margins, 25% the gross value) or digital subscription (1/3 the margin, 25% the gross value).  Keep in mind, we have discussed this several times before at conferences and in this blog.

1. Drive down "premium title" availability in digital subscription services, and 
2. Make UltraViolet ubiquitous.  

Revisiting Microsoft’s Xbox SmartGlass Platform

December 3, 2012 Last week I had the opportunity to moderate a second screen panel and attend several other panels and presentations at the Variety Entertainment App Summit in LA.  While I greatly enjoyed the panel on second screen monetization with YuMe, Magic Ruby, Cinram/1K and MTV, I thought the most eye-opening session was the presentation of Microsoft Xbox SmartGlass by Mark Turner.  While I had seen Ron Pessner present something similar back at a 2nd Screen Society in NY last June and I had been playing with the platform at home for the past 2 weeks (and even wrote about it last week), somehow the epiphany of just how big this could be for the entire second screen ecosystem had escaped me.  Let me talk you through the key points they get me excited and explain why I spent this weekend re-exploring the platform at home.



Context:

• Nearly 60m Xbox consoles have sold worldwide, nearly 40m of them believed to be in the U.S.  Half of those Xbox consoles subscribe to Xbox online services--even if we use the same ratio as installs to be conservative (the U.S. rate is likely much higher), that gives Xbox more than 20m homes in the U.S.--roughly as many as Comcast or Netflix.
• Microsoft's stated goals with the second screen platform are to enable 1) Discovery and Control, 2) Immersive Entertainment, 3) better Gaming.  
• Principles as stated in a slide by Mark: 
• 1) Connect via People and Content, not devices.  There are only 5 different versions of the platforms in terms of UI: Android, Microsoft Windows 8 PC/Tablet, Microsoft Phone, iPhone, iPad
• 2) Each screen magically tunes to me.  This is a REALLY BIG deal and we will talk about this most of the blog.
• 3) Each screen as a "superpower" and the 2 screens cooperate together.
• 4) There is a clear focus at any given time between the screen.
• 5) Every second screen experience provides and end-to-end consumer experience. 
• Development of the experiences is done by the content rights holder (game, video, music) in a web-based CMS using HTML 5 and Javascript.

My Review of Microsoft Xbox SmartGlass

November 29, 2012 Microsoft has continued to develop the Xbox platform into an entertainment convergence powerhouse that has migrated from the family teenager's bedroom or basement into the living room.  They made a significant leap with Kinnect in the gaming world in early 2010, and then earlier this year launched a video and menu navigation system that leverages voice and Kinnect and even leverages their search engine Bing.

Then this spring they announced Microsoft Xbox Smartglass with a ton of fanfare, lead by Balmer himself and in LA of all places.  While they have continued to follow-up on that with Windows 8 phones and tablets, a formidable device and ecosystem approach in its own right, their greatest weapon for winning the living room battle may be their second screen development platform SmartGlass.



Ron Pessner did a great presenting Smartglass at our 2nd Screen Summit in June in NYC.  He covered some great gaming demos and a demo for Game of Thrones for HBO that showcased some of the high profile uses cases for the technology.

The platform itself launched to iOS app store on November 7th, 2012, giving iPhone and iPad users a chance to try out the app.  When you launch the app, there are some introductory videos on how to use SmartGlass which were in fact very helpful and well-placed for first time usage.

I tried out the SmartGlass platform on both my phone and my tablet. I felt like the phone experience was better for quick navigation (much faster access to recent applications like the Amazon Video app or Hulu than the motion, voice, or even game controller-based remote system), but I thought that the tablet experience was better for the companion experiences and for attempting to use as a navigation aid (swiping with control was harder with the phone UI).

The actual swiping itself and touch responsiveness of the app requires some tuning. In some places, it was too sensitive and would literally fly across multiple screen when I was trying just to move right or left by one tile. In other places, I could not get it to swipe or move one tile left or right. I also found the swiping itself counter-intuitive to the typical tablet control where you use your finger to drag the content across the screen (same with Xbox motion controls by the way), but in the first version of SmartGlass, to move right you drags your finger right like the old mouse pointing devices. I am betting they will reverse that soon to match their motion control system soon.

While using to navigate the menu had its positive and negatives, the companion viewing experience while watching a movie was a good indication of what was to come in the future. It was not exactly clear which titles in the Video store carried this feature, but I got lucky with my pick of the Amazing Spider-Man and got to test drive it. It behaved for control similarly to many Blu-ray-based second screen apps today, showing me chapter pictures and letting me use it for control (skip to chapters, trick play, etc). It also had a Stimulating feature allowing me to see which actors were currently in the scene with brief bio links (this could be much better). While the experience was a good start, they could certainly improve both the depth and breadth of the companion viewing approach, but they are headed in the right direction.

In conclusion, I would say this is actually a pretty strong delivery for a company that announced something in May, has bootstrapped a second screen development platform and SDK, and has revision 1 capabilities in the marketplace by early November (when I recorded the experience). There is much to be improved upon, but I think they should be applauded for the distance they have already covered in such a short time.

Ironically, the day before this is set to publish, there is an article about an update to the Xbox the changes some functionality in Smartglass...will get back to you soon.

Covering the 5 major feature sets:

- Simple. High. Great control of the 1st screen, giving me the ability no only to choose content and manage playback in multiple ways, but allowing me to quickly and easily launch other video apps and control those as well.
- Seamless. Low. The search is only Microsoft's video search or Bing, but there is no integration across Hulu, Netflix, etc, allowing you to launch directly to a title app (one of the better features of GoogleTV for example).
- Discovery. Low. The hooks are all there, but currently there is only rudimentary recommendation based on some lists and some level of collaborative filtering.
- Stimulating.  Medium to High.  Well on their way to creating a great enhanced viewing experience--can't wait to see how they manage this in the gaming world.
- Social.  Low.  They have their native chat/friends system, but no integration outside of that, no way to view other social network activity.

The Coming Battle for Second Screen

November 27, 2012 In the last few weeks, a key number of market events have taken place that give an indication of what lies ahead for Second Screen.


- Game Consoles. While all of us know have known for some time that Microsoft's announcement in the spring about SmartGlass was an important sign to their commitment to the space, most of us (including me) were surprised they delivered a revision-1 level experience relatively quickly and have a serious vision about what this change in consumer behavior can mean to their platform in terms of changing hard core gamer experience AND changing video entertaiment on the platform. But what I think is passing over the heads of most of the industry is what impact the Wii U will have on gaming and the second screen space.
Remember, that when the Wii came out, nearly all of the industry pundits and hard core gaming bloggers "poned" the Wii as a "toy" for the casual consumer. But within a few months, both Microsoft and Sony were scrambling to catch-up to the phenomena that the advent of motion control-based gaming that the Wii launched. Now, with the Wii U essentially leaping out front again with a second screen-based gaming system, the rumors of Microsoft's and Sony's 2013-shippable consoles are all about having a controller with an HD-screen (likely a tablet of sorts).  If you didn't believe consumer behavior was changing before, watch out now.  The good news for Microsoft this time--they were not caught flatfooted and are well-positioned.  Sony...not so much.

- Consolidation phase. The cycles of a new industry segment begin with a technology trigger, the hype of monetizable changes in the market place, and then multiplication of competitors in the space. With well more than 200 apps in the market place and an ecosystem that contnues to grow at break neck speeds, we can certainly say the duplication phase is well underway.  However, there is even more clear evidence now that we are shifting into the consolidation phase. There are a serious number of companies already in the "App Graveyard" where their hope at achieving both consumer adoption and a business model has been killed off by market forces.  Additionally, the investment money in recent months seems to be pouring into making existing players bigger vs. launching new entrants (eg zeebox investment from Sky, Comcast, Viacom, and HBO).  Finally, the announced acquisition of GetGlue by Viggle (previously acquired Loyalize) and the rumored hunt by Yahoo for TVGuide.com (or something better) to supplement their early 2012 acquisition of IntoNow is further evidence that this phase has indeed begun in earnest.

So, assuming that the key players find working business models, that means we will soon see a viable, profitable industry segment emerge in the second screen space.

However, in the meantime, expect a whole lot more effort to be placed by everyone in the ecosystem on securing their near term future in the space.

Want to continue the conversation on finding the money in second screen?  Join us Thursday in LA at the Variety Entertainment Apps Summit @ 11:45am for the panel on Monetizing the 2nd Screen with Magic Ruby, 1K, YuMe and MTV.

An Updated NextGuide by Dijit – A Second Screen Content Guide App

November 14, 2012 Its been a little over 60 days since the launch of NextGuide by Dijit (and our review)--an app designed to help the consumer to Seamlessly find something to watch from multiple content sources including their channel provider line-up (using Zip Code and service provider information) and OTT sources like Hulu, Netflix, iTunes and Amazon. More importantly, the app's UI and UX are designed to facilitate Discovery of new content for the consumer.



The most obvious improvement to the consumer is the addition of a book marking capability. In the previous version, if you found something you wanted to watch but did not want to watch now, the only way you could remind yourself was to "Favorite", which presumably impacted the recommendation algorithm in the future. Now the consumer has the ability to "Bookmark" the item, which has a reminder feature (30 minutes before the airing of the show). CEO Jeremy Toeman tells me it will impact the recommendation algorithm, but without the same weighting as a full "favorited" item (as you may ultimately not like something to bookmark to watch later).

The improvements to the social activity pane are notable (click on your own avatar), allowing you to easily see your existing Facebook friends, what they have liked (on Facebook, regardless of this app), and what you have in common. This is helpful when using the "Your Friends" view, as you get the most popular items from your friends, and if you have a large Facebook network where perhaps you are not necessarily aligned with video viewing interests of the entire group, this could be return some undesirable results. You can quickly check out the things your friends have liked, sorted in a reverse timeline feed (most recent at the top), giving you a sense of what is trending amongst your Facebook friends. Of course, for your friends on the app itself, the feature is even more powerful, integrating more granular activity.

There are also decent improvements to the UI of the category and favorite channel management feature. You have a point and drag feature allowing you to easily sort categories (popular, LA Lakers, Notre Dame Football) and genres (Horror, Western, etc) as well as rearrange and choose your favorite channel line-ups in a much easier way.

I spent sometime working checking out the apps recommendations and they do seem to be improving (either they are improving the algorithm or my marking of favorites and "watched" is improving the results from better input data).

In our FIVE feature categories, the app measures up like this:

- Simple (control of the 1st screen).  Light.  You can trigger a DVR recording on DirecTV set top boxes (other services may be on the horizon) and can launch titles directly into OTT apps on your iPad (2nd screen as the 1st screen).
- Seamless (content sourcing). Medium and improving. The major sources are covered, but missing are Pay TV networks like HBO and Cinemax or OTT services like Vudu.
- Discovery (offering content recommendations). Strong and improved. One of the better UI's in the Second Screen "guide" world.
- Stimulating (enhancing your viewing experience). Still relatively light (some cursory information about actors).
- Social. Carrying the expected basics and has the good sense to leverage your existing Facebook social network of content likes while offering the opportunity to follow others who may have similar interests and may not be your "Friend". Absent are social feeds during content viewing and even Twitter integration itself.

Overall, I think this app will continue to be a force in the Second Screen "Guide" space (focused on helping consumers find something to watch).

Let me know what you think!

@ChuckParkerTech

An Updated View of which Second Screen Apps to Watch in 2012

October 29, 2012 Earlier this summer, I wrote a brief blog on 10 second screen apps to watch discussing which apps I thought had a compelling enough user experience to propel them forward. Since then, we have gotten together as an industry for debate in NYC (twice--once for Advertising Week, once for CEA), in Amsterdam @ IBC, and on the West Coast at the MultiScreen, NextTV and TV|Next summits. In the meantime, NextGuide and zeebox launched their apps in the US--a lot of changes have taken place.

As we are now a few weeks into the Fall TV season, I thought I would update my views on which apps seem to be furthest along the path to develop the features that will drive serious consumer adoption.

I continue to believe there are really 5 major features sets that drive consumers to pick up a device as their second screen in an attempt to add value to their first screen experience: Finding something to watch (Discovery), determining where to watch it (Seamless content sourcing, often combined with Discovery), launching that content to your first screen (Simple), getting more information about the program, whether sport stats, actor bios, games, or commerce opportunities (Stimulating), and then sharing all of that and more with your friends (Social).



Seamless Discovery. Finding something you really want to watch from the plethora of content aggregators.  There are a number of apps trying to become your modern "TV Guide", but few are doing more than displaying the grid on your second screen or a giving you a list of lists (popular now, most watched by your friends, Emmy Winners). Additionally, the real challenge with a good Discovery experience is the integration of some level of personalization, combined with multiple sources of content (Seamless), all delivered through a clean and easy to navigate user interface (UI).

- NextGuide. Having launched only recently, this app continues to provide real Discovery value through its interface and continued roll-out additional Seamlessly integrated content sources (your local channel provider, iTunes, Amazon, Hulu and Netflix). If the content is available on iTunes, Hulu or Netflix, it will launch the content directly to your second screen (making it become the first screen). It does a decent job of tracking what you've watched or "favorite-d" (thru their app or thru Facebook) and then updates your recommendations based on those preference changes. My guess at what's next? Look for them to continue to roll-out more Seamless content sources, to begin integrating your local channel providers for Simple first screen integration, and to continue to refine and develop their metadata and discovery algorithm.

- Matcha. This app continues to be a good Seamless Discovery tool even though your local channel provider (ie live TV) is not included in the experience. It delivers its real value by launching your chosen content to your second screen (making it the first screen) and developing pretty deep integration to Netflix and Hulu (can read your queues, tell you about soon to expire content, etc). My guess at what's next?  Look for them to find a way to integrate live TV and to further refine their metadata and Discovery algorithm.

Simple. Controlling your first screen world.  

- BuddyTV. There continues one app that sets itself apart from the pack of second screen apps that allow you to control your first screen device world--BuddyTV. The app (for the iOS, Android and GoogleTV) allows you to get personalized recommendations (Discovery) for content across a number of content sources (Seamless) and then allows you to launch that content to your first screen if you have AT&T, Dish, DirecTV, a Tivo DVR or a Google TV device. For Hulu, Netflix, iTunes and Amazon, it launches that content when possible to your 2nd screen. My guess at what's next? Watch for them to continue to integrate more MVPDs (Comcast Xfinity, Verizon are obvious misses), to further develop their recommendation algorithms, and launch a new UI (current iOS app is focused on the iPhone).

Keep an eye on: Comcast Xfinity, DirecTV, and AT&T. All three major channel providers (MVPDs) continue to develop and improve their ability to add value via the second screen with better integration of control functionality, but they are will continued to be limited as a Discovery tool set since by their nature they are limited to providing content only from their own service.

Stimulating. Delivering interesting and relevant information about the content on your first screen in everything from sports stats and actors biographies to games about the content and commerce opportunities.

- zeebox. While having only recently launched in the U.S., this app has quickly gained the support of Viacom and NBCUniversal in the broadcast world and has already gained a strong consumer following with its quasi-Discovery function (what's hot right now) and zeetag feature allowing you to quickly and easily check out information on major keywords being derived during the viewing experience. My guess at what's next?  Look for them to integrate Simple control features for your first screen with major CE manufacturers (Samsung is integrated in the UK) and channel providers (Comcast Xfinity was already announced as a future feature) as well as to continue to develop their Discovery feature in terms of the UI and algorithm.

- ConnecTV. One of the few consumer apps that continues to deliver on a Stimulating content experience across a range of channels and programs, ConnecTV's algorithm seems to be able to pull together content about the program (similar to zeetags) that are pre-populated based on the content metadata and then deliver them (and a curated Twitter feed, etc) in a simple and clean UI for the second screen experience. They also continue to deliver one of the better sport experiences in the generalist second screen app market. My guess at what's next?  Look for them to continue to build out their Stimulating experience with better and more detailed metadata and begin to head down the Discovery path.

- Fanhattan. This app continues to be one of the best Stimulating experiences for TV and movies, delivering a wide array of additional content to the consumer from simple actor bios to the songs (with iTunes link) and related TV apps. While the app also carries a very robust Seamless search function across multiple content sources, their UI limits the tool's capability in Discovery (more of the list approach for lean-back and very powerful but lean-forward in a search mode). My guess at what's next?  Look for them to continue to develop their Discovery capabilities and potentially to head down the path of Simple integration with local channel providers.

- Viggle. The gamification king, Viggle continues to astound the market place with its registered user growth, powered by its reward system, though its current attempts at Discovery are more geared towards its advertising community (switch to this TV show and earn points).

Social. Helping you connect with your friends and colleagues to express your views about what you are watching.  Ironically, while this is perhaps the most written about feature in the second screen world (with SocialTV as a category devoted to its function), it seems to be the least invested feature in the second screen app development world. While nearly every app now allows you to chat or Tweet directly, the general view seems to be that development much beyond that is not a priority. Interestingly enough, while less than 1% of viewers comment in these tools, nearly 50% of consumers enjoy reading the comments (a world of voyeurism).

- Yap.tv. An app dedicated to the social world, focused on telling you what content is socially popular, and then allowing you to check-in, comment, Tweet, and create and take polls based on the show you are watching.


Well-funded horses. While currently not in the out in front because of a shortfall when compared to the compelling experiences above, don't count these apps out just yet:

- Yahoo's IntoNow. Still primarily a check-in app, but expect Marissa Meyer and team to push this TV experience towards Discovery and Stimulating, driving advertising models from that approach.

- GetGlue. Currently the check-in king in the second screen app world and recently touting that its chat traffic as higher than twitter on key TV episodes.  My guess at what's next? Expect GetGlue to work to deliver on their promise of creating a new content Discovery paradigm.

- Shazam. Working hard to develop their well-known brand and high install base of audio ACR into an app that drives value for consumers and broadcasters.  My guess at what's next? Watch for them to continue to develop their Stimulating feature set in the near term.

- Amazon's IMDB. A go-to web site that millions of consumers use to find out more about a show or movie.  My guess at what's next? Expect them to further develop their "X-ray" vision feature that is currently active on the Kindle Fire (hover over an actor and get the Stimulating info pop-up window) to work on other third party platforms as a plug-in while viewing Amazon Prime content.

- M-GO. The DreamWorks and Technicolor backed venture is rumored to be launching before Christmas with integration into several major TV sets with features focused on Discovery and Stimulating.

Others missing from our June review:
- TVplus.  Their consumer app is great (one of the best) when there is curated content for it, but as their B2B business grows, there seem to be fewer shows in their consumer app repertoire.

- TVDinner.  Less market momentum makes success vs. Viggle and others more difficult.


@ChuckParkerTech

UltraViolet marches onward, but can it succeed?

October 22, 2012 While the last official news from the UltraViolet website is from August 15th of this year, there was an interesting panel last week and some interesting support statements from the BBC, Fox and Barnes and Noble the previous week.  The title count is supposed to be above 7,000 now, available to more than 5 million consumer accounts through Wal-mart/Vudu and Flixster (as well as the studios' own title websites), with promises to be available soon on the Nook and M-GO.

But is this enough for success?


As both a consumer and industry evangelist, no one would like to see this succeed more than I do, but when you look at the initiative in the cold light of day, it is a tough, uphill climb.  Why the pessimist you ask?  You say its barely been a year after launch and there are already 5 million accounts and 7,000 titles, right?

Well, let's back up and examine what ingredients are required for consumers to "cross the chasm" in market adoption of new products.  With roughly 110 million households in the U.S., UltraViolet (UV) is just approaching the 5% penetration point.  While that seems like a lot of consumers when comparing it to Netflix (22m+ subscribers) and Comcast (similar numbers), the right comparison here is the DVD player install base (near 100%) or the PC install base (also in the high 90 percentile in the US).  So, how do you convince consumers who are clearly buying and renting a lot of DVDs (despite the press to the contrary, see this blog) to start paying a little extra to have digital ownership?

First, consumers need to believe that there will be title ubiquity.  If this is only available on 50% or 75% of the titles that are available on DVD, then this is just another format that complicates their lives ("Hey, I want to get this on UV, but it isn't available...").  I know, I know.  Many of you are going to chastise me with emails and tell me that 5 of the 6 major studios are now supporting UV and that eventually Disney will have to come around.  Unfortunately, consumers don't shop for titles by studio (shocking as that is), nor do they care about the challenges our industry faces.  What they know is that more titles are available to purchase digitally on their favorite list (let's assume the "IMDB Top 100" list represents that) from iTunes, Vudu and Amazon than from UV and for a price that is cheaper than the UV enhanced physical SKU.  What can the studios do about this?  Start by standing up themselves and making a public commitment to start putting every new DVD / Blu-ray title on UV (even if there is a not a UV SKU sold physically at retail) and give a reasonable time table to make their top 90% of SKUs available in the format (only Warner to date has demonstrated this kind of commitment).

Second, it is difficult to crow about having retailers signed up when the largest DVD / Blu-ray sales retailer (Amazon), the largest digital video retailer (iTunes), and the largest digital "rentailer" (Xbox) have not signed up for the program.  No matter how you slice up the markets where the consumers you want to attract are currently buying or renting, each one of these companies represents represents the lion's share of them and I would venture to say you cannot create mass adoption without them.

Third, consumers' appetites are VERY strong for accessing their content through subscription packages.  They sign up in droves for cable, satellite, telco and even Netflix/Hulu packages.  If you want to create mass adoption, work with those subscription services to allow consumers to stream the UV titles they already own thru their services as well (yes, make it part of the deal in your next licensing negotiation).  Once consumers can access the content they "own" through the video services they use to watch the other 35 hours of content each and every week, they will see it as a valuable feature and may consider it during their decision process to rent or buy titles (physically or digitally).

If you are interested, here today's title count.  UV improved by 2% since our last review in September.

I am very curious to see what the marketing campaign leading up to Christmas looks like.

Ok, let the harassing emails ensue.

@ChuckParkerTech

Netflix sneaks in some Simple second screen functionality

October 18, 2012 Depending on how up to date you are on your Twitter feed (or your S3 2Day curated news service), you most likely read the brief story on Gigaom about Netflix quietly rolling out some second screen functionality for the PS3 implementation of their streaming service.  I tried the service last night and included a few screen shots to give you an idea of what is capable, but let me try to take this conversation in two directions: 1) a discussion about what you can do today with an iPhone or iPad with your Netflix service, and 2) where the real opportunity for Netflix and other OTT video service operators lies.



First, the quietly launched (perhaps even experimental) service.  If you hadn't read the article or hadn't been watching Netflix on your PS3 while also trying to use Netflix on your iPad or iPhone at the same time, you would never have noticed this functionality is live (I am assuming this is on purpose).  In terms of the language we use in this blog, this implementation is focused on Simple (the ability to control the first screen).  The functionality worked decently enough for me on the iPhone and iPad, letting me choose something from either second screen and launch it to the first.  It allowed me to choose subtitles, use "trick play" (forward, rewind, etc) and worked a bit like AirPlay in that I could take the video stream from the PS3 back to my iPad/iPhone and it would start playing from there--presumably as I walked out of the room to enjoy my content somewhere else.  Assuming you educate consumers about this function, this is an easier way to search for content, especially since you can search for other shows (including the next in the series, etc) without interrupting program on the first screen.  However, it falls short of the full promise of Simple in that you cannot control volume (for example) and can't use the second screen to cause the app on the first screen to launch (presumably a more complex problem to solve in terms of APIs and devices)--but that would of course open up a real opportunity to Discover content on your second screen and have it launch directly to your TV regardless of what service the content is on--Seamless (vs. now you can use Buddy TV, NextGuide, Matcha or Fanhattan to Discover content, launch it to Netflix on your iPad, then with Netflix running on your PS3, play that stream to your first screen).

Now while this seems like a great leap forward for the heavy Netflix streaming user population, the real deep water here for OTT video service providers and the consumers is ironically in all of the other feature sets.  In a few of my previous blogs, we discussed the concept of "OS Level Syncing" as the promise of the future, which similar to BD-Live's current Blu-ray implementations, can be ultra-content aware of the video stream down to the frame level.  That presents opportunities for Stimulating and Social features that can create real value for the consumers (synchronized content about the TV show/movie like the actors currently on screen vis-a-vis TVplus, the history or related facts behind the fictional setting in zeetag-like fashion, commerce opportunities to buy that special biker jacket a-la Sons of Anarchy from Magic Ruby, or even just a time-synced, curated Twitter feed to create an asynchronous community of viewers).  It also creates advertising and brand engagement opportunities with consumers including better product placement, better gamification opportunities, and brings the promise of contextual advertising one step closer to reality.  Because the OTT video service provider knows EXACTLY where your video stream is (and presumably with good metadata from a company like DigitalSmiths or Watchwith, what is in the frame/scene), they have the opportunity to take each of these use cases to the next level in terms of a robust, integrated consumer experience (works better than audio content recognition).  Suddenly, 55,0000 titles of streaming on Netflix or all of the streams available on Amazon, Hulu or Vudu become immersive consumer engagement opportunities for major brands and sponsors in pre-recorded features on a level never imagined outside of class broadcast TV.

So the real question here is simple: Is this Netflix experiment the sign of things to come from Netflix based on (boring) utility features (Simple), or is this the tip of the second screen iceberg of commercial opportunity from the largest streaming service in the world (Stimulating, Social, Discovery)?

Choosing episodes from a series without interrupting the 1st Screen

iPhone UI for choosing where to play content

Subtitling management function on the iPhone

Choosing episodes on the iPhone

Browsing content without interrupting the 1st Screen

1st and 2nd Screen shown together

Is Social TV failing? Is that the right question?

October 9, 2012 Somrat Niyogi, CEO of Miso, recently penned an article for TechCrunch that centered around the omni-presence of Twitter on live TV and that its apparent volumetric success implies that Social TV and its sibling Second Screen are failing.

An article clearly written to his peers in the industry, Somrat quickly concludes the reason he perceives that Social TV (and by extension Second Screen) are failing is that the industry fails to write apps that are compelling enough for the consumer to want to use (vs. Twitter apparently).

He goes on to state that the whole industry is trying to create a business proposition first and the consumer proposition is an afterthought. His argument starts to lose a little focus as he begins to ramble on about too many consumer propositions (a "feature checklist" mentality), then raises the specter of switching barriers (presumably from Twitter, email and Angry Birds mentioned earlier), and then comes back around to recommending extreme use case focus (pick one feature and hit it out of the park). Finally, he takes a dig at the entire TV industry, chastising them for not working together on this all important topic.

Hmmm. Seems like a reaction to the recent press and industry support for zeebox (the self-espoused Swiss Army knife of Second Screen apps with investment from NBCU and Viacom) compared to the languishing progress of Miso's Sideshow singular focus.

But rather than sling mud, let's examine the problem as presented and discuss a more objective view of the state of the industry (vs. a singular app).

First, Somrat agrees that the consumer behavior change is real. Let's all agree that this is the catalyst and potential opportunity and threat for everyone in the TV ecosystem. While content creators often lament about creating a second screen experience that distracts their viewers from their creative output, the reality is that email and Angry Birds are already distracting them (threat) and the opportunity is to build an engaging experience that gets viewers deeper into the creative story or live sport (and hopefully in a manner that supports the major business model of the ecosystem--advertising).

On experience feature sets, I think we would all agree that regardless of what features you try to include or ignore, there has to be a compelling reason for the consumer to pick up the device and open the app AND then clean and simple user experience for them to keep coming back (what Somrat describes as "habit"). We have discussed in many of the industry-wide conferences on the subject (note cross ecosystem collaboration) over the past 10 months that there are generally 4 or 5 major feature sets that could be compelling for the viewer as a reason to pick up the second screen.

1. The first is to control theTV/set top box/DVD player, etc--Simple. After all, this is what the consumer has been doing for 50 years (grabbing the remote).
2. The second is Social (hence the massive Twitter activity which Somrat laments is the harbinger of doom).
3. The third is to Discover new content--and to his credit, for these to be compelling, they have to help the consumer find content in multiple content ecosystems. In other words, there is already a guide for your cable package (a gride guide, but it works), your OTT streaming provider (Hulu, Netflix) and your Video on Demand (whether iTunes/Hulu/Xbox or your cable provider), but to add value, you need to offer content suggestions Seamlessly across these walled gardens and then easily get the content in front of the consumer.
4. The fourth is all of the additional Stimulating contextual information that a companion experience can provide. That might be a slew of interesting statistics for baseball, background information on the characters for your favorite drama, or even a shopping experience for that one TV series you obsess over.

Can you building compelling app with all of these features? zeebox is certainly trying to do so. But the real question here isn't the complexity of use cases, it is the simplicity of experience delivery. Keep in mind that your Smartphone has hundreds of use cases and until the iPhone came along, the industry suffered from this problem for years. Long before Somrat's argument, there were those who argued the device need to either be a GPS (TomTom), a phone (Nokia), a portable music player (Creative, Zune) or an email device (Blackberry). Apple finally built a UX that enabled you to easily manage those complex use cases in one device--and birthed the Smartphone market (or at least bore the first legitimate child).  Google quickly followed with Android (still trying to clean-up the UX).

Finally, on the subject of collaboration, I would encourage everyone who is fighting the good fight in the Social TV and Second Screen ecosystem (content creators and distributors, service providers, app developers, etc) to join us in our cross industry efforts to take on some of these challenges together as we meet in LA, NY, London and even in the Bay Area. You can find out more about our mission and our current efforts (and cross industry membership) at www.2ndscreensociety.com.

No, this won't be easy. Yes, many will fail. But together, we can work to find a way to bring the key players in the ecosystem together to develop compelling user experiences for the viewers while working to do so in a manner that creates a sustainable business model for those players who add value in the chain.  And don't forget, we are in the absolute infancy of this market when compared to its growth potential.


@ChuckParkerTech

Is Social TV failing? Is that the right question?

October 9, 2012 Somrat Niyogi, CEO of Miso, recently penned an article for TechCrunch that centered around the omni-presence of Twitter on live TV and that its apparent volumetric success implies that Social TV and its sibling Second Screen are failing.

An article clearly written to his peers in the industry, Somrat quickly concludes the reason he perceives that Social TV (and by extension Second Screen) are failing is that the industry fails to write apps that are compelling enough for the consumer to want to use (vs. Twitter apparently).



He goes on to state that the whole industry is trying to create a business proposition first and the consumer proposition is an afterthought. His argument starts to lose a little focus as he begins to ramble on about too many consumer propositions (a "feature checklist" mentality), then raises the specter of switching barriers (presumably from Twitter, email and Angry Birds mentioned earlier), and then comes back around to recommending extreme use case focus (pick one feature and hit it out of the park). Finally, he takes a dig at the entire TV industry, chastising them for not working together on this all important topic.

Hmmm. Seems like a reaction to the recent press and industry support for zeebox (the self-espoused Swiss Army knife of Second Screen apps with investment from NBCU and Viacom) compared to the languishing progress of Miso's Sideshow singular focus.

But rather than sling mud, let's examine the problem as presented and discuss a more objective view of the state of the industry (vs. a singular app).

First, Somrat agrees that the consumer behavior change is real. Let's all agree that this is the catalyst and potential opportunity and threat for everyone in the TV ecosystem. While content creators often lament about creating a second screen experience that distracts their viewers from their creative output, the reality is that email and Angry Birds are already distracting them (threat) and the opportunity is to build an engaging experience that gets viewers deeper into the creative story or live sport (and hopefully in a manner that supports the major business model of the ecosystem--advertising).

On experience feature sets, I think we would all agree that regardless of what features you try to include or ignore, there has to be a compelling reason for the consumer to pick up the device and open the app AND then clean and simple user experience for them to keep coming back (what Somrat describes as "habit"). We have discussed in many of the industry-wide conferences on the subject (note cross ecosystem collaboration) over the past 10 months that there are generally 4 or 5 major feature sets that could be compelling for the viewer as a reason to pick up the second screen.

1. The first is to control theTV/set top box/DVD player, etc--Simple. After all, this is what the consumer has been doing for 50 years (grabbing the remote).
2. The second is Social (hence the massive Twitter activity which Somrat laments is the harbinger of doom).
3. The third is to Discover new content--and to his credit, for these to be compelling, they have to help the consumer find content in multiple content ecosystems. In other words, there is already a guide for your cable package (a gride guide, but it works), your OTT streaming provider (Hulu, Netflix) and your Video on Demand (whether iTunes/Hulu/Xbox or your cable provider), but to add value, you need to offer content suggestions Seamlessly across these walled gardens and then easily get the content in front of the consumer.
4. The fourth is all of the additional Stimulating contextual information that a companion experience can provide. That might be a slew of interesting statistics for baseball, background information on the characters for your favorite drama, or even a shopping experience for that one TV series you obsess over.

Can you building compelling app with all of these features? zeebox is certainly trying to do so. But the real question here isn't the complexity of use cases, it is the simplicity of experience delivery. Keep in mind that your Smartphone has hundreds of use cases and until the iPhone came along, the industry suffered from this problem for years. Long before Somrat's argument, there were those who argued the device need to either be a GPS (TomTom), a phone (Nokia), a portable music player (Creative, Zune) or an email device (Blackberry). Apple finally built a UX that enabled you to easily manage those complex use cases in one device--and birthed the Smartphone market (or at least bore the first legitimate child).  Google quickly followed with Android (still trying to clean-up the UX).

Finally, on the subject of collaboration, I would encourage everyone who is fighting the good fight in the Social TV and Second Screen ecosystem (content creators and distributors, service providers, app developers, etc) to join us in our cross industry efforts to take on some of these challenges together as we meet in LA, NY, London and even in the Bay Area. You can find out more about our mission and our current efforts (and cross industry membership) at www.2ndscreensociety.com.

No, this won't be easy. Yes, many will fail. But together, we can work to find a way to bring the key players in the ecosystem together to develop compelling user experiences for the viewers while working to do so in a manner that creates a sustainable business model for those players who add value in the chain.  And don't forget, we are in the absolute infancy of this market when compared to its growth potential.


@ChuckParkerTech

Second Screen and College Football

October 9, 2012 As an experiment, I thought I would test drive a number of popular apps over the weekend while watching a popular football game.  The Notre Dame / Miami match-up was perfect for the trial.

Since the game was being shown on NBCU, I gave their NBC Sports LIVE EXTRA app a try.  While it is a pretty decent app, even allowing you to stream the game on a 30-second delay, there was no real second screen experience--more of a first screen on your tablet if you are no where near a TV.



So I gave their rival network app a try: ESPN ScoreCenter.  It took me a while to find the right place in the app to get a second screen experience (under "college gamecast").  The experience was actually VERY good.  I was impressed with the near-real-time updates of the play-by-play activities intermingled with some curated tweets and other information (see image).  It got me thinking and I went out and searched for "college football" apps.  Surprisingly, there is only one that comes up in the search that is relevant: also an ESPN app called ESPN College Football.  Ironically, the interface eventually gets you to the same "college gamecast" functionality.

Satisfied with the "dedicated app" experience (despite being from ESPN and not NBC or NotreDame), I thought I would give the 3rd party apps a try.

With all the recent U.S. launch press zeebox received, I thought I would try them first.  The zeetags were interesting, though the Twitter feed had some trouble, and there was no play-by-play or game graphics to enhance my game experience.  It did point me to the right places to download team specific apps, etc, which was helpful.  Assuming the Twitter feed can be fixed, it is a decent experience.

I tried a few of the apps more focused on connecting you to the show itself (BuddyTV, Fanhattan, NextGuide), and while I was not expecting anything special beyond getting to the game itself, I tried each app.  BuddyTV and NextGuide were the best at pointing me to the right channel, with BuddyTV able to actually set my AT&T receiver to the actual game itself--but then then second screen experience ended.

I tried my favorite TV synchronization app TVplus, but they had clearly not set anything up for this football game.  Out of curiosity, I tried the currently popular gamification app Viggle, but again no experience was setup for the football game.

Then I read back through some of my notes about other reviews and gave ConnecTV a try.  It delivered what I thought was the best 3rd party second screen experience.  While it did not have graphics of the plays, it interlaced a "last play update" with other contextual information about every 30-45 seconds.

As the majority of 3rd party apps fell well short of expectations, perhaps this is an example where the dedicated app is still required for a great second screen experience.

The good news is that if you like NFL Football, there are plenty of good second screen app experiences to choose from.

@ChuckParkerTech

A quick recap of the The Imminent Power of 2nd Screen Consumer Engagement @ Advertising Week

October 2, 2012 Rick Liebling of Y&R moderated a great panel of second screen industry experts yesterday in the NASDAQ Market Site in Times Square, largely focused on the impact second screen potentially has on the advertising space.

His able-bodied panel was represented by David Pugh of Magic Ruby, Joe Inzerillo of MLB Advanced Media, Jordan Berkowitz of Ogilvy & Mather, Sue Kaufman of Group M and Brody O'Harran of Microsoft Xbox--a great cross section of the burgeoning industry.


Rick waded into the session with a question about the longevity and reach of this second screen phenomena. The panel pointed out all the current salient points: great content on the first screen, a great user experience, the challenge of passive viewing (engrossed in the first screen) and interactive viewing (perhaps the next generation), and the importance of the context of the experience (from the consumer's point of view). Sue pointed out that while some content creators struggle with the concept of purposely distracting their viewers, many advertisers view this as a means of stealing back the viewer's attention from Angry Birds and other casual games and getting them engaged into the show and the advertising.

Brody gave some interesting perspectives on how seconds screen will play in the Microsoft world, with SmartGlass and Windows 8 just around the corner (late October). Expect the interactive capabilities to be built into the experience, all the way down to the 1st screen capabilities and into the games (allowing you to choose your NFL Madden play in a manner that for the first time prevents your living room opponent from seeing your choices, for example).

When the discussion turned to how the various players in the segment want to engage with advertising agencies, the conversation quickly got interesting. Dave pointed out that his firm doesn't seek to replace the first screen advertising, but rather to enhance it and help it be both more targeted and contextual (giving examples of how that might with in their Fox Sons of Anarchy app). Joe had some great insight for the room, describing the "check box mentality" of many players in the industry as the real enemy of the future of second screen (where app developers/sponsors rush to have an example from major feature sets like Social just to have them)--and with 6m app downloads and the highest Apple grossing app ever, Joe and the MLB certainly have taken the pains to get the At Bat experience right for their consumers (in multiple user experience scenarios). Sue brought the discussion upstream towards integrated brand management and presentation, tying multiple engagement approaches together.

When asked what it will take to truly drive these opportunities forward for clients, Jordan had perhaps the most prescient quote of the day, "Second screen isn't a channel, it is a behavior." And while Dave and Joe exalted the value of simple, clean technology capability to propel the space forward, Sue reminded everyone of the holy grail of the advertising community--the opportunity to create engagement with the consumer on the sponsoring brands in discrete, actionable and measurable experiences. And then Joe brought us back to full circle in the way only someone from such a successful second screen franchise can, reminding all of us not to lose sight of just how hard it is to creating meaningful, engaging experiences for consumers and that experimentation will be required along the way.

A power-packed session if there ever was one.

If you are in NYC, there is another panel this afternoon sponsored by the 2nd Screen Society at 3pm at the NASDAQ Market Site (4 Times Square, NYC). Should be another engaging session.

@ChuckParkerTech

Long anticipated zeebox second screen app launches

September 27, 2012 zeebox announced their US launch today, starting with a partnerships that include NBCUniversal, Comcast Cable (Xfinity), HBO and Cinemax. For those who haven't had a chance to see the app while in the UK, it is certainly worth downloading. They are promising enhanced experiences for The Voice and Notre Dame Football on NBCU and for True Blood and Boardwalk Empire on HBO. They are additionally touting feature sets that include a 7-day program guide (for Discovery), live synchronization with their now famous zeetags (which enable contextual commerce and the look-up of Stimulating content related info), and of course Social integration with Facebook and Twitter.






I took the app for a short test drive and love the UI and flow from Discovery to show-level detail. The initiation process was relatively easy, asking for your channel line-up provider and Facebook and Twitter account info. Since the Ryder Cup is just about to begin, I thought I would check-in on the Twitter banter from across the pond and wasn't disappointed at all. I was also impressed with the zeetag responses and suggested apps for the program you are watching.





Simple. The app in the UK integrates with a large number of devices (Samsung for example) and supports Sky's pay TV service, and I would expect is already integrated with Comcast Cable (will check next week), with announcements of future device partnerships in the U.S. to come.

Social. As I mentioned above, the integration is pretty decent, with ability to "filter" the Twitter feed for "Family Friendly" (see image) and to set the speed at which the live tweets fly by (I can't tell if they are curated or recorded for synchronized playback from your DVR--more to follow soon).

Stimulating. The app has this feature set nailed to a tee, with zeetags leading the way as an innovative way to enable consumers to find interesting related content and commerce opportunities (and soon to be contextual advertising).

There doesn't appear yet to be a feature focused around the Seamless sourcing of content from multiple sources (only your major channel provider line-up appears to be supported at initial release) and it is too early to opine on its ability to help me Discover new content (I will come back in a few weeks with a review on apps with that feature).

In summary, I predicted back in June that when zeebox launched in the US, they would be one of the top 10 apps to watch, and their experience at launch certainly doesn't disappoint. They are a serious contender in the 3rd party space and their major partnerships will certainly propel them quickly into the U.S. consumer marketplace.

If you happen to be in NYC next week, we are hosting a technology demo at the Advertising Week Experience (AWE) and come by to check out the second screen panels on both Monday and Tuesday afternoon being supported by the 2nd Screen Society as part of our Advertising Week activities.  If you are "in the business" of second screen, shoot us a note and we can try to connect during the week--there is even an S3 members' only cocktail party Tuesday night at Y&R's Madison Ave. offices and sponsored by Magic Ruby and Mobovivo. I am sure this app with be a popular subject in conversation for some period of time.

See you next week.

@ChuckParkerTech

A quick wrap-up of the 2nd Screen Society panel at the Next | TV Summit

September 25, 2012 Last Thursday (20 Sept), I had the opportunity to spend the day at the Next | TV Summit @ the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco.  While the day was interesting all around (a lot of TV Everywhere, digital video growth, etc), I found the second screen panel perhaps the most interesting and engaging of the day (no surprise here).

Guy Finley, the executive director of the 2nd Screen Society, moderated the panel which consisted of Stephen Brooks from Magic Ruby, Stacy Jolna from ConnecTV, Ed Haslam from YuMe, Alex Rowland from Alphabird, Julien Signes from Envivio, and Chris Wyatt from YouToo.



- The panel opened with a lot of discussion around ad supported digital video and the lack of any real inventory to put ads against (except on UGC sites like YouTube).  The panel felt like growth was needed in total viewing (transition from linear / analog to digital) if the ad market was going to prosper there.  While some amazing stats like 40B click views per month were mentioned by Ed Haslam, fragmentation of those clicks is a real challenge in aggregation of spend.
- Julien spent some time describing the challenge that lay before real TV Everywhere ubiquity, which is part of the choke point holding back the digital video growth.  The other challenge of UGC content (no filters for advertisers to protect their brand) was also discussed as a general choke point contributor.
- Reversing the Tivo trend of cutting out advertising (many of the panelists were a part of the early DVR pioneering company) in second screen with the concept of "sync, share, and play" became a debated topic--an interesting rally slogan for second screen (to engage audiences further).
- The conversation then moved to low cost digital production (web vignettes) and content curation to help unlock the ad inventory potential, and then the panel swung to targeted advertising (perhaps the real deep waters of second screen engagement scenarios).  
- On this subject, perhaps the most valuable of the day, the panel debated the engagement scenario of ads as a means to keep the user interested (pre-roll, second screen, etc) and the concept of synchronizing first screen ads to increase the consumer engagement via the second screen.  

My (perhaps obvious) prediction: we are in the late 1990s with on-line advertising when comparing second Screen and its potential impact on TV ad dollars.  If you will recall, there was a great ensuing debate about whether or not major brands would shift dollars away from print, radio, and TV for the on-line world--and then AdSense from Google came along, making it efficient and measurable.  Dollars shifted over time to on-line spend because of the measurability--which is what second screen can really provide TV advertisers.

Can't wait to see how this develops.

Want to catch the next panel live?

We are supporting Advertising Week in NYC by hosting another panel on October 1st, supporting a 2nd Screen Society members' cocktail mixer, and supporting the show all week (October 1st - 5th) as part of the Advertising Week Experience (AWE) in the Times Center from Oct. 1-4.  For more information on attending, please contact Don Hurley, Director of Member Services (Don@MESAlliance.org, (310)882-3742).

Looking forward to seeing you there.

@ChuckParkerTech

Quick wrap-up of the 2nd Screen Society Panel at the Multiscreen Summit

September 19, 2012 I had the pleasure of attending a great panel this afternoon on the monetization and consumer engagement of second screen with a strong cast of industry players at the Multiscreen Summit here in Hollywood.

Guy Finley, the executive director of the 2nd Screen Society, moderated the panel which consisted of Babba Uppal from Endemol, Tom Engdahl of Magic Ruby, Matt Kennedy of 1K Studios, Zane Vella of WatchWith, Marjorie DeHey of MEF and James Hursthouse of Roadhouse Interactive.



Since the world seems to be infographic mood, I thought I would summarize the session with this awesome graphic penned live during the discussion by Wyn Wilson of ImageThink, courtesy of Variety/Unicomm:

- To Babba's point, the argument about whether your rating points are increasing or decreasing because of second screen isn't the right discussion--engaging the audience you already have is more important.
- There was some good discussion about how valuable synchronization was for a Stimulating experience--both for live and recorded programming. Zane described how simplicity for live viewing was better than confusing technology.
- Tom described the synchronized shopping experience for the Sons of Anarchy Gear app and how it was driving consumer behavior for that program's cult following to buy show related items.
- Matt discussed the challenges a service provider faces in helping to build great consumer experiences related to movies in today's Blu-ray sync-capable world.

Want to catch the next panel live?

We are hosting another panel at the Fairmont Hotel today (Sept. 20th) in San Francisco in support of the TV Next Summit and will be in NYC with a panel, members' cocktail mixer and show floor support during AdWeek Oct. 1-4.

Looking forward to seeing you on the West or East Coast soon.

@ChuckParkerTech

A wrap-up of the 2nd Screen Summit in Amsterdam (#S3AMS)

September 13, 2012

• The Future of TV (by @awolk).  Why is Second Screen the best thing that ever happened to Pay TV operators (slides 43-44)?  Data.  The opportunity to truly capture consumer engagement, measure ROI, improve the user experience (UX).
• Synchronisation and Media Interaction with Your Consumer (by @ADTerpstra).  There are a host of new technologies around the synchronization of the second screen device that can drive some engaging consumer use cases--and Civolution has a pretty cool demo app to show the possibilities off.
• 2nd Screen by the Numbers (by @RFuchsTCH).  Social TV will be an $8 to $12b business in 2020.  Viggle's users check-in 5 times per day on average with a session length of 93 minutes.  There were 15 apps launched specifically for the SuperBowl.
• Consumer engagement panel.  When initially asked, Inzerillo couldn’t have said it better than “if you deliver a great consumer experience, the monetization will follow.”  Panel members ranging from broadcast TV consultants and service providers to content creators and founder of the UK’s most popular 2^nd screen app had a spirited discussion about what it takes to really engage audiences, whether "social" was the most important feature set (they didn’t think so) and how "gamification" and "synchronized content" played into the equation.  While opinions ranges on many facets of engagement, all of them agreed that if there ever is a killer app in the second screen space, it will both engage yet not distract the users while providing utility (control of the experience), social interaction (including with those actually in the living room), and stimulation (because not all content is viewed equally).
• Monetization panel.  In every summit so far, this has been the most anticipated and hotly debated topic: is anyone going to make any money in this space, and if so, how?  Inzerillo talked about the early days of streaming (back before it was called OTT) and compared that to their current revenue profile of something north of $600m annually.  While he admits it is hard to pull apart precisely the revenues coming from someone using the 2^nd screen as a first screen (ie just streaming to their iPhone or iPad), his estimation was that 5-15% of their tablet-based revenue was coming from activity without the live video feed (with the thought that they were getting the video feed from their first screen and were using the app for the stats, commentary, etc).  I realize everyone’s immediate reaction is to ask for more specifics (and believe me, they asked in the conference), but maybe the take away here should be simpler than that: they are managing a business that generates a “significant” amount of revenue from a segment that did not exist a few short years ago (tablets, smartphones) which has a strong engagement component around the 2^nd screen interactivity—and according to Joe, it is all additive (vs. cannibalistic).

My review of NextGuide by Dijit – A Personalized Video Guide

September 11, 2012


 The first thing you notice when you download the app is its relatively quick seeding algorithm (process for determining something about your likes and dislikes).  It will quickly ask you what services you have available (linear broadcast provider, Hulu, Netflix, iTunes) and then if you connect it to your Facebook account, will pull “likes” from your Facebook (including those about things other than movies and TV), offer a few popular categories (eg vampires, major genres) and then start to create an easy to navigate browse recommendation stream for you.

Second Screen by the Numbers for Summer, 2012

September 6, 2012

• There were 85 million social media comments during the 2012 Summer Olympics.
• 18 million "Viggle Live" questions were answered during the Olympics
• While the iPad market share of tablets has dropped to a "mere" 65%, it is estimated that 91% of the tablet-based web traffic comes from the iPad--giving a strong indication of where the interactivity from consumers lies.
• The summer season final episode of Pretty Little Liars become the most social TV episode ever with 1.6 million episode related tweets, beating American Idol's May, 2012 record
• GetGlue surpassed 3 million users and Viggle surpassed 1 million users
• 70%+ (depending on whose data you believe) of tablet owners use a 2nd screen while watching TV...astonishing!

The Second Screen Hype Cycle

September 6, 2012

How Available (Really) Are Top TV Shows in the Digital Video World?

September 4, 2012

As the UltraViolet academy in London approaches to wake us out of our summer slumber and send us on to IBC, I sat discussing the onward march of digital video in today’s Top 20 ratings-driven world with some neighbors around the end of summer BBQs.  There was a general view that most TV shows were available (in the US) on either HuluPlus or Netflix.  While there was some discussion about network specific sites like ABC.com, HBO-GO and TV.com (CBS’ site) and some general understanding that there was content missing from HuluPlus and Netflix, most people felt like anything they were missing was probably available to purchase as a catch-up one-off show from iTunes or Vudu.

As I pondered this seemingly simple challenge, I though back to the end of May when I wrote a blog about the current state of digital title availability in the various service offerings (rental, sell-thru, subscription) and retailers (iTunes, Vudu, Netflix) and compared them to each other and to their physical counterparts.  So, with the help of some colleagues, I set out to get to the bottom of the details.

We started with the current TV Guide Top 20 (as of August, 2012).  I realize that the Top 20 would have been different in May and will be different in October once the season is underway, but this is a unique time of the year where even the most protected of shows has finally exited their Spring window and have been pushed out on DVD or at least a digital purchase service (if not a streaming one–rental by the episode is no longer supported by any site).

What were the results?  Surprising to say the least.  First, let me give you an idea of the list (since it is relatively short):

Now with this list, you would have thought there would be a high probability to have nearly all but the HBO and AMC series available already.  The results?

• iTunes carries 75% of the content (in SD) for purchase (most recent season)–Vudu and Amazon were just a step behind them.  The missing items were all some sort of reality show.
• Netflix has a (not surprising) poor showing for current seasons (strong for past seasons) with only 15% available, but to my surprise, HuluPlus only came in at 40% (disappointing in a big way).  Combining the two options only yielded 45% availability.
• Physical still trumped all of the options with 80% of them available for purchase from Amazon and 75% for physical rental from Netflix.
• Combining digital purchase and streaming (across all services) yielded a 90% availability (with only X Factor and So You Think You Can Dance absent)–yielding a problem discussed in my blog last week of finding content across multiple sources.

Digital Video by the Numbers for Summer, 2012

September 4, 2012 With the summer now officially over, the digital video space continues to march forward.  I am sure much of this will be discussed at the UltraViolet workshop in London tomorrow (Wednesday, September 5th, 2012) at the PARK PLAZA WESTMINSTER BRIDGE.  Below is some empirical evidence of the progress:

• It is estimated that 111 million Americans watch time shifted TV content these days at least once monthly (DVR and VOD), but 143 million Americans watch TV or Film content delivered on-line delivered via some connected device (connected TV, PC, tablet) at least once monthly.
• UltraViolet, the content industry-backed initiative to enable consumers to purchase physical media (DVDs or Blu-rays) and get a cloud-based digital copy through several participating retailers has progressed their catalog and UV now penetrates more than 50% of the IMDB Top 100 movies list (and has nearly doubled their penetration at the SD version level).
• While Netflix surpassed 1 billion hours viewed in the month of June, their viewing traffic declined by 25% in the first week of the Olympics.
• 61% of internet users have watched an online movie or TV show
• Delivering another crushing blow to Adobe Flash, Android announced they will not support Flash as of August 15th

How available (really) are top TV shows in the digital video world?

September 4, 2012 As the UltraViolet academy in London approaches to wake us out of our summer slumber and send us on to IBC, I sat discussing the onward march of digital video in today's Top 20 ratings-driven world with some neighbors around the end of summer BBQs.  There was a general view that most TV shows were available (in the US) on either HuluPlus or Netflix.  While there was some discussion about network specific sites like ABC.com, HBO-GO and TV.com (CBS' site) and some general understanding that there was content missing from HuluPlus and Netflix, most people felt like anything they were missing was probably available to purchase as a catch-up one-off show from iTunes or Vudu.

As I pondered this seemingly simple challenge, I though back to the end of May when I wrote a blog about the current state of digital title availability in the various service offerings (rental, sell-thru, subscription) and retailers (iTunes, Vudu, Netflix) and compared them to each other and to their physical counterparts.  So, with the help of some colleagues, I set out to get to the bottom of the details.



We started with the current TV Guide Top 20 (as of August, 2012).  I realize that the Top 20 would have been different in May and will be different in October once the season is underway, but this is a unique time of the year where even the most protected of shows has finally exited their Spring window and have been pushed out on DVD or at least a digital purchase service (if not a streaming one--rental by the episode is no longer supported by any site).

What were the results?  Surprising to say the least.  First, let me give you an idea of the list (since it is relatively short):


Now with this list, you would have thought there would be a high probability to have nearly all but the HBO and AMC series available already.  The results?

• iTunes carries 75% of the content (in SD) for purchase (most recent season)--Vudu and Amazon were just a step behind them.  The missing items were all some sort of reality show.  
• Netflix has a (not surprising) poor showing for current seasons (strong for past seasons) with only 15% available, but to my surprise, HuluPlus only came in at 40% (disappointing in a big way).  Combining the two options only yielded 45% availability.
• Physical still trumped all of the options with 80% of them available for purchase from Amazon and 75% for physical rental from Netflix.  
• Combining digital purchase and streaming (across all services) yielded a 90% availability (with only X Factor and So You Think You Can Dance absent)--yielding a problem discussed in my blog last week of finding content across multiple sources.

The "Seamless" sourcing of video content from multiple aggregation services

August 30, 2012 10 years ago, life was simple in your living room.  You really had 3 libraries of content to worry about:

1. the 500 channels of content you were receiving from your Cable, Telco, or Satellite provider, 
2. the collection of DVD's on your shelf, and
3. the available plethora of DVDs to rent at your local Blockbuster.  

But even simpler then was the fact that there were only a few rights windows, and as a consumer, you understood them pretty well:

• Movies came out at the theater first, and then a few months later were available to rent (eg Blockbuster) or purchase (many locations) on the same day.
• A few months after this, they started appearing in your premium TV networks (eg HBO, Showtime).
• A few months after this, they came out on the standard, non-premium broadcast networks.

The Olympics and Second Screen – not so great

August 6, 2012 While the 2012 Summer Olympics has certainly been appropriately dubbed the first "Social Olympics" (Twitter and Facebook comparisons discussed daily on the broadcast discussions by commentators) and even NBCU has come out and described it as a TV Everywhere success (streaming every event live for authenticated Pay TV subscribers in the US), it has be abysmal for Second Screen enthusiasts.

Don't get me wrong--I think the streaming capabilities to watch the events live were usually well delivered, and I have nothing against the massive Twitter and Facebook discussions.  I guess my point of view stems from the belief that until now, it has been live sports that has really driven the most valuable use cases for a second screen or companion app while watching the first screen, usually resulting in a more engaged consumer.  Knowing the stats of the football, baseball or basketball game of key players, updated in real time, is a big plus for the sports enthusiasts (of any sport).  But somehow, the Olympic implementations fell well short.


The Olympics created two official apps for the games: one for live updates and one for score/medal consolidation and schedules.  But both apps were really designed for smart phones (not tablets) and were either intended as informational at large or to help enable your 2nd screen as a first screen.

Yahoo announced a major upgrade to their IntoNow application to drive better use of live stats during the Olympics, but at least my attempts over a multi-night period never delivered anything much better than the previous version.  Even my prime time viewing attempts worked out rather poorly.







NBCU created a live viewing companion app that tried to have interesting features during their nightly primetime playback of the days events, but the curated Twitter feed fell extremely short (only their own tweets presented) and the facts presented about every minute during the event were either uninteresting or just not relevant.






One of my go to apps in this case is usually tvplus, but on the few nights I tested it, the stats and events didn't update.  The curated Twitter feed was much better than NBCU's, but I am not using a 2nd screen app for the Twitter feed.









I gave ConnecTV a try and got much better details about key athletes, but had real trouble getting the app to pay attention to the channel or event I wanted to watch.  I was disappointed with their normally pretty cool "What's Trending" widget, since what I wanted to know was which of the 5 Olympic channels should I be watching and they seemed to lump all the Olympics into one result.





Viggle gave me lots of opportunities to play quizzes, win prizes, etc--but not a lot of information about the events I was watching.
















And Yap.TV did a decent job on the social side (they always do), but again, more about the Olympics in general rather than a specific event either on right then or being shown as a prime time event for the US.










Now, to be fair, I didn't get to check out Zeebox since I was in the US during the Olympics and they have not yet launched here.  I did use the NBCU Olympic website on a laptop a few times and must admit, that combined with the Apple TV and Airplay, it was probably the best experience of all.  The website was reasonably well architected to let me see what live sporting events were on right then, to have two streaming views to toggle between at any given moment (the one I was watching and the one I was browsing), the alerts on events I "favorited" worked pretty well (we got to see the 100m finals live), and the Apple TV integration from my MountainLion OS-equipped Mac Air meant I could push it all to the first screen for the entire family to watch.

So why was most of my experience pretty poor?  My guess is that the normally huge volumes of stats on teams and players for most sports don't really exist for the Olympic athletes who play every four years (except for Phelps of course).  I think the sheer volume of it all and unpredictable nature probably created the largest problem for 3rd party apps (they didn't really know what would be played during prime time each night and the actual live streaming was very unpredictable).  Perhaps this points the industry into the direction of finding a better, more efficient way to share or even syndicate valuable metadata so that networks like NBCU and sporting brands like the Olympics can aggregate the viewing audiences across multiple apps and engagements rather than just their own "official" apps (since in all cases, the apps were given away for free)--giving them a chance to participate in wider revenue shares and brand awareness in the process.  Not to mention the opportunity to get consumers more engaged in the process, lengthening their viewing time of the first screen (the real goal after all).

Looking forward to discussing this controversial view @ IBC on September 8th.

Hope to see you there.

@ChuckParkerTech

Preparing for Second Screen at IBC

July 26, 2012 Second Screen doesn't appear to have taken much of a summer break since our 2nd Screen Society conference in NY on June 26th.  Discovery just recently announced a new Social TV app, Yahoo and Twitter announced support for the Olympics, and two official Apps have been launched for the Olympics (London 2012: Join In and London 2012: Results). While I am disappointed that I didn't see a synchronized app come out of the official Olympic camp, I would expect 3rd party apps to be all over the games when they kick-off tomorrow on the 27th of July (you see can these headline articles here). If you are in the UK, I would highly recommend trying Zeebox for the experience. If you are based in the US, TVplus runs a great synchronized experience as well (see our app review from a few weeks ago).

Something else new and interesting happened this week in Europe: Grolsch decided to sponsor a movie experience app for Alliance Films (built by Mobovivo). I can't help but think of the monetization panel we had back in NY where a debate about how and when "real" monetization might reveal itself, but this might be as classic as it gets in terms of brand sponsorship: a major brand from the Netherlands in Europe sponsoring a 2nd Screen app built around perhaps one of the hottest movie franchise creators this summer (Alliance distributes the Hunger Games).



And thinking about the classic Dutch beer with a flip top made me immediately think about IBC. This year the show is about a week earlier than normal, starting officially on Thursday, September 6th, in Amsterdam. We have managed to secure a location for a late afternoon of discussions and cocktails on Saturday the 8th at the Okura Hotel. I am looking forward to key notes, panels and passionate discussions about how 2nd screen is developing in Europe, expecting some of our European-based members to help deliver a great program (Civolution, RedBee, Kit Digital) and expecting some great announcements around the show, which is generally the heralding event of the fall for the TV Broadcast world.

So kick back and enjoy the Olympics over the next few weeks and keep thinking about the Grolsch sponsored app from Mobovivo--then let's share one and talk about what's next for 2nd Screen on the 8th in Amsterdam at IBC.

@ChuckPakerTech

Better than bonus material? What Second Screen could do for title sell-thru

July 17, 2012 When DVD's first arrived on the scene back in the late '90s, the majority of consumers thought they were a significant leap ahead of VHS tapes because of their size, ability to quickly access anywhere on the disc, better picture quality, etc.  But as the industry realized the opportunity to create a sell-thru model (vs. the rental model with VHS), they started trying to figure out what it would take to get consumers to collect or gift DVD's (the biggest reason for purchases).

Breathing Digital – Is Second Screen a fad or the growing slope of a demographic mountain?

July 10, 2012 I was having that familiar discussion in London last week about what 2nd screen was and whether or not this was a real market trend or just an overhyped fad.  Of course, it is always hard to know these things before they happen (else we would all be very rich), but in thinking through a new way to answer beyond stating the most recent statistics of 80%+ people using a 2nd screen while watching TV only to hear the the person I am speaking to me immediately tell me they never do, etc, I thought about a key note I saw at a conference in 1999.



That's right, 1999.  Do you remember those days?  The dot com world was still full of joy and optimism about taking over the world and "e-business" was still a buzz word.  I was fortunate enough to see Don Tapscott speaking about his new book, "Growing Up Digital: The Rise of the Net Generation".  He was engaging and even funny, but what really stuck with me for the last 13 years is the way he described his kids reaction to one of his prouder moments a few years earlier when he was demonstrating how to surf the web on a public television show.  His kids were utterly underwhelmed, "Why don't we film me getting milk out of the fridge, dad, or changing the TV channel?"  His point was that our children who were growing up then (Generation Y) would live and breathe this stuff, and as a result, use it in ways we couldn't even imagine (think Twitter).

I had my own first confirmation of this when my daughter was seven and after returning from vacation, we tried to finish off a disposable underwater camera I had taken snorkeling with us.  She quickly grabbed the camera after the shot and turned it around, expecting to see the digital image on the back--she had never seen a camera in her young life without one.

Now that my children at 9 and 13, I can see giant changes approaching in the way that they live digitally.  They prefer texting over phoning.  They don't use email, opting for Facebook messaging or even Instagram instead.  They will never know what a bedroom or playroom TV is (having lived with an iPad for every other room in the house).  And as I watch them around the living room, it is clear they will likely only very rarely experience a film, TV show or sporting event without a second screen.  While we are currently astounded by the stats in the industry (80%+ using second screens, 30%+ engaging in content related to the 1st screen, etc), these stats are going to continue to grow as the generation Y and generation M (Millennial) grow up and get their own smart phones and tablets.

If you think this is still just anecdotal evidence, look at the two graphs I found on the population age demographic curve and its impact recently for growth in online banking.

Your question shouldn't be "Will this happen with enough scale to matter?"  Your question should be "How do I leverage this changing consumer behavior to affect my business, improve my consumer engagement, or better monetize my part of the value chain?"

Enjoy your summer.

@ChuckParkerTech

An industry lunging forward – 2nd Screen shows visible progress

July 3, 2012

I think all of us in attendance last week in NYC at the 2nd Screen Summit were partly excited and partly surprised at how much progress this nascent industry has continued to make.  For example, in February there was some high level discussion about what it would take for the game console market to develop 2nd screen apps and most of the cocktail-hour pundits predicted the gaming segment would move as slow as they produce next generation consoles–at a snail’s pace.  Only a few weeks ago, the entire media industry lamented on why Steve Ballmer would launch yet again another tablet–but all of us were very wrong.  Microsoft’s Xbox team has been quietly but quickly developing concepts for 2nd screen user experiences (aka “SmartGlass”) for the range of consumers who love everything about their gaming consoles.

An industry lunging forward – Second Screen industry shows visible progress

July 3, 2012 And while everything demonstrated was admittedly demo-code, Ron Pressner did an excellent job delivering an eye-opening view of the potential of the platform that they are building for developers.  Imagine being immersed in a complex role-playing game (RPG) and using your smart phone or tablet to look at the map or get more details on the kinds of characters and adversaries you face.  Imagine singing karaoke and being able to search for songs and queue them up while someone else is singing (seems so obvious that you wonder we ever lived without it).  How about a homerun game where the pitcher traces the path of the pitch on their smartphone that then becomes the pitch for the player on the Kinnect-driven console or watching your favorite movie and having a constantly updating set of actors bios on your smart phone or tablet--or better yet, a fly over map that updates based on where the scene for the Game of Thrones currently is, with all the lore and mystique of the location tied in for you in real time.  More exciting for the industry--Microsoft is building a platform with an SDK to facilitate 3rd party development.

Second Screen by the Numbers Q2 2012

June 27, 2012 This is the third time we have tried to summarize the big numbers demonstrating 2nd screens progress in the marketplace--the first time was just before CES in January of this year, and the second time was in March of this year.  Well the market is not standing still and as our 2nd Screen Summit is about to kickoff in New York City, here is a recap of the activity over the past few months:

• 1,700,000 Social media comments during the NFL draft
• 193% increase in social activity during primetime TV since last year
• 67 million iPads have been sold since its launch, 62% market share
• 40% growth year on year in online video advertising
• $3.1 billion predicted expenditure on online video advertising in 2012
• 45% of consumers, while watching television, look for info related to the show
• 518,475 Social media comments made during the New  Girl Season 1 Finale
• 1% of people who “like” or “fan” a brand on Facebook, actually engage with the brand or buy their products
• 242,000 Comments made during the True Blood Season 5 premiere
• 31% of television viewing on a device other than a television
• 1,200,000 Social media comments made during the American Idol Season 11 Finale
• 23% of adults age 25-54 most likely follow a brand through social networking sites

A feature ranking of 3rd party Second Screen Apps

June 21, 2012 Over the last 9 months, I have been reviewing second screen apps from all walks of life in this blog--apps for specific TV series or film titles, apps from cable/telco/satellite operators, apps from broadcast networks, sports league apps, major event apps, and of course apps built by "third parties" designed to cover multiple networks, titles, TV series, events, and sports.  The last time I did a feature summary of the major apps out there was shortly after CES.  Most of the apps have improved there feature set since then and as a background to the 2nd Screen Summit next week in NYC, I thought it would be a good time to review them again.



Keep in mind that I have grouped second screen capabilities into 5 major feature sets (explained further in this blog) based on their ability to control the 1st screen (Simple), to connect viewers (Social), to aggregate multiple content sources (Seamless), to engage the consumer (Stimulating), and to allow the consumer to find relevant new content (Discovery).  I gave them a score of high (green), medium (yellow), low (red) or absent (black).  Furthermore, bear in mind that some of the apps are not yet available in the US (zeebox, M-GO) or are about to re-launch (Dijit).


I am sure this will stimulate some good conversation next week in NYC.  See you there!

10 Second Screen Apps to Watch in 2012

June 19, 2012 The last time we published an app summary was just before the CES show this year in early January  and then again leading up to our 2nd Screen Summit in LA in mid-Febraury.  While the nascent 2nd screen app market segment has been exploding with new apps for shows, network channels, movies, major events, and sports all over the place, 3rd party apps have been quietly improving themselves and trying to find their way into more consumer living rooms.  As we prepare for another Second Screen Summit on June 27th in NYC, we should pause and review the progress those 3rd party apps have been making.



There has also been some retraction.  In our January and February summaries, we mentioned an app called Umami which we reviewed and mentioned several times in this blog. When you visit that app on your iPad today, you get a message indicating they have closed their beta running of the app--but it has been like this for several months now, begging the question if it will ever re-open.

So what is the trend with 3rd party apps (those apps that try to cover a range of TV shows, movies, networks, sporting events, etc)? All of them are improving their Social capabilities (better integration with Facebook where the app can understand your friends and the TV shows/movies you have liked, curated and time-anchored Twitter feeds to help with spoilers). Many of them have made efforts to improve their integration with the living room device ecosystem (Simple), with BuddyTV continuing to lead the pack here. All of the apps have improved their user interfaces (UI's) and continue to improve their Stimulating feature sets (better information about the shows, some real-time and time-anchored content synchronization, and even show-based trivia and games). Some of them have expanded their efforts in the Seamless integration of content sources, adding Amazon, Hulu and even Xfinity to the popular sources of Netflix and iTunes. And all of them continue to try to implement some better level of search, recommendation and Discovery--perhaps the killer app of the 3rd party space (when combined with Seamless and Simple)--with Matcha, Fanhattan and BuddyTV leading the pack in this regard.

A few noteable newcomers (at least this blog last did a major summary) are:
1. Matcha. Launched their iPad launch in mid-March (review here) and has continued to improve its primary reason to exist--search and recommendation (aiming for Discovery). It has expanded its Seamless integration of content sources and has tried to implement better recommendation algorithms. It still lacks integration with the 1st screen (when you hit play, it plays on your iPad), you can rely on Airplay if you have AppleTV to solve that last 10 ft. problem.

2. TV Dinner. Launched in mid-January (review here), mostly focused around a few network shows on the East Coast timezone. They have expanded their shows and timezone efforts since then, but continue to have a primary focus around engaging consumers in social aspects and gaming/trivia during the show airing.

Some of our January front runners continue to improve their user experience (UX). Most notably:

3. BuddyTV. Improved Seamless integration with services (Amazon, iTunes, Netflix) and released further updates on TV operators (Dish, DirecTV, AT&T, Tivo). They have also improved their social feature set, allowing for better leverage of your Facebook for recommendations and communication with friends.

4. Fanhattan in HD.  Has taken their focus on Stimulating features to the next level, updated their app to an "HD" quality for the iPad3 retina display.  They have also improved their search, recommendation, and Discovery features, adding in some pre-populated genre and power searches for faster, easier browsing and recommendations.

5. TVplus. Launched a new UI, allowing the consumer to more easily focus on what Stimulating information is being delivered with thru their curated (and time-anchored) Twitter feed or their information snippets on facts, trivia, shopping and advertising opportunities.

6. ConnecTV.  Has continued to add supported shows and improved the UX by allowing the consumer to "tune" to a show vs. having to use audio to sync to the show.  They continue to deliver real value for news and sports programs, though the synchronized information delivered for TV shows still feels a bit canned.

7. Viggle.  Has continued to add shows, delivering trivia and game experiences for consumers who then get "paid" in free gift certificates and also try to win larger prizes.

Finally, there are three strong players who have yet to really enter the US market, but will do so soon and will be forces to reckon with in the battle for consumer loyalty.

8. zeebox. Rumored to be making a launch in the US soon, launched in the UK in late 2011 (review here).  They have a great app that focuses on real-time content synchronization with "zeetags" enabling consumers to quickly jump to more detailed information about subjects or advertising and they offer some level of control (Simple) of living room devices.

9. M-GO. Rumored to be launching in the fall (review here), will most likely look like a combination of BuddyTV and Fanhattan that also provides and additional source of content which is their own catalog with studios. Look for them to be integrated in Samsung and Vizio devices this fall.

10. Dijit. Rumored to be relaunching app this month (previous review here), which was previously focused on "Control" (Simple) with integration with the Griffin IR beacon. I saw an early demo of the app and think you will find the new UI and feature set refreshing and helpful to TV watchers everywhere.


So, while there are still more than 100 apps out in the wild for consumers to get their second screen companion experiences, I think these are the 10 to watch for the rest of 2012. There will continue to be great reasons to use an app built for a specific major event or a specific film or TV show (as those content creators continue maintaining exclusive content access thru their own apps) and there will be better device control from operators and CE manufacturers as they continue to hold some features back for their own apps, but I predict the majority of the innovation that will drive the growth of this industry will still come from the 3rd party apps whose only business model is finding a way to engage the consumer in repeat use in the hopes of monetizing that experience in the very near future.

Building critical title mass for digital video services

May 31, 2012 In the on demand video world, title availability can either help or hinder consumer adoption.  Finally ready to try a new digital video service but can't find your favorite more or a new release?  This experience just pushes you back to the physical world (Amazon.com and Netflix disc rental).  As the content industry is a few years into an effort designed to increase digital sell-thru (vs. digital rental and subscription services) in an attempt to improve their overall margin structure as physical sell-thru continues to decline, they have developed UltraViolet as a way to encourage consumers to build a digital catalog at home, across multiple services, DRMs, and devices, to gain the freedom they experience with physical DVD or Blu-ray.  The most obvious way to do this today is thru Walmart's Disc to Digital program on their Vudu digital video service.



A few weeks ago, while reviewing the Walmart / Vudu disc to digital program, I was surprised at how few titles of my desired catalog were available on Netflix (I had assumed a large percentage of the DVD's in my closet would be available on Netflix).

Intrigued by this, I decided to explore further over the past few weeks and decided to check the availability of titles in a proverbial "Top 100" list for various digital video services. In addition to checking on the Disc to Digital service (still nascent), I thought I would check iTunes, Vudu and Amazon (digital rental and sell-thru) as well as Netflix and Amazon Prime streaming and compare them to what should be the "gold standard"--available for sale on DVD or Blu-ray from Amazon.com.

The first step in any good comparison is the source of the data. I combed thru the AFI (American Film Institute), AMC (theatre chain) and IMDB top 100 lists (IMDB does a top 250). I wanted to make sure the list was some what representative of the demographic for digital video consumers, and based on my view of the titles in the list (and the method of selection--IMDB takes consumer voting), I chose the IMDB list. Note of caution here--Amazon owns IMDB.

Not surprising at all, 99 of the Top 100 titles were available for sale on Amazon.com in the DVD format (our gold standard). The only title not yet for sales on DVD was the recently released Avengers movie, which won't release on DVD until this fall. 88% of the titles were available on Blu-ray for sale from Amazon.com--an indicator that not all Top 100 titles are viewed equally by their rights owners.


Also not surprising, Netflix offers 96% of those titles for physical rental thru their mail-based subscription service.

So, as a consumer, if I can wait 24-48 hours (Prime and Netflix shipping service levels), I can have access to all the titles that matter (pretty much).

But what if I want it NOW? Or if I don't want to deal with the physical good hassle? Your best bet is digital sell-thru (SD), with iTunes in the lead at 82%, followed by Amazon at 77% and Vudu at 73%. This is a factor of the complicated windowing of rental vs. subscription video on demand (SVOD), and in recent years, digital sell-thru has escaped this availability problem.

But what if I wanted it now but don't have $7-$20 of appetite for my entertainment? The best best is digital rental (SD), and here Amazon and iTunes are tied at 72%, with Vudu trailing at 62%.

Have to have it immediately on HD you say? Surprisingly, your better option of availability is digital rental across the board, lead by Vudu at 59%, Amazon at 57% and iTunes at 52%. Oddly enough, digital sell thru for the HD format was held back by security concerns and perceived canibalization of Blu-ray sales.

Really want to own the HD version digitally? Amazon takes the lead here, with 54% of title available, followed by Vudu at 42% and iTunes at 34%.

What if you are that value consumer who is willing to wait until the window opens up for a streaming option? You will be disappointed as a paltry 13% of titles are available on Netflix and another 10% are available on Amazon Prime.

And if you have those Top 100 titles in your closet and want to watch them on your iPad? Before you drive to Walmart for the disc to digital conversion, check your titles on their site as only 42% are available in the SD format and a mere 15% are available in HD (again, the UltraViolet capability is still nascent in the market place).

What conclusions can you draw from this?

- Streaming (SVOD) services are not for new release windows--we already knew that with delays being 45 days to 6 months depending on the title an HBO (or Sky in the UK) exclusivity. But even if you just want to watch some great older titles, they are just not there.

- You can have access to a large number of the Top 100 titles digitally one way or another (70-80% if you are willing to live with SD quality and purchase the title). You will find that most new releases are available for sale in both HD and SD the day of the DVD release while some digital rental is still pushed by 2-3 weeks from that day (encourages you to buy more vs. rent more).

- If you have a collection of the greatest titles in your closet, the industry isn't quite yet ready for you to try to convert it in any meaningful way via UltraViolet.

Looking for evidence of the “Digital Living Room” of the future

May 24, 2012
So my take this week on the rather lightly attended 2012 Cable Show is that there were no big “a-ha’s” for the consumer, and while the large cable companies are making progress, they are moving slowly.

Who is going to disrupt the Pay TV industry?

May 17, 2012 I've spent the last few weeks having renewed discussions with a variety of people whose opinion I respect in this space, including those in the Twitter-sphere, the blogosphere, and in plain old real life, and with the NCTA Cable Show happening in Boston next week, I think it is the right time to open this debate up again.

The debate is simple: Who is going to disrupt the current Pay TV industry?

A few months ago at the OTT Con in Santa Clara, I had this discussion in spades with many of the participants in the would-be "cable killer" world (most of whom themselves are "cord cutters" or at least "cord thinners").  My take aways after those discussions were that it was incredibly premature to even think about "Over the Top" or "broadband" video killing the established Pay TV operators like Comcast, DirecTV and Verizon because only the metrics had indicated that all of the current players combined had only made a minor dent in TV Viewing (3 hours of online viewing vs. 34 of traditional viewing per week, 2% of the $200B TV advertising spent on "on-line" video) and that so far the only business being disrupted in a serious manner was DVD sell-thru, which was suffering as much from physical Netflix and the shift from purchase to rental as it was from digital Netflix.  My brief conclusion then was simple: Large pay TV operators were bringing in an average monthly bill per household of close to $100 (ARPU) and the would be disruptors were still in the sub-$15 range and those Pay TV operators were "Striking Back" with their own TV Everywhere solutions, so any would-be survivors in the next 3-5 years would have to deliver an incredibly compelling user experience (UX) centered around Discovery (likely on the second screen).



Gigaom tried to articulate this a little more clearly in a recent article (that perhaps started this debate anew) called the 7 ways Comcast is killing the cable killers.  In short, large operators have implemented a multi-pronged strategy of defensive and offensive initiatives including blocking peer-to-peer (P2P) traffic, prioritizing traffic on their network (ie giving their own video priority), implementing data caps and data cap exceptions (for their own TV Everywhere traffic), and unleashing offensive TV Everywhere strategies to counter Netflix and Hulu's impact (StreamPix, authenticated Hulu, HBO Go, etc).


But perhaps we should take a step back and look at the wider "home entertainment" industry and look at what is driving content creators, distributors and consumers to change their business practices and viewing habits.  Despite the recent decline in the physical media segment of the industry (DVDs and Blu-rays), physical media still represents 47% (~$15B) of the "pay for play" video consumption market, while Pay TV has been slowly growing its share at 34% (~$11B, not including sports) and what we would affectionally call "Digital" (including PPV, VOD, SVOD, and EST) represents only 19% (~$6B), though this is the fastest growing segment.  Since it is unlikely that consumers are going to significantly increase the amount of hours of video they watch (who has 37 hours anyway?), we should assume that any further growth in digital will either come at the expense of the physical DVD world or the Pay TV networks.  Since Pay TV has continued to grow during the expansion of digital, it is probably a safe assumption that it will either slow its growth or stay flat in the next 3-5 years while physical media continues to decline.


But when you dig deeper into the economics behind all of this, you find out that the big money makers for the content creators and distributors are Pay TV packages and the sell-thru of movies and the least profitable segments are the subscription digital services and the subscription physical rental services.  Combine this with the sheer weight and power of the major Pay TV Operators (Comcast has 22m subscribers, similar to Netflix, but at nearly 10x the revenue on average) where the top 4 players (Comcast, DirecTV, Dish, and TimeWarner Cable) make up 61% of the US pay TV subscriber market, and you can imagine they have commensurate purchasing power with the content creators to secure the same rights that Netflix and Hulu have without additional costs.

Ok, so what does that mean?

The content creators need to find a way to reduce the impact of the two least profitable market segments on their business.  They need to:

• convert physical rental to digital rental (where they change their economics from a ~25% split to a ~70% split), 
• provide consumers a reason to purchase content digitally vs. renting, and 
• support their large Pay TV customers in their battle with the disruptors who are delivering the most impact on subscription digital rental.  

Practically, this means they:

• support digital rental windows that are on par with the physical windows by supporting Apple/iTunes, Vudu, Amazon and of course Pay TV Operator VOD while constantly reducing the viability of physical rental distributors (pushing the Netflix and RedBox windows out past the digital rental windows or forcing them to buy from Wal-mart and others instead),
• put tremendous effort behind UltraViolet and Disc to Digital programs so that consumers can build a digital library of owned titles and attempt to drive household movie purchases per year from the current average of 7 back towards its 2004 zenith of 14, and
• empower Comcast in their StreamPix efforts, support the TV Everywhere models of DirecTV and Dish's Blockbuster, and consistently ratchet up the content cost for Netflix to acquire their content to a price on par with their subscriber base (meaning they pay the same as Comcast for content deals).

Returning to Wal-mart to try the Disc to Digital conversion to Vudu again

May 8, 2012 Since I visited Walmart previously on the day they first opened their service, I thought I would give them a few weeks to work out the kinks and try again.  I also thought I would test my own theory that I put forward in several blogs (What is holding back digital sell-thru?, Converting your physical disc library to a digital locker).  The short summary of that discussion was that if I had the supposed average 80+ titles in my library as the average consumer, I would find that only 75% would be available on Netflix (reducing the need to purchase) and of the remaining 25%, half would not be available for conversion on Walmart / Vudu.

So what happened?

Well, it turns out I have more than the 400+ titles I thought I had previously.  I have 525 titles in the house (not your average consumer).  Even at $1 a title, I am not willing to pay $525 to have access to this whole library digitally.  So I went thru a fast filtering process:  Would I watch this movie more than 1 more time (ie 1x per year)?  It meant the real "keepers" (for my household) were cult-ish fan movies (Matrix trilogy, Lord of the Rings, Batman, the Marvel Avenger series, Mission Impossible, etc), kids movies (mostly Disney and DreamWorks titles), holiday classics (Home Alone, Christmas Vacation, etc), and classic comedies (The Blues Brothers, Eurotrip, American Pie, Austin Powers, etc).

I came up with 170 titles (32% of my catalog) I thought were worth spending the money on converting to digital under the premise that I would watch them more than 1 more time (otherwise, I would rent since we know the average cost will be $3.50+ per title to convert and renting is not much more and is money spent later when I will watch it instead of now when I might watch it in the future).

Then I started determining which titles I would convert to Vudu / UltraViolet.  While I know that titles move in and out of availability on Netflix, I don't think the average consumer understands that at all.  So my simple logic was that if it was available on Netflix, I would not convert it to digital at Walmart.  I was shocked (and even double checked my process) that only 18 of 170 titles were available on Netflix (11% of the 170 chosen titles).  Netflix losing the Starz catalog (which covered many Disney titles) is a bigger loss than I think was anticipated by all.  In an article in February (a few days before the change), Netflix said they would replace all but 15 of the Disney titles.  That certainly does not appear to be the case as just about every kids' DVD title I have (the stuff they watch over and over again) from Disney and from the other studios is NOT available on Netflix.

While the numbers for UltraViolet / Vudu were higher than Netflix (68 of the 170 keepers or 40% of the target), it is no where near large enough to encourage wholesale consumer adoption at any price point.  Clearly, the desire to have the kids titles, driven mostly by Disney titles, was the biggest contributor to the loss here (probably 20+ titles), but there were also numerous other non-studio titles missing (eg the BBC contributions like Blue Planet, Walking With Dinosaurs, etc).

So I chose 30 of those 68 title (some were available on Netflix, some I just re-filtered) and went to Walmart.  I had high expectations because Vudu made a new feature available online where you can check the title availability and then print the list and take it with you to Walmart which then in turn saves them the data entry process--in theory speeding the whole process up dramatically.  The experience was unfortunately worse than it was on April 16th.  The sweet lady who last time had so much patience was out of it entirely.  I still had to fill in a form--she could not explain why, but rather gruffly told me I had to do so.  I didn't have to re-enter all of the titles, luckily.  We then went thru the list title by title, checking that each of the discs was available and ran into our first major problem--one of my Austin Powers discs was missing.  I said no problem, just remove it.  She said quite adamantly it was not possible.  I asked what my options were and she said I could get management over here, but there was nothing she or any of them could do as the system would not let them remove anything--I was told to go home and find the disc or come back with a new list.  Refusing to be defeated, I let another customer go before me and thought about how they had designed this process.  The printout was itself not material--it was the saved catalog in my account they were accessing.  I pulled out my iPhone, logged into the Vudu site and removed that title from my list.  I didn't print it (I was in the store after all), but she was able to check that it was in fact out of her view of the title list.  Problem solved.

Then we hit the second major snag.  The system in their photo processing center had to print a label to be attached to the paper work before she could ask for my credit card and then stamp my discs.  But that same label maker was constantly being accessed by the photo center as orders from their on-line photo service came in and it printed labels for their pickup.  It kept failing to access the label maker (timing out each time) and took nearly an hour to get thru (after 20+ attempts from the attendant).  When it finally printed the label, her colleague was able to stamp all of the discs, take my credit card, and send me on my way.

Summary

After 30 minutes in the car and 90 minutes in the store, I only ended up with 26 DVDs converted (I had to pull 3 before I left because they were suddenly not available on the Walmart list and had the 1 missing disc).  I paid $121 or an average of $4.65 per title for the right to access those titles digitally (streamed to my PS3 or iPad) presumably anywhere in the US.





If the average consumer has 80 titles in their library and filters in a similar manner, they would be faced converting 25 titles and likely finding 10 of them available for a cost of $47.

The conclusions for the industry and the consumer:

• I just think getting the consumer to fork over $47 for 10 titles they already own for the pleasure of watching them streamed to the iPad is going to be a challenge.  Why not encourage them to spend the level, but for 50 titles (an offer for $1 per conversion at 50 or more DVDs)?  That builds a digital library.
• College-aged kids (with more time than money) are going to rip DVDs vs. spending 2 hours in Walmart and $47.  If the become a target demographic, something different needs to be done.
• The studios seem to have reduced the premium title availability at Netflix pretty effectively.  It looks like Netflix is negotiating for strong titles shortly after they are available, but then letting them leave their library 6-12 months later.  
• This is good for the studios because it creates a reason to purchase digitally, but will not work without signficant education efforts (ie marketing).  
• This also spells DOOM for Netflix if the education to the consumer works.  It truly means Netflix is a late window video service full of titles that may have once been "A" titles, but have little long term value.  Said differently, it is a service to use when watching something, almost anything, is better than trying to find that same poor content on your cable provider's channel listing.
• Walmart clearly needs to improve the actual service itself.  I should be able to drop off my DVDs in a box/bag with the list, shop in their store for 20 minutes, and return.  Having to wait at the counter for 90 minutes is a definite service failure that needs to be addressed.
• Walmart or Amazon should promote a DVD catalog service (iPhone app with bar code scanner) that allows me to track what I do have in my catalog (some independent ones exist for the iPhone, Amazon has the inklings of this service on their website).  It would provide the consumer with a service capability so that I am not renting a title I already own.  It would provide the merchant with an opportunity to tell me when it becomes available for conversion.  It could provide recommendation and discovery engines with valuable seed data to improve the recommendations for watching new content.
• Ultraviolet needs to drive a consistent consumer experience across all titles (HD availability, streamed or downloaded to a core set of devices including the iPad and several TV service options). 

My Review of the Walking Dead Second Screen app built by Red Bee Media

May 4, 2012 There has been a huge amount of discussion in the trade press and blogosphere about what consumers are doing on their second screen and if they should be engaged in them at all. Certainly in this blog, we have discussed that one reason they might want to engage is to get access to more Stimulating content--everything from stats for sports fans to more detailed information about the show or even commerce opportunities.

Well the Walking Dead FX app built by Red Bee Media is certainly the most stimulating app a fan could hope for. If you are not familiar with the show, it is in essence a show about zombies and the humans who are trying to survive in a world full of them. That means lots and lots of zombies need to be killed--perhaps the attraction of the show itself. This app capitalizes on that fundamental "raison d'etre" of the show--by creating a game out of trying to predict who will kill the most zombies in a particular episode, what will be the most used weapn for the kills, and what the final kill count will be at the end of the show.


The UI is simple and clean. You have the opportunity to check out trailers, previous kills, etc, but once you click into the main portion of the app, it starts to sync via audio-based ACR (automatic content recognition) to determine what episode you are watching. It offers you choices of human killers and their weapons for the episode--and of course the kill count prediction. That's it! You then just watch the episode and as the kills unfold, the app (using audio ACR) lets you know who killed that zombie and with what weapon, and the kill count tally rises by one. A perfect combination of a passive experience (you can glance down or not as desired) that is incredibly Stimulating for the demographic of the fans of this show.

At the end of the show, your score is tallied (based on your predictions) and you are then offered the opportunity to share your prowess with your friends via Facebook and Twitter.

Does this sound like an book-end use case (ie no one is going to use it)? So far (according Broadcast Magazine), the show's live broadcast has roughly 324,000 viewers (1.2m when you count the +1 and PVR viewings).  About 20% of the live viewers (5% total viewers) of the Walking Dead in the UK have downloaded the app (63,000+ times so far) and have played the game over 340,000 times (nearly 6 times each).

Honestly, the only disappointing part of this app is that it is only available for use in the UK. I've been saying that consumers need a reason to pick up the tablet or smart phone if you want them to engage with your show--FX and Red Bee Media have certainly found a great reason for the consumer to do so.

Why is Discovery so hard to implement for video services?

April 26, 2012 Last week, Google said it was trying to tackle one of the hardest problems on the internet -- video Discovery.

Looking at consumer video services (Netflix, Hulu, Amazon and even GoogleTV) and their second screen counterparts (Matcha, Fanhattan, BuddyTV, etc), the admission of the challenge is painfully evident in the user interface the consumer faces and the result of the Discovery process.

But let's back up a bit first. What is Discovery? How does it relate to Search and Recommendation? I think we will find wide agreement that the concept of Search is one where you know what you are looking for and are trying to find it. Now this can be more complex than "Where can I find a legal version of Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol that I can watch in my living room right now?" (which itself can be challenging in today's service offerings).  It is not usually as complex as the problem Shazam solves in the music industry ("what is the name of that song that sounds like..."), but can be difficult (I know the actor who was in the movie or what it was about). Search is decidedly a "lean forward" experience, and as most of us have found out over the last 5 years, it incredibly difficult to implement on a 10-foot remote experience, with various virtual keyboards or fancy remotes trying to help us solve this problem.



Recommendation is also relatively straight forward as a concept. Usually, it starts with features I have already seen that I like or genres I know I like and then asking a friend or a service to recommend something similar in hopes that the movie or TV show may also appeal. The simplest approach here is what we all know as the "Amazon" approach (people who watched that movie, also watched this movie). It can also be incredibly complex, taking into account your social network, what is currently popular, what movies or TV shows you have already seen, and what genres you like.

So what is Discovery? In this blog, I have often defined it by the service's ability to suggest relevant and interesting content to the user in a very simple, "lean back" user experience. In the real world, this might be akin to the difference between "do you have filet mignon?" (Search) vs. "I heard the fresh lobster here is amazing" (Recommendation) vs. the chef preparing a tasting menu of courses based on some consideration of what you don't like/are allergic to and his particular culinary skills (Discovery). Discovery suggests that you are going to end up watching something you didn't know you were looking for, but will very likely enjoy.

So why is this so hard to accomplish that even the mighty Google is struggling with it? The challenge is very likely in the detailed nuances of our likes and dislikes of videos. For example, "Space Balls" and "Aliens" are both science fiction, but hardly even remotely similar movies. Additionally, you may have liked the latest Mission Impossible because it is a spy movie, or an action movie, or a Tom Cruise movie--or it could have been you actually prefer movies where there is suspense, drama, gunfire, intrigue, and scantily clad heroines--but that may be difficult for you to describe yourself, but you know what you like when you see it. Lately, some of the video services have started to attack this nuance a little more directly by featuring complex genre options such as "goofy family comedies" (Netflix) or "epic heists" (Fanhattan).

Another contributing problem is the user interface, or more broadly, the user experience. For example, imagine the PC market before the mouse and graphical interface--no amount of amazing desktop publishing algorithm could solve a problem without a change in the way the user interacts with the program.

So let's consider what we are trying to accomplish again: a "lean back" experience akin to the way we surf channels these days in the living room, but that quickly and easily delivers something for us to sample with ever increasing probability of success. This very likely means the majority of Discovery experiences will need to take place on a 2-foot remote (tablet/smartphone), especially since its more mature siblings Search and Recommendation are likely to be more effective there.

Let's look at what might be important in that user interface. "Lean back" implies quick and easy, without much thought. Let's agree here that we want to find something worth sampling at least in 3 clicks/gestures. Additionally, let's consider the famous Columbia & Stanford University "When Choice is Demotivating" which concluded that consumers faced with 6 choices had a reasonable buy rate, but when faced with 36 choices, those same consumers shut down and walked away. So, as we look for a good UI, let's agree that any presentation that requires a significant amount of processing (by our brain), a significant number of clicks/typing/gestures, or presents too many choices at any given point is not going to work well.

So what is out there then?



Netflix said recently in their tech blog that 75% of their streamed content is the result of their recommendations. I think this is more likely a factor of the consumer use case for Netflix (I am bored and want to watch something, almost anything) than an indication of their algorithm's success. While the recently implemented Just For Kids vs. Adult UX is a good start, the recommendation service still struggles because there is no distinction of which members of the household are using the service at any given point, giving me recommendations on Dinosaur content and Gossip Girl and suggesting spy thrillers to my 8-year old son and wife. Further, their UI is based on a concept of rows of choices related to an algorithm choice ("Top 10 for this account", "Popular with Members Like Me", "Like: a recent title I watched") that presents at least 18 choices on the screen at once with a scrolling access to 12 rows (72 choices).  Too much.

Hulu has an anemic "Featured" (stuff someone is paying them to put in front of you) and "Most Popular" (think Top 40 radio) set of categories. At first glance you seem to be presented with only 9 choices, but the scrolling begs you to look down through row after row, presenting hundreds of choices.

Amazon has been absent on the iPad, with only their web browser as a 2-foot interface (no app), and the experience is absolutely painful. The company that built the recommendation culture has fallen flat here. To be fair, their PS3 experience has "Best of Prime", "Popular Movies" and "Popular TV", but that doesn't match with my expectations from them.

Vudu comes up significantly short with only "Top Picks" as a real category on the iPad experience. Their PS3 experience is more like Amazon's (popular rental titles, popular purchases, etc).











BuddyTV, a popular second screen app known for enabling you to Simply control your DirecTV and AT&T set top box and to recommend shows on right now from Netflix, Amazon or your channel service provider, does have a rather cool seeding process for their algorithm (asking you your preferences on a short list of movies and integrating your Facebook Likes to try to guess what you like) and presents them directly to you with only 5 initial choices (good). They do fall prey again to the scrolling process (seemingly endless choice) and separated visual choices for OTT video services from the channel line-up (oddly enough).









Fanhattan, a well-regarded second screen app known for its ability to provide tons of Stimulating content about a movie or TV show, does provide a decent filterable genre and category approach, including things like what your friends most or recently liked, but its "similar to this movie" recommendation feature is buried deep in the UI and while a powerful way to discover content, is too complex ro be "lean back" and get you there in 3 clicks/gestures.





Matcha is an app that is designed to be a "2nd screen as your 1st screen" recommendation experience, linking directly to your Netflix, Hulu and Facebook, and in theory launching you directly to those services when you pick a feature (except for Amazon, since they do not have an app). They actually do a slightly better job than Netflix, but they fall prey to the "row UI" approach, cluttering your decision field with 3 rows of 6 choices at any given time and oddly burying the recommendations row down below the initial screen, but at least limit the rows to 5 in numbers (but seemingly infinite choice to the right). They do a very good job of indicating the logic behind some of their recommendations (showing small thumbnails of Facebook friends if they have seen it or the Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB logos and ratings for the most popular content.


So apparently implementing Discovery is very hard, as the great list of companies above haven't really licked the UI/UX yet, and despite claims on performance of the recommendations themselves, the average consumer would not rave about the results either.

I think you will see two major efforts in this space in the near future:
  1) a continuous effort to improve the UI so that consumers can be presented with multiple paths to a recommendation (genre, friends, popular, new), but that allows a limited number of clicks/gestures to get to an increasingly better set of results quickly, and

  2) further effort on the algorithms themselves to better harness the nuances of the videos we like to watch and integrating that information more seamlessly with input from our social networks, our stated preferences, and external events (new releases, movie awards, etc).

I am sure all of us wish Netflix and the 2nd screen apps the best of luck in solving this since all of us would have a happier 37 hours in our week...

@ChuckParkerTech
www.chuckparker.tv

Thoughts on Using Audio Sync for Automated Content Recognition in Second Screen Apps

April 20, 2012 (this originally appeared in Civolution's Vision Newsletter at NAB 2012)


 Let’s start by reviewingthe consumer value options first.  Can weuse ACR to affect the first screen? Absolutely.  Think Flingo here.  If the TV or the 2^nd screen knowswhat content is playing, it can change audio, change content sources, pauseautomatically (when you are exploring something deep on the 2^ndscreen), etc.  Can we use ACR for socialfeatures?  The check-in is an obviouscase which saves the consumer from having to type in the show name, etc.  It could even describe the scene you arewatching or the play that just occurred in a game and pre-populate your Tweet(NCAA March Madness does this for cheering). Probably the most valuable feature set to the consumer is providingadditional Stimulation.  You can providesynchronized experiences, deliver engaging commerce or product information,provide contextual facts, trivia, the latest scores, stats, etc, etc.  Discovery could be the most appealing featurewhen combined with knowledge of the user (ie which member of the household)which would be used to keep track of what they really watch for purposes ofproviding better recommendations and discovery.

Thoughts on Using Audio Sync for Automated Content Recognition in Second Screen Apps

April 20, 2012 (this originally appeared in Civolution's Vision Newsletter at NAB 2012)


 Let’s start by reviewing the consumer value options first.  Can we use ACR to affect the first screen?  Absolutely.  Think Flingo here.  If the TV or the 2^nd screen knows what content is playing, it can change audio, change content sources, pause automatically (when you are exploring something deep on the 2^ndscreen), etc.  Can we use ACR for social features?  The check-in is an obvious case which saves the consumer from having to type in the show name, etc.  It could even describe the scene you are watching or the play that just occurred in a game and pre-populate your Tweet (NCAA March Madness does this for cheering).  Probably the most valuable feature set to the consumer is providing additional Stimulation.  You can provide synchronized experiences, deliver engaging commerce or product information, provide contextual facts, trivia, the latest scores, stats, etc, etc.  Discovery could be the most appealing feature when combined with knowledge of the user (ie which member of the household) which would be used to keep track of what they really watch for purposes of providing better recommendations and discovery.

Converting physical DVDs and Blu-ray discs at Walmart to my Vudu (and UltraViolet) account

April 16, 2012 A few weeks ago when the story first broke about Walmart planning to launch an Ultraviolet-compatible disc-to-digital conversion service thru their own Vudu video service, I raised some points about cost vs. hassle, availability of titles, and potentially what could be done to use this (and hopefully other similar services) to drive growth in digital sell-thru for the studios. I also raised some points later about what would help drive digital sell thru.

So yesterday morning, on the day Walmart launched their service, I called Walmart and asked to speak to the photo processing departing. A very kind woman answered and said she wasn't sure if the service had launched, but had heard about it and asked if I could call back in 15 minutes so she could ask. 15 minutes later, she told me the service was ready, but that no one in her department including herself had been trained in how to do this, but if I was patient, I was more than welcome to come down to be their first customer.



I went thru my collection to choose a representative sample for this test: 1 from each major studio plus 1 from Lionsgate, a few Blu-rays and even a few titles from a different region (I previously lived in London for 5 years and have a number of DVDs purchased from there).



15 minutes later, I was trying to find the photography department in Walmart. I did see the sign above at the counter and found the kind woman from the phone call. She handed me a form to fill out, listing each of the titles, how I owned the title (SD or HD) and what version I would like to purchase (SD or HD). The form also asked for my name, email address and phone number to create or sign into my Vudu account. When I showed her the 30 DVDs I brought, she became a little anxious. I asked if I could fill out the forms and come back later--she said I was not allowed to leave the DVDs with them. So I scaled back my expectations and instead settled on 8 titles (shown in the form below) which still represented every major studio plus LionsGate, some Blu-rays and DVDs, and my UK-based DVD.
After a few minutes of muttering to herself, the woman kindly asked me to tell her where the "@" was at on the keyboard (she was trying to type in my email address). I knew then we were in for a learning experience. She tried to look up my account but it said I did not exist. She then tried to create my account, but it said my account already existed. I asked to come around the counter to help (she accepted), and asked her to try my home phone number instead of the mobile I had put on the sheet (the sheet did not specify). It then found my account (it turns out you only need the email or the phone number that is listed in your Vudu account, not both).




We then started the process of looking for the titles. The search function on the web terminal she was using was actually very robust. For Cowboys and Aliens from Universal Studios, it offered 10 different source versions of physical product. We found the one I had in my hand (Extended Edition Blu-ray) and she selected it. I was pleasantly surprised to find that converting a Blu-ray disc to the HD format for Vudu was only $2 (it is $5 to upgrade from normal DVD to HD). While a limited test, the next 7 titles offer an interesting current view into the library (stated in HomeMedia magazine yesterday as 4000 titles).









My copy of Batman Begins, a Warner Brothers title, was an SD DVD (plain old DVD) but from the UK. I successfully upgraded to HD for $5.
My daughter's Justin Bieber, Never Say Never was a Blu-ray from Paramount and I converted to HD for $2.
I was surprised that Sony's 50 First Dates was only available in an SD version.
Not surprising, Disney's Pirates of Caribbean was not available.
I was surprised that the Fox title The A-Team was not available for conversion--especially since my Blu-ray came with a digital copy option with the disc.
National Lampoon's Van Wilder from Lionsgate sadly was not available.
And even sadder, Eurotrip from Dreamworks was not available (despite an announcement that day that all their titles would be available).

When I got home, Vudu forced me (in a good way) to finish the UltraViolet portion of the registration. Trying to play the movies before that did not work. Once I completed it, they all worked fine. A good surprise: I was given the HDX version of each title I requested in HD (the highest quality available in Vudu).

So, after 50 minutes in the store and 30 minutes total driving time, I had converted 4 titles successfully for a cost of $11. Had I successfully converted 8 titles (same time period), it would have been roughly 10 minutes per title vs. the 20 minutes it became.




How does this compare to the college kid's (non-legal) option?
- Pro. No tech savvy required. Just bring in your titles.
- Con. Costs $2-5 per title vs. the cost of free for the college kid ripping his DVD, though there is the cost of storage which is not required with Vudu.
- Con. Can't currently watch these titles while disconnected on your iPad (ie on a plane) where as you can do so on the illegal option.
- Con. Took 10-20 minutes per title at Walmart while the time touching the computer to rip an MP4 copy is only 3 minutes (including entering metadata), but you end up waiting an hour or 2 for the actual encoding to occur. Sort of a 1 day of pain vs. 3-5 minutes each day approach.
- Pro. The title is now UV enabled, meaning I will soon have access to it on Amazon, Flixster and other non-Apple video services and it can be streamed to me on the go (no storage required).
- Pro. Presumably, my library of owned titles will soon be "available" so that other services can catalog it and use the list for recommendations.


How can this be improved to drive adoption?
- Create an incentive to do it. Give me a discount for doing 50 or 100 titles or more at once (after all, they are trying to encourage me to build a digital library for ownership, right)? The mathematical issue is simple: I am being asked to pay an average of $3.50 per title (perhaps higher since the majority of my titles are SD DVDs) to convert something I MIGHT watch in the future. If I don't do the conversion, the cost to me to just rent the title on demandis only $3.99 or $4.99. I just doesn't make sense for me to pay this amount to own a title I might realistically only watch once in a long while that has a high probability of being available on Netflix for free.
- Allow me to check title availability before I go to the store--saves all of us time.
- Get a bar code scanner in the store to speed up the process.
- Let me drop off my average of 85 owned titles and pick them up the next day.
- Give me access to the titles in a download fashion (at least to my tablet) so I can watch them on the go.

I think this is a great concept and I do think we need to find a way to stimulate digital ownership. We just have a long ways to go to get it right--and very little time. Apple already has all of this in their ecosystem--and once you buy an iPad, buying the Apple TV is short decision process when you realize the ecosystem that is made available to you for $99.

My recommendation: give the service 2 weeks to get the teams trained up and perhaps the process improved, then try the conversion yourself.

@ChuckParkerTech
http://www.chuckparker.tv

Updating the Second Screen Ecosystem Infographic

April 16, 2012 In February when many of us met to discuss the quickly developing second screen marketplace at the Second Screen Summit, we referred to an infographic that helped describe the players in each of the contributing market segments.

We had many spirited conversations that day and in the following weeks about which actors were left out and where they belonged.

Thanks to tremendous effort by MESA, below is an updated infographic that is complete and ready for your use during NAB this week.

We have identified the major players from contributing market segments including:

• Major brands (who can benefit from the consumer behavioral change)
• Media agencies (primarily pushing the brands in this direction along with Social TV)
• Middleware companies (working to integrate this into their offerings)
• Metadata service providers (driving Stimulating second screen experiences)
• Measurement and analytics companies (helping us all to understand what the consumer is doing)
• Recommendation engines (driving the industry towards Discovery)
• 3rd Party app creators (building some of the best second screen apps out there)
• Testing/QC companies (helping to sort out the platform and revision testing)
• Consulting companies (helping to sort out the objectives)
• Distribution platforms (trying to harness the power of second screen)
• OTT video services (trying to harness the power of second screen)
• Content security services (focusing on making it all secure)
• Synchronization technologies (helping to improve the experience)
• CE Devices and Network Operators (using a Simple approach to incorporate it into their consumer offering)
• Studios, Broadcast Networks and Sports Leagues (trying to aggregate larger audiences thru the experiences)
• Social networks (driving the Social element)
• Mobile (capitalizing on consumers on the go)
• 3rd Party Apps (trying to aggregate audiences around the experience)
• Video ad networks (trying to monetize the experience)

Harnessing "Exclusive" Content to Aggregate Larger Audiences in the Digital Living Room

April 12, 2012 I think there are 4 primary reasons consumers are willing to pick up a device in the living room while watching TV: 1. Simple. It starts with turning on the TV itself, but it is really about getting the content you want to watch onto the TV (whether the right channel, the right device for Blu-ray or digital video, or something you found on your 2nd screen and want to watch on the 1st screen). Last week's blog covers this challenge in detail. 2. Social. Currently a huge topic in the press and in the industry, this is about engaging others via Facebook, Twitter, or specialized second screen applications while you watch the show. A hugh phenomena right now. 3. Discovery. More and more, consumers are picking up a device to find something to watch rather than trying to use the EPG or the 10-foot remote experience of searching for content on the 1st screen. This is still a very nascent consumer experience, but one where real improvements are imminent in the space. 4. Stimulating. Another reason consumers are watching with a device in their laps is because they want more information about the movie, TV show, sporting event, or live event they are watching. They are looking up the actors, checking the stats of their favorite players, seeing who made that dress--all of the information they want to check in real-time while watching the first screen. In my last blog, I discussed the evolution of the digital living room in terms of the devices outside the Apple ecosystem and how difficult it is for consumers to get a truly integrated content experience (devices don't play well with each other or with content). Part of the solution, I argued, could be solved by UltraViolet, the video content industry's effort to provide a path for digital sell-thru. Another part was a combination of CE devices / operator STBs opening their control systems to 3rd party developers (APIs, web servics) so that other applications like digital video service providers (Hulu, Netflix, Amazon) or second screen applications (Fanhattan, BuddyTV, TVplus) can allow consumers to find their content and get it to play effortlessly (Simply) on the first screen (their TV). But there is another major element missing in this effort to make the consumer experience in the digital living room a better one: access to stimulating content. If you used the Masters 2012 app last weekend while watching the golf tournament (or read my blog on it), you noticed there were 6 sources of video available (the live broadcast plus 5 other camera setups). If you watched the Oscars and the pre-show red carpet event using the official Oscars app or the E! Red Carpet app, you also would have noticed additional camera angles that were not available through any other source. Movie titles do this (create an app specific to the title with exclusive bonus materials). TV shows and even TV networks do this to--making content exclusively available thru their show specific or network specific app. When you ask yourself why they do this, you initial conclusion is that it must be about money, yet in nearly every example I can find of exclusive content, the app itself is made available to the consumer for free. Perplexing. So let's step back from this for a minute. Why do TV shows, sports events, or studios invest in custom created apps for their content? They want to aggregate bigger audiences around their content. In fact, that is why TV networks, movie studios, and sports leagues exist--to aggregate audience to increase monetization thru content licensing, advertising or subscription. So why keep the special camera angles, bonus features, and star-studded interviews exclusive? My guess is that part of this is down to the human nature of the managers involved in the process to promote the app that they have built. But most of it is about cost and control. The content creator doesn't want to bear the cost (time, resources, money) of distributing the content to third parties, and additionally, they want to maintain quality control over how the content is used. Are there models today where this problem is already is solved? Certainly. Look at at big brand or movie title. When they launch a new product or movie, they develop a very specific set of rules on how the logos, brand images, photos, and even movie trailers are to be used and then make them available under a limited use license to "trusted" 3rd parties to put to use to help them promote their brand or movie. So how do we bring this together in the living room? We need a way to get content creators and application developers to syndicate this stimulating content. The content creator needs a cheap and efficient way of making the special content available to "trusted" 3rd parties so that when you are watching the Masters in 2013, you get access to the great materials in the Masters 2013 app and in the ConnecTV or TVplus app. When you are watching the Oscars next year but prefer to use IntoNow or Miso, perhaps you will still have access to those additional camera choices. When you watch the Hunger Games this fall, you will hopefully have access to the bonus materials thru the custom app AND through Fanhattan. While nothing is free, perhaps there is a reciprocal business arrangement between the apps (digital video services, second screen apps, social TV apps) and the content creators that can make this all worthwhile (sharing ad revenue, customer affiliation, or even a simple syndication fee). If we can solve this access to content challenge and the challenge of the multi-brand device living room, we can create an environment where the consumer will have more reasons to watch the content in the first place, increasing overall consumption perhaps even at some premium pricing--and everyone in the ecosystem wins: the content creators aggregate a larger audience, the distributors aggregate a larger audience, the app developers aggregate a larger audience, and the device makers sell more devices.

Masters 2012 App Reivew on the iPad

April 11, 2012

The Evolution of the Digital Living Room

April 5, 2012
Apple with its iPad, Apple TV and iCloud for movies and TV shows has delivered a seamless ecosystem to the consumer's digital living room for owning and watching content from multiple devices in the home.  The rest of the industry (SmartTVs, connected devices, Android tablets) struggles to create a similar experience when they are a single-brand ecosystem and fail miserably when there are devices from multiple manufacturers in the household.
How can the industry work to solve this problem?  Part of that solution is UltraViolet.  As discussed in previous blogs, the concept is that someday I will have the same experience as the Apple ecosystem (buy a movie with the UltraViolet feature and have access to it from every device I own).  The reality today is that none of my SmartTVs or connected devices (except my iPads and PCs/Macs) can stream content from Flixster, some have access to Vudu, but if I purchase on Blu-ray I can use "sneaker net" to carry the disc from room to room.

But perhaps more important than UV is a better connectivity approach to the digital living room itself.  The challenge here is that DLNA is not enough.  Assuming I have a pre-sorted directory on my PC where I can access that I am looking for is a bad assumption.  The majority of SmartTV companies have been busy building their own proprietary approaches to solving this problem (with and without partners).  Boxee is trying to solve this problem, but I think its focus on a 10-foot remote experience limits its capability to do so.

I think the best way for the consumer and for the device manufacturers to move forward is for the device manufacturers to focus (similar to LG) on exposing their devices via APIs to applications on tablets (second screens) and local (home movies) and over-the-top video services (Netflix, Hulu, Vudu, Amazon, VDIO, M-GO, etc).  This allows Second Screen apps (think BuddyTV, Dijit) to deliver the "Simple" capability to control the large TV (1st screen) and deliver the selected TV show or movie to that 1st screen (or tune the channel), but also provides a more natural interface (2-foot remote, touch screen, virtual keyboard) for "Social" interaction, review of "Stimulating" content and "Discovery" of new content, and providing the "Seamless" delivery of the source of that content across services so that it can be delivered directly to the viewing screen.  This then gives the consumer the capability to buy devices (Boxee, PS3, Xbox, Blu-ray players) and Smart TVs from different manufacturers and still have a robust alternative ecosystem that is similar in capability to Apple's.

And this approach is an urgent requirement for the industry because the consumer will not wait much longer to improve their own digital living rooms.

Let's face the facts.  If the iPad tablet market share holds in the 90%+ range, consumers are going to start buying Apple TVs (Tim Cook described them as iPad accessories), which will obviate the need for SmartTVs and other devices almost entirely:

• removes the need for Blu-ray players since the Ultraviolet experience is built-in to iCloud for the Apple ecosystem
• removes the need for SmartTVs as Apple TV connects to HDMI
• removes the need for other devices for streaming services with Netflix, MLB.tv, etc, on the AppleTV product
• leaving only the home movie challenge which Apple then solves with their iMovie and iPhoto products.

If you don't believe this is urgent, check out my recent experience at home below:

I have had a frustrating last few weeks with my Apple Ecosystem at home (AppleTV, iTunes on a Windows PC as my main library, 4 iPads & 4 iPhones for a family of 4--by no means ordinary in penetration).  Apple's latest 10.5x change to the iTunes software has a bug in it that requires you to turn off IPv6 in your network adapter of your Windows 64-bit PC (guess how long it took me to figure that out?).

So for those few weeks, I was forced to deal with the "average" digital living room in my attempts to share and watch content in my home.  I am sure most Americans have 3-4 TVs in the house (so say the statistics)  of different brands plus a gaming console or two and various connected Blu-ray players.  In my house, we have a Boxee Box, an Xbox 360, a PS3, 3 "SmartTVs" (a Samsung TV, an LG TV, and Panasonic) and another connected LG Blu-ray player.  We typically use Vudu to rent movies (better experience than Apple in Discovery and delivery in real-time) on the PS3 or Boxee, we watch "high end" TV on the Apple TV (series not yet available on Netflix or Hulu), and watch all other content either live or DVR'd from our AT&T U-verse or from iPads/other connected TVs/devices via Netflix or Hulu+.

What a mess.

Our digital living room experience at home a few weeks ago (and going forward since I fixed the IPv6 problem) was that for special movies and TV series, we would buy them, and they would download automatically into the main library where everyone in the family had access to them forever more from iPads or the Apple TV (using local delivery or the iCloud).  Home movies that were already in .mp4 were also available to those devices.

During the "time of digital failure", I tried using the DLNA capabilities of the various devices including Boxee, PS3, and my TV-connected PC to watch home videos or non-DRM'd content (outside of Netflix and Hulu+).  I think all of you probably already know how painful this was.  Boxee is probably the best at being able to decode multiple formats of personal home video (Canon camcorder, Canon DSLR, iPhones, etc), but is difficult to use to browse and find content (as we shoot and store video).  The PC which houses everything is just not built for a 10-foot remote experience (yes I have tried to font changes, I have a Logitech mini-keyboard, and even occasionally us LogMeIn from a laptop instead to control it).

The experience was so painful, that we actually purchased a few movies on Vudu as an experiment (can't download to the iPad, but you can stream) and had another push on Boxee for home movies.  Ultimately, it was the "stick" that drove me to fix the Home Sharing bug Apple created.

My Review of Matcha as a Second Screen experience

March 27, 2012 I noticed Matcha present at the OTT Conference on 20-21 March and was very curious as to what their app experience was all about.

When you launch it, it immediately asks you to connect Facebook, Twitter, Netflix and Hulu, and quickly let's you know that it is essentially a video recommendation service which will also serve those videos on your iPad or laptop (so a second screen app that turns the 2nd screen into the first screen). They clearly have ideas for Amazon Prime and Xfinity even though neither are working yet (bottom greyed out portion of UI).

After you connect your accounts up, you notice that Matcha organizes "suggestions" in 5 rows. First, there is a row on the "Hottest" content. Based on what they showed me, I am assuming this is popular in Matcha vs. popular in broadcast TV in general, etc.

The 2nd row is "Newly Available", presumably content that was just made available to Netflix or Hulu.

The 3rd row is about "Recommendations". I am assuming in this case that they have taken into account my Netflix Queue, Hulu queue and my Facebook likes (I can't tell) to make a recommendation. Most of my recommendations I have already seen, but most of the recommendations are in the right space.

The 4th row is called "Friends" and is presumably a collection of what my friends liked on Facebook. There does not seem to be a discernable order though (most liked, recently liked, etc).


The 5th and final row is called "Queue", which seems to be a combination of the Netflix queue, my Hulu queue, and a Matcha queue.

There are a few filters that can be applied (Movies vs. TV, year of the content's release, genre).

This collection of 5 rows seems to be the primary function of the app--a recommendation service that helps you launch directly to Netflix or Hulu as a result (and presumably Amazon in the near future). How good is it? I think the UI is clean, but not as sophisticated as Fanhattan, which has more discernable selection criteria (Emmy winning, Oscar winning, Top 20, Recently Like, Most liked, all fitlerable by ratings, genre, etc, etc).


There is a product detail page, which similar to Fanhattan, shows the sources and suddenly introduces iTunes and Amazon as a source (rental and purchase). I did try to Like the content and put it in my queue. I cannot tell if the Like went to my Facebook (they also have a dislike which Facebook does not do), but it did add it to my Matcha queue (but not my Netflix queue).

While I am not sure this app is intended to be a second screen app, I would say the following:

- Simple. No control of the 1st screen. Would be a MAJOR improvement if available.
- Social. Other than likes and importing likes, there was little ability to push information socially. Low.
- Seamless. A good effort on gathering sources of content, though the cable/telco/satellite channel line-up for content is missing. Medium.
- Stimulating. Relatively lightweight here (low).
- Discovery. Ahh--isn't this what they want to be? I think the app is a probably in the Amazon mode (your friends watch, this is popular), but has not yet built an algorithm to help me Discover new content. I would say medium for effort, but if this is to be there "raison d'etre", they need to find an algorithm/engine (Digitalsmiths, Jinni, theFilter) to drive real Discovery features for the consumer. They would also need a better seeding process (similar to BuddyTVs) to help capture what I like in general and what I have seen at a cursory level.

As a consumer already exposed to Fanhattan and BuddyTV, Matcha has some feature development to do to get me to switch to their app.

My Review of the CBS / Turner NCAA March Madness App as a Second Screen Experience

March 24, 2012

My Takeaways from the OTT Conference and the future of broadband TV

March 23, 2012 I was fortunate enough to attend the Over the Top digital video conference this week in Santa Clara (thank you MESA).  It was one of the larger conferences that I have attended for the content with about 400-500 people in the main presentation room during the keynotes (CES and NAB are bigger, but most people are not there for the content, they are there for the sales opportunities).


There were some great panels and some interesting points of views exchanged on the most relevant topics affecting those companies in the OTT Digital Video Ecosystem.  I thought in general that the panelists and presenters were a good mix of service providers and content owners/distributors (Fox, NBCU, etc), though some of the smaller concurrent sessions where blatant (and poorly presented) commercials.

The quote that summed up the conference for me was "The future of OTT will be won by service providers who can deliver Discovery on the Second Screen"  I couldn't agree more.

While there was some interesting banter on exactly what "OTT" meant to different people on the panels (with the day 2 keynote Jon Cody speaker suggesting we scratch the name OTT and replace it with Broadband TV), I was surprised at how few people attending the conference understood the second screen or even what Discovery was (more on that next week).  My other big surprise was how pervasive the view that OTT (or Broadband TV) was somehow going to grow up and kill Comcast, DirecTV, and/or Verizon (examples only).  Thought the stats were thrown around the conference both days, a ton of the attendees just didn't seem to process them.  We all know that Netflix has 20m+ subscribers, that Apple has sold 4m+ Apple TVs and that on-line video is growing quickly, but we somehow fail to remember that of the roughly 37 hours of TV that the average American watches every week (not sure where the average person finds the time), only 3 of that is on-line (web, OTT, or otherwise).  Further, that of the $200b in TV advertising, a scant $4b (2%) is spent on online/OTT video, and despite the fact that OTT has taken a significant chunk of the DVD business (close to 20%), when compared to the combined sell-thru, TV advertising and Pay TV amounts, the Netflix, iTunes, Hulu+, Amazon, Vudu, etc, all add up to a less than 5% of total consumer spend (thanks for your Keynote covering some of these points Jon Cody).

I don't think there is any doubt that IP delivered video is going to continue its march to near global ubiquity (as predicted by one of the speakers), but I do believe that 2012-2015 will be marked by the striking back of the operators who will march over to the content creators in Hollywood with their StreamPix (Comcast's answer to Netflix) and Verizon/Redbox partnership (their answer) and demand the same mobile streaming rights that Netflix has for no additional charge since they are already paying millions and millions for their pay TV rights of the same content.  I don't think Netflix with 20m subscribers at $15 a month can outspend Comcast with a similar subscriber base at $100 a month, and in the end, I think the big operators will either consolidate the OTT players or try to match their capabilities to do what they do best: raise ARPU and reduce churn.  Consumers will win (they will get the video they want, when they want it), and the operators (OTT or otherwise) that continue to provide a great UX (user experience) for their consumers will survive (Apple is an easy prediction here).

Perhaps all of that sums up the quote I took away at the top of this blog, awarding the digital video future to those who build great consumer experiences while recognizing that those with deep pockets might make a few blunders and might move slowly, but that they will move and will flex their dollar-based muscles and ultimately will be providing their own Broadband TV services (across their own and other operator networks).

Chuck Parker
www.chuckparker.tv

The new iPad–worth the extra dough?

March 23, 2012 I have had a few people ask me what I thought of the new iPad (the iPad 3).
I have had it about a week now and can certainly share my thoughts.
I was willing to pay for a new 64GB 4G iPad (AT&T) because I was trading up from the iPad 1 (64GB, 3G) and have been trying to use it instead of my laptop (Macbook Air 13") in most scenarios. The iPad 1 was demonstrably slower on many of the apps I frequently use and it was starting to drive me mad.
I was expecting:
- 4G connectivity (LTE and the HDSPA+)
- 2x the processing power
- better screen resolution (though only a nice to have benefit)
What did I get?
The 4G (HDSPA+, same as iPhone 4S) is actually pretty decent. From the rudimentary tests I have run (iPad's side by side, speedtest.net, etc), my guess is that it is 2-3x the normal 3G connection. In the week I have had it, I have seen 4G in almost every location I have been with it. I am happy with this feature.
The 4G LTE is VERY fast. My guess is 10-20x the normal 3G connectivity (technically only supposed to be 15x, but the improved process power probably helps). I was able to stream Netflix in my hotel room in San Jose with great quality and sustain it for 40 minutes (while only showing 1 bar on the signal strength indicator). Very pleased with this even though it is in a relatively small number of markets compared to Verizon.
The processor is a noticeable upgrade. Even on wi-fi, web pages load faster, the common apps I use whether for news, weather, DropBox, etc, all load faster and perform better. I am very happy with this feature as well.
The screen resolution is harder to tell. On video and photos, you can see the difference vs. the iPad 1. I realize many apps are still upgrading their image quality to take advantage of the new resolution. The kindle is easier to read (as is Zinio, etc). PDFs are clearer. There is now a 1080p option for video (which is obviously a bigger file than the 720p, but I am not sure you can appreciate the difference on the small screen. Again, this was a nice to have feature, not a needed one, but I am relatively happy with it so far.
All the noise about the heat issues? I don't run sustained hard core games for 45 minutes at a time, and have not experienced the heat while watching movies or using other applications. Not an issue for me so far.
Would I recommend one? If you have the iPad 1 and use it more than casually, I would suggest you upgrade, especially if you move around in non-wifi areas with it. I think if you have an iPad 2, probably a tougher sell unless the 4G is critical.
Enjoy
Chuck Parker
www.chuckparker.tv

What is holding back sell-thru in digital?

March 20, 2012 A friend and industry expert made a great point about my last blog entry relative to the choices consumers have beyond ownership in terms of managing their digital collection of movies and TV shows.

It used to be that we all had the "Discovery" experience in Blockbuster (going to rent a video, expecting a 15-minute trip and spending an hour combing the walls of the store looking for something to watch). Then, DVD sell-thru became VERY affordable. So affordable that not only were the big releases being sold by Wal-mart, Target and Bestbuy below their wholesale pricing (losing money to drive traffic to their stores), but as the DVD industry matured, cheaper back-catalog titles became available in the check-out aisles of grocery stores. Spending $5, $7 or even $10 for a title to have forever seemed like a bargain compared to the time suck of the trip to Blockbuster combined with its late fees. More importantly, buying a cheap title to watch when it was a slow night in the near future was a perhaps a better alternative then cable TV. For years HBO filled this need--a subscription movie service that allowed you to essentially turn on the TV and watch something "good" when you had time on your hands for entertainment.

Next physical Netflix started to make a serious dent in all of this--but it only worked for those people who had patience and essentially replaced the new release for those willing to wait and the back catalog for those who planned ahead and always had a title around to watch. I think this is the first time consumers had an alternative to the timesuck/late fee experience to watch new movies and to the "what's on HBO?" experience (despite all of us having DVR's, but not having the foresight to use them to solve this problem).

Then we had a step change improvement -- rental went digital thru iTunes, Vudu, Amazon, and Xbox. Now, the "Discovery" process happened in your living room. There was some initial disappointment with titles only available on certain services and sometimes later than the physical DVD rental and sell-thru date. The fact that the studios made more money per rental (improving their share from 25-65% on average) hastened the demise of Blockbuster nearly overnight and brought digital rental day and date with physical rental and often sell-thru.

Then Netflix dropped the boom and started a digital subscription (SVOD) service. In theory, this was no different than HBO--you had a bouquet of content that you didn't really understand and had no guarantees on what would be in there tomorrow, but instead of setting your DVR or waiting until the next movie started, you could now actually search/discover and watch "something" instantly. And cheaply. Cheaper in fact than HBO.

Consumers voted with their feet/pocket books and Netflix grew their subscribers at an alarming rate, threatening even the mighty HBO.
Not surprisingly, the physical sell-thru rate started dropping quickly. Consumers now had a better rental experience either in Netflix or digitally and had a digital subscription video service that replaced the "what do I watch when I am bored" scenario.

Studios wanted and needed sell-thru, digital or physical, to regain its previous levels (while their share is similar with digital rental, the gross sales on sell-thru 3-5x higher). But how? Digital purchasing meant you acquired a title on a single device (your Vudu box, your PC) and at the time the concept of cloud ownership was non-existant (even with the mighty Apple).

What consumers needed was confidence that they could buy something digitally and have it on any of their devices when and where they wanted it.
The industry launched the concept of an industry-supported digital locker service in 2008 (then called DECE), but like all industry initiatives, it languished under the weight of its own support. The 75 initial members pulled it in many directions and then suddenly with Microsoft and Sony clearly at the helm, Apple refused to join. The battle lines had been drawn and the law abiding consumer suffered (and digital pirates continued to flourish).

Now as scant 4 years later, Ultra Violet has launched (the industry's answer to a consumer digital locker). But there are serious challenges to drive consumer adoption:
1. The experience isn't consumer-centric. You don't have the same experience movie to movie (same offer) or retailer to retailer (different sign-up processes, different viewing process).
2. In four years, Apple has launched and owns the tablet segment, probably where most digital movies and TV that are owned are viewed BY FAR.
3. Netflix has used the 4 years to cement a 20m strong subscriber base, offering unlimited movies for less than the purchase of a single new release.
4. The "connected TV" promise has become a confusing wasteland of technical solutions that make Apple all that more appealing.

And now, Wal-mart / Vudu wants to help you convert your physical library to digital with a hefty fee--and most of the physical titles you own you probably also have access to on Netflix. What to do?

While in my previous blog, I described the time vs. money trade-off of the legal conversion option, the other challenge is the easy access to a large library in which content is likely but not guaranteed to be there tomorrow vs. the cost (and hassle) of converting those titles to UltraViolet and Vudu.

My guess is that of the 400+ titles I have at home, probably 3/4 of them are available on Netflix. The other 25% are going to have issues with availability (Disney, other smaller studios) or won't pass the rental option test (ie if I am truly only going to watch that title once in a long while, is a $4 rental a better option at the point of viewing vs. a $2-5 investment for a title I may not watch for some time).

If consumers think all this thru while thinking about what the Wal-mart experience may be like (and that they likely can't view these titles on their iPad while traveling), my guess is that this will not take off very quickly.

I will try it myself on April 16th and let you know how it goes.

As for the other burning question, "How can the studios improve digital sell-thru"? That's an easy list to create but hard for them to accomplish:
1. Make the UltraViolet offer consistent on every title (streaming, download, HD for the right price, viewable on an iPad).
2. Make it easier to register the UltraViolet copy (should be as seamless as my Blu-ray player detecting it and marking my digital locker appropriately).
3. Make the iTunes digital copy work with Ultraviolet (for a small fee).
4. Like iTunes, let me purchase UltraViolet digital only titles (Paramount started this late last year).
5. Provide an incentive for me to convert my physical library that counters that hassle and the Netflix inertia.

If the studios can't do these things in the near term, I predict that a "Seamless" 2nd screen app (Fanhattan, M-GO, BuddyTV) will come along shortly that will "catalog" my digital collection and combine that with the sources of subscription and rental services, and further combine that with my Cable/Telco/Satellite provider program line-up and a slick recommendation / Discovery engine (DigitalSmiths) that includes my social network "likes', and consumers will have the tools to reduce their "purchase" of physical and digital content to only what they need, when they need it...this is a race that Discovery, Social networks, and 2nd Screen might just win.

Chuck

www.chuckparker.tv

Converting your physical disc library to a digital locker

March 16, 2012 There has been a significant amount of press this week around the Wal*Mart announcement to provide consumers the ability to get UltraViolet digital copies of their existing Blu-rays and DVDs starting on April 16th.  The concept for the consumer is that your bring your collection (minus Disney movies) into the store and they do some magic and create digital copies in your digital locker to be accessed through your Vudu account online.  They perform this service for you for a mere $2 per DVD (presumably then generating a non-HD digital copy) and $5 per Blu-ray disc (presumably for the HD digital copy).

Does this sound like a deal to anyone or does it sound like the consumers are getting the short end of the stick?

A few things to think about first:

• Apple does not support Ultraviolet, so you will not be able to view your converted library on your iPad or AppleTV.
• There will be content gaps.  Disney does not currently support Ultraviolet, and there will be many other smaller studios that don't yet support them either (the other 5 majors do).  I am curious to see how this will be handled on April 16th at your local Wal*Mart store.
• If my memory is correct, the average consumer in the US currently has a library of about 70 DVD and Blu-rays (I will try to dig up this data to confirm).  That mix in 2012 is probably 80% DVD and 20% Blu-ray (I am making an educated guess about penetration over time).  So the cost to convert the average person's library (assuming all titles were supported by Ultraviolet) would be roughly $182.  Ouch!  I have over 400 DVDs and about 40 Blu-rays, so I need to get a 2nd mortgage to convert my library.
• $2 vs. $5 presumably for better quality video.  Let's think through this.  Your typical DVD puts out an average bit-rate of about 10 mbps in video rate (this is a measure of how much data is transferring from the disc/player to your tv screen).  I say average because intense scenes (big explosion, etc) push more data and slow moving scenes push less.  The average bit-rate of a Blu-ray is roughly twice that (about 20 mbps).  The typical "SD" or standard definition download or stream from iTunes, Amazon, Netflix, Vudu, Hulu, etc, is around 2 mbps.  What is typically called "HD" for high definition is pushing 4-6 mbps (720p vs 1080p matters here because there is more data to push).  Vudu's "HDX" is supposedly in the 10 mbps range.  Now I am sure all of the videophiles out there (and the experts behind download services compression algorithms) will jump in here to say that they are compressing the data "in a smater way" than is typically done for DVD and Blu-ray and therefore get a better picture as a result.  I would dispute that for a wide range of fact-based reasons, but even if we gave them a 20% improvement based on this urban legend, what do we have:  We are paying $2 for a video to be transferred to my digital locker that is only 20-30% as good as my physical SD version and $5 for a video that is 25-30% the quality of my Blu-ray HD version.  Seems like a pretty poor deal.
• What are my options?  Well, legally, none.  Despite the urban legend that I can rip DVDs and Blu-rays for "personal use", it is still illegal according to the digital millennium act.  But what if I were a 19 college student who perhaps cared less about these kinds of laws?  I could use a number of paid-for and free software programs available on the internet to "rip" a copy of the DVD or Blu-ray into an .mp4 file.  Let's pretend I pay $30 for "good software" (making this up).  Let's pretend that I have to spend 12-15 minutes each time I want to make a copy for my personal consumption (typing in the title, the destination, importing into my program for viewing, etc, though the actual transcoding might take an hour while I am doing something else).  Let's pretend that I get paid $10 an hour as a college student.  My 70 title library would now "cost" me $170-205 (12-15 minutes) to put together.  The cost for this library moves and and down based on the consumer's perception of the value of their own time.
• What about quality trades?  The great thing about getting an officially sanctioned copy of the title in your digital locker is that it has all of the searchable metadata (title, summary, cast, etc) already done for you.  The pro for using locally available software is that you can have a high-quality encode (depending on the source and your tool) every time (ie better than the $5 version).

• What are my options moving forward for new titles?  A little research on Amazon tells me that I can buy an "Ultraviolet enabled" version of the title when I buy new movies.  The price difference varies.  It seems that Warner Brothers is including it with the DVD and Blu-ray for nearly the same price as the discs used to be alone, where as Paramount, Sony and others are charge $2-7 more for a bundled product that is the DVD + Blu-ray + Ultraviolet Digital Copy.  My other alternative is of course to buy it from iTunes (typically at the same price as the DVD or Blu-ray), and while I do not get the physical disc nor do I get an UltraViolet compliant digital copy, I get the movie in my "iCloud" service, and can download/stream to any of my apple devices (AppleTV, iPads, etc).  If you have tried registering a purchase in Ultraviolet, you know that the experience is complicated and confusing--unlike a purchase from Apple.  There has been some activity (from Paramount) offering the digital-only UltraViolet copies to consumers, but this is typically not the case (ie buy something in Vudu, it is stuck in Vudu).

My Review of the Celebrity Apprentice Second Screen App by Activ8

March 13, 2012 There has been a decent marketing effort for the dedicated app for the new seasons of Celebrity Apprentice (with Donald Trump).  The app released last week and I spent last night watching the show with it.  I was disappointed that it was an iPhone only app (meaning they did the whole 2x trick for the iPad).  I was surprised that I was forced to register before being able to do anything with the app, and disappointed that I couldn't register with my Facebook login.









The audio sync actually worked really well.  While I am not a fan of the use of trivia or opinion polls being the use case for synchronized content experiences (so many better ways to engage the consumer), it worked with even relatively low volume levels.






I loved the concept of an integrated commercial experience.  While watching a car commercial on the first screen, my iPad had a deep dive experience available which coincided with the 1st screen showing.  This is definitely the future of 2nd screen advertising.










I wasn't that impressed with the social features.  The UI looked like a screen scrape of a Twitter screen (as did the Facebook feed).  The Social Buddy feature was a mystery, with a stranger UI (in Twitter).











Of course, being a dedicated app gave it the best access to exclusive Stimulating content.  The features allowing you to see the cast (contestants) and their backgrounds was the highlight of the app (and if you are a Celebrity Apprentice fan, perhaps worth looking past its other feature faults).

Summary:

- Simple.  No ability to control the first screen.

- Social.  Weak integration.  I would expect them to focus on this feature set as a priority next.

- Stimulating.  Good access to the deep dive information to support the show, including the ability to compete in trivia games, etc.  No synchronized experience outside the trivia game.  Medium.

- Seamless.  No provision of multiple sources to view the show.

- Discovery.  No features around discovering new content, not even other seasons of the show.

Main Menu

Social Integration

Trivia

Trivia

Synchronized Trivia

Facebook Integration

Detailed Contestant View

Social Buddy UI

Catching up with Mobovivo and Adrian Grenier

March 9, 2012 Thursday afternoon, Digital Hollywood in NYC wrapped up with an app launch from Adrian Grenier (Entourage, producer/founder of Indie film company Reckless Films, etc) and Trevor Doerksen (founder and CEO of Mobovivo).


The app (due to launch any day) isn't necessarily a second screen app, but is an interesting foray into how engagement is changing between celebrities and fans.  Mobovivo put the app together for Adrian and has a few other apps in the works on a major sports team and a TV network that look like it will raise the bar even higher for the rest of the market on building a great consumer User eXperience (UX) for second screen apps.

As Adrian discussed his app (Reckless Adrian Grenier), it was clear that he has bigger plans for the app in the near and mid-term future. He sees this as a way to have fans share photos of themselves with him and other celebrities in his projects, a way to get an autograph from Adrian even if they don't physically meet, and a way to further engage fans beyond a webpage, Facebook or Twitter.  It was refreshing to hear someone take this change in behavior as an opportunity to improve the way he engages his fans, rather than a threat.

Trevor clearly sees how rapidly this market is unfolding. He is rapidly expanding his operation to cover LA and is partnering to give his team scale and creative skill sets on the projects they are delivering on. He's got a very clear vision on the feature sets of a second screen engagement, with a big focus on Stimulating and Social, and is working hard to evangelize a strong UX for the consumers with his clients.

While I won't review the other apps he plans to release here (until they are ready for review), I will say that he is someone is this space that should be watched closely.

www.chuckparker.tv

More Thoughts on Metadata and the Second Screen

March 7, 2012 I helped to host a webinar on metadata today that was produced by MESA and Rovi, and a huge segment of the questions asked were about second screen and social TV.



What kind of metadata is needed to drive a good UX (User eXperience)?  What kind of metadata is required to support better advertising or commerce?  Who provides this kind of metadata?  What are the examples where this is done well in the marketplace today?  How much metadata should the content creator or app developer try to capture?

Let's back up a bit and "normalize" all of our experience in this space.
I like to think of metadata in the video space falling into 3 categories: technical (frame rate, frame size, commercial break, bit rate, etc), descriptive (summary, actors, director, reviews) and contextual (what objects are in the scene, what is happening at that point).  Clearly, the first is a requirement to deliver a quality video service no matter the channel of delivery, the second is critical to search and recommendation, and the third is critical for any higher value experiences (better commerce, contextual advertising, discovery of new content for a consumer).

One the first (technical metadata), there are a ton of providers out there working on this problem, and for most consumers and business partners out there, this problem is largely solved.  This allows you to bring up the right quality choices when watching NetFlix, Hulu or Vudu and ensures you are matching the right codecs with the right devies (and DRM).

The second (descriptive metadata) is technically solved, but is mostly a user interface and scale problem these days.  In other words, the ability to put together a summary of a film or TV show combined with the actors/cast, a price point, and an availability date by country is a pretty standard capability for nearly all video delivery solutions.  Doing that in many countries across many different business models, devices, and millions if not billions of consumers is the scale problem (or cost problem).  Doing it in a manner that allows the consumer to easily find (search) what he/she is looking for (EPG or classic search box) is mostly a UI/UX problem--meaning we know how to deliver the result, but often deliver it in such a confusing manner that the consumer doesn't use the function (or it takes 20 minutes to do so).

So let's focus on the hardest, but most valuable set: contextual metadata.

This is exactly what is required for an enriching content experience on the second screen, a better way to engage audiences in advertising, a more effective way to engage consumers in commerce, and, I believe, the best way to power true Discovery use cases for consumers (vs. search or simple recommendation).

What kind of metadata is needed to drive a good UX (User eXperience)?  What kind of metadata is required to support better advertising or commerce?  Capturing the information that describes the scene is critical to drive these experiences.  A simple example:  you are watching "Risky Business" with Tom Cruise.  He puts on his new wayfarer sunglasses in the final scene and gives his final line of the movie.  With a synchronized experience, we can: a) provide a factoid describing how that scene created a new pop trend for that style of sungalsses in 1986, b) show a Ray-Ban brand advertisement on your tablet, inviting you to click thru to see their new line of reto wayfarer glasses, c) drop you into a store front to buy those exact sunglasses or similar ones, d) show thumbnails of other scenes where Tom Cruise does his signature sunglass scene (TopGun, Mission Impossible, etc), allowing you to put those movies in your queue, rent them for later, etc.

Who provides this kind of metadata?  This space is relatively new.  Digitalsmiths is probably the most comprehensive in terms of breadth of titles and algorithms (different data captured) applied.  RCDb has been doing this for a more limited set of titles and is moving into the metadata syndication space (helping content owners themselves get this rich metadata to third party app developers).  Rovi, Gracenote, TMS, FYI and Redbee are all developing their capability or licensing it from others (see the second screen ecosystem discussion in this blog).



What are the examples where this is done well in the marketplace today?  A few good apps to checkout are Fanhattan and BuddyTV (for deep, rich metadata) and TVplus (for synchronized metadata experiences).

How much metadata should the content creator or app developer try to capture?  This is unfortunately a function of cost.  Since you don't know the use case ahead of time (commerce, advertising, better UX, etc), you need to capture as much as you can upfront and normalize it for the array of use cases you foresee in the near term, and then leverage third party services like those mentioned above to supplement or re-tag in an automated fashion in the future.

This is probably the most important element to getting a cost efficient and scalable UX in place for second screen and social TV yet the least understood in our market place.

Good luck.

www.chuckparker.tv

The Growth of Second Screen and its Impact on Consumer Data and IT

March 6, 2012 I had the opportunity to speak at the Hollywood IT Summit on Friday.  There were probably 300+ people in attendance and I had the good fortune of discussing how Second Screen might impacting their enterprise IT worlds (esp. for those who were working for major entertainment studios/networks).

An Updated Second Screen Data Infographic – Things Are Moving Quickly

March 2, 2012 On January 6th, we published a second screen data infographic as a preview to CES that was a summary of all the second screen data from 2011.  Here we are less than 60 days later and the industry data seems to already have zoomed by us.  Here is the latest data round-up on the second screen market:

• 1,073,809 social impressions on the Brit Awards
• 45% of British people use social networks to discuss what is on TV
• 100m cumulative check-ins on GetGlue
• 33% of all discussions on social networks are about traditional media
• $32m+ invested in second screen and social TV in the last 3 months
• 30% of tablet usage happens while watching TV
• 17.5m social impressions on Super Bowl XLVI
• 59% of British people use smartphones to discuss what is on TV
• 17.1m social impressions on the 2012 Grammy's
• 60% of second screen app users return within 2 weeks
• 73% of viewers would like to interact with TV commercials for products they are interested in
• 55% of reality show viewers vote for contestants in the US

Bringing the Industry Together at a 2nd Screen Summit

March 2, 2012

• Simple (controlling your first screen).  BuddyTV was awarded because of its quick and very relevant ability to help the consumer find content from their second screen and make it effortlessly appear on their TV.
• Social (supporting social interaction through Facebook, Twitter, and live chat).  Yap.TV won the audience over with its clean and simple interface for monitoring and contributing Tweets, live chat, and polls.  TVplus was one of the few apps that had both a curated Twitter feed (so the entries on large events don’t just FLY by) which was also tied to the timeline of the program (no spoilers)—a must for any recorded viewing or for those not in the primary timezone when a live, time-shifted show airs (think East Coast vs. West Coast in the US).
• Seamless (providing consumers with multiple sources of their content options).   Fanhattan provided the cleanest and most consistent interface for this feature, providing it in several different views while the consumer searched for content and updating the information across TV seasons (since business rules typically treat the content differently).  BuddyTV was close second in this process, having fewer sources of content, but integrating the results with the Simple ability to deliver the content directly to your TV screen instantly.
• Stimulating (providing interesting and relevant related content or services).  TVplus set the standard for a synchronized content viewing at the event, firing a content event about every 30-45 seconds, and timing those events to the feature whether live or recorded.  Fanhattan was a very close second, with incredibly deep and relevant content and services provided for the test shows (the ability to purchase music, an app, or even items from Amazon for example).
• Discovery (providing new and interesting content recommendations).  BuddyTV won the category, closely followed by Fanhattan.  Both integrate your social network, scouring Facebook for your friends’ content Likes and integrate them into your own preference process in different UI’s, but allowing the consumer new, interesting, and relevant content suggestions.
• Best Overall (as judged by experts and voted on by the audience).  Fanhattan took the honors, with its clean and simple interface being the most consistent reason for the selection in the voting.  BuddyTV was a close second with its strong showing in several of the categories above.

My review of DirecTV, AT&T U-Verse and TimeWarner Cable as Second Screen experiences

March 1, 2012 Seamless.  There are no other sources of content--except that there are some titles and channels that you are allowed to stream to your iPad.  This is somewhat interesting (a first screen experience), but the fact that it isn't all titles and is only some titles will likely frustrate the consumer and just drive them to NetFlix or Hulu.  None.


Discovery.  I was also surprised to see a decent effort at Discovery.  There was a "What's Hot" section and a "You Might Like" area under title details.  Mostly the Amazon approach, but better than I thought it would be.  Low.






AT&T U-verse.  I took the plunge on U-verse 2 years ago for better broadband speeds and haven't been disappointed in content options or download speeds.  The app I previously reviewed was really meant to be your mobile phone app--when you are somewhere else and essentially want to record something on your DVR you forgot to set.  The new version of the iPad app is actually pretty impressive.  There is even an on-demand section for content to stream to your iPad.  They are making progress, which as a subscriber, is received well even if they aren't going to match BuddyTV or Fanhattan anytime soon.


Simple.  Strong capabilities to control your first screen, access the DVR listing, record new shows/series, access multiple devices in the home, and even flip through the cover art of currently airing programs with an HD filter (doesn't remember your filter preference unfortunately).  High.














Social.  As predicted, a weak showing in Social, with the ability to post a comment to Facebook (but not Twitter), no Check-in feature, no ability to see friends' comments or viewings, etc.  Low.












Seamless.  It was not surprising to find no way to view other sources of content.  They did try to let the consumer browse content by networks for VOD (not sure why) and allowed some titles to be streamed to the iPad (but not channels). None.


Stimulating.  Again, better than I though it would be.  The ability to see show level detail in a series, cast members and photos, etc.  Not the level of Fanhattan for rich metadata and no TVplus-like synchronization experiences, but a start in the right direction.  Low.






Discovery.  Very, very rudimentary level attempt at making recommendations (Related Programs).  Low.

Second Screening with the Oscars after the Red Carpet

February 28, 2012 I had hoped the day after the Oscars, like with the Super Bowl and the Grammys, would be characterized by record breaking statistics.  I even checked the data several times through out the day to see if any data was forthcoming.  It seems neither Trendrr nor BlueFin labs reported anything on big ground breaking stats today.

I thought Lost Remote did a great job summarizing their experience yesterday.  Not surprisingly, mine was very similar.  After finishing my mini-focus group with the neighbors, I headed to a quiet living room where I could test Umami's new features, give Viggle and ConnecTV another go, test the (now) classics of BuddyTV, Yap.TV and TVplus, and see if the much marketed change in IntoNow would stack up.  I have to admit, similar to my red carpet experience and despite the apps continuously crashing, I kept coming back to the official ABC Oscar app because it had unique content (the multiple and selectable camera angles).

First things first, like I said in my previous blog, I liked the concepts in the ABC official Oscars app, I just hated the poor app quality.  I voted 3 different times before the votes actually 'saved' in the app.  It crashed continually.  It had poor Social features.  But the exclusive and selectable camera angles made me keep coming back.




Umami had some interesting new features to crow about.  The trending Twitter indication was interesting (but for consumers, probably less so).  The Freeze Frame app was a cool way to share content (though I suspect as yet unapproved by content creators).  Essentially, you hit a button and the magic server in the cloud snaps a picture (I am assuming this only works for live TV and not even time shifted east coast / west coast TV).  If you could get the photo right, it was pretty cool.





ConnecTV?  It did better.  The room was VERY quiet and the audio sync'd successfully 3 of 4 attempts.  It was the first time the "synchronized" content did not appear random (though based on some DVR pauses, I don't think it was synchronized but just tied to the current real-time moment).  I still don't like the advertising engagement (not in synch with the TV) or the use of real state from a UI perspective.



IntoNow surprised me by having a relatively cool feature.  They showed recent photos of the red carpet and the Oscars and asked for a like or no-like, and then shared the rating of other users with you.  Very much the "Social Networking Hot or Not" example from the movie.  I actually think their Twitter feed implementation is better, though still needs curation and time-syncing.  The massive real-estate to display who else is using the app seems odd at best.





 Yap.tv hasn't changed much.  Very much the social-only app, but I have to say that having the Twitter feed literally fly by is not a great experience.







Miso?  No comment.

Watching the Red Carpet for the Oscars with Second Screen

February 27, 2012 When will second screen be mass market?  Bill Baxter tried to answer that at the 2nd Screen Summit last week in his keynote.  This experience might answer it in a more empirical manner.

You wouldn't believe the abuse I have taken over the past few months from some of my unbelieving neighbors who have constantly told me that they want to watch their TV show or movie and not have any of it distracted with a tablet or laptop.

For today's big event, I offered to join the girls briefly while they watched to get some live feedback (of the naysayers), but they rebuffed me with great laughter.  While I was reviewing the apps, I sent a few pics to their iPhones just to show them what they were missing.  I was quickly invited down the street to share the iPad experience with them.



It was actually a great experience to see the naysayers (pictured above) convert so quickly into real enthusiasts.  They were quickly pulling the iPad on to the coffee table so that everyone could see the various camera angles from the ABC Official Oscars app and the arrival photos from the E! Live from the Red Carpet app.

Let's start with the ABC Official Oscars app:

• I received a ton of comments about the poor nature of the ABC app during the week.  It was crashing for people, not well designed, etc.  I was eager to check it out tonight.
• The ability to see multiple camera angles during the red carpet the was a very cool feature and my focus group subjects spent most of their on it.
• The app did crash quite a bit.  Really.
• I did try the voting feature.  3 times.  It wiped out my entries for 2 of the attempts.
• The orientation of the app was quite frankly bizarre.  The iPhone version stayed in landscape 90% of the time.  The iPad app stayed in portrait 95% of the time.  Seems very, very backwards.
• I was not a fan of the Twitter feed implementation.  Too official.

• They missed the opportunity to have a live, synchronized experience (think TVplus).  My test subjects constantly asked why they couldn't see a link the various actors, know about the dress, the dress maker, etc.
• Simple-none.  Social-low.  Stimulating-high.  Seamless-none.  Discovery-none.
• But, in the end, having access to the other camera feeds for the Red Carpet still made the app indispensable.

A Quick Re-Cap of the 2nd Screen Summit

February 25, 2012 If you didn't get a chance to join us in Santa Monica on Wednesday, you missed a great program of 300+ industry players interacting in panels throughout the day.



The keynote was presented by Bill Baxter, CTO of BuddyTV.  The topic of his presentation was when Second Screen would second screen be a mass market experience.  His conclusion was that is was already; however, during the discussion, he gave some great insight to BuddyTV's experience around social engagement (about 0.5% of users actually comment in the app via chat or Twitter, but 50% of them read the comments and Tweets).  Additionally, he postulated that when consumers used his app to control the 1st device (Simple), they were twice as likely to engage in other parts of the app (Social, Stimulating, etc).

The initial panel consisted of 45 minutes of passionate discussions around what creates an engaging consumer experience with input from BuddyTV, M-GO, Fanhattan, 1K and TVplus (moderated by myself).  There was an excellent debate around the concept of a "killer feature" that would propel second screen forward across the chasm to mass adoption.

It was followed by a 40-minute panel on metadata, with participation from Automated Insights, Digital Smiths, RCDb, Rovi and TVplus (moderated by myself again).  Ajay Shah from TVplus started the conversation off by explaining how his team currently builds their synchronized experiences and the metadata experts discussed the potential evolution of metadata services to support the developing second screen market--including the concept of metadata becoming "sexy".

We had a very interesting "app shoot-out" just before lunch.  The concept was for each app to have 3 minutes to show off their capabilities in Simple, Social, Seamless, Stimulating and Discovery across a Modern Family episode and the recent airing of The Voice.  The audience then voted on Twitter and on write-in ballots for the best app in each category and best overall.  The winners which were presented at the end of the day were awarded as follows: Simple - BuddyTV, Social - Yap.tv, Seamless - Fanhattan, Stimulating - TVplus, Discovery - BuddyTV, and Best Overall to Fanhattan.  Congratulations all.


In the afternoon, we had some great data insight presented by NPD on how the CE device market was shaping up to support second screen, followed by a great panel on the subject with Verizon, LG, Samsung and Testronics (moderated by Tom Engdahl).


That was followed by a great panel discussion from Fox, Disney, Technicolor, Civolution, Blu-Focus and Jargon around collaboration in building great second screen applications, with a very lively debate around the requirement to "templatize" / build a platform vs. the need to support creativity and a great UX.

Renaud Fuchs from Technicolor then delivered a very interesting data set on the second screen app market to date, with views on what market phase we were in (multiplication or consolidation) and presented some compelling data on Get Glue usage.



Finally, the day was capped off with a panel on Monetizing the Second Screen with inputs from Second Screen Networks, GetThis, MediaLink and McCann Worldgroup (moderated by Seth Shapiro).  While not conclusive, there was a good debate that continued from previous panels about commerce and advertising (and loyalty programs) balanced with a great user experience.

A great inaugural event for this fast-paced market segment with the most asked question during the cocktail reception being "When and where should the industry gather next?"

A recap of the apps for the 2nd Screen Summit app shoot-out

February 21, 2012

A Brief Introduction to Second Screen

February 18, 2012

I’ve had a number of people ask for a more basic introduction to the concepts of Second Screen and to answer the question of “so what?” with some current statistics.

Let’s try this:

- The concept. This picture says it all.   The simple act of watching television (sports, movies, or your favorite TV series) with a smart phone, tablet, or laptop in your hands.

- What to do. The idea is to further engage the consumer in the event or show in front of them with 3 basic use cases (see this infographic):

1. Videophile/sports enthusiast. Additional fan-based content about the show or sporting event. This could be as simple as the details about the careers of the cast or as complex as relevant information about the current scene synchronized to the playback of the show itself.

2. Commerce. Presenting relevant information to the viewer so that they can purchase that hat, that handbag or dress, that jersey, etc.

3. Advertising. Putting relevant and engaging advertisements that the consumer would actually be interested in seeing.

I discuss the apps themselves based on their ability to control the 1st screen (Simple), to connect viewers (Social), to aggregate multiple content sources (Seamless), to engage the consumer (Stimulating), and to allow the consumer to find relevant new content (Discovery). Further explained in this blog.

Perhaps a better explanation is this Disney Tron Legacy video.

So what?  check out some of the stats here.

A Brief Introduction to Second Screen

February 17, 2012 I've had a number of people ask for a more basic introduction to the concepts of Second Screen and to answer the question of "so what?" with some current statistics.

How many Second Screen apps are out there?

February 17, 2012

Earlier today, we talked about the 10 apps we plan to review next week at the 2nd Screen Summit.  But how many apps are actually out there?  I think the way to think about this is consider the business model or objective of the app and then group them based on their backing or investment levels.  For example, there are apps with great funding coming from the network operators (Verizon, DirecTV, etc), but we need to keep in mind the objective of their backers (reduce churn and if possible raise ARPU).  While broadcast networks (ABC, NBC) or network brands (Bravo, Syfy, USA) have a completely different goal in mind (create stickiness for their shows and potentially to sell advertising).  Branded show apps or feature film apps are clearly about building brand stickiness, and all of the third party apps are trying to figure out how to generate revenue (either thru some form of advertising or marketing or commerce).  What does all of this mean for the consumer?  It means you will probably find the best show-based Stimulating content coming from the branded network or show apps, while the best features for Simple will come from the network operators.  It also immediately implies that 3rd party apps are the consumers best shot at driving forward feature development because it is the only way for them to differentiate themselves against the advantage network operators and branded networks/shows have on them to have a shot at convincing the consumer to use their app instead.

So, while not quite the same landscape or ecosystem we reviewed a few weeks ago, on the iPad, it looks something like the images below.  Come next week and discuss with us (www.2ndscreensummit.com).

 

 

 

 

 

How many Second Screen apps are out there?

February 17, 2012 Earlier today, we talked about the 10 apps we plan to review next week at the 2nd Screen Summit.  But how many apps are actually out there?  I think the way to think about this is consider the business model or objective of the app and then group them based on their backing or investment levels.  For example, there are apps with great funding coming from the network operators (Verizon, DirecTV, etc), but we need to keep in mind the objective of their backers (reduce churn and if possible raise ARPU).  While broadcast networks (ABC, NBC) or network brands (Bravo, Syfy, USA) have a completely different goal in mind (create stickiness for their shows and potentially to sell advertising).  Branded show apps or feature film apps are clearly about building brand stickiness, and all of the third party apps are trying to figure out how to generate revenue (either thru some form of advertising or marketing or commerce).  What does all of this mean for the consumer?  It means you will probably find the best show-based Stimulating content coming from the branded network or show apps, while the best features for Simple will come from the network operators.  It also immediately implies that 3rd party apps are the consumers best shot at driving forward feature development because it is the only way for them to differentiate themselves against the advantage network operators and branded networks/shows have on them to have a shot at convincing the consumer to use their app instead.

So, while not quite the same landscape or ecosystem we reviewed a few weeks ago, on the iPad, it looks something like the images below.  Come next week and discuss with us (www.2ndscreensummit.com).

Branded TV Network / Show Apps

Network Operator Apps

Blu-ray Apps

Well-funded 3rd Party Apps We'll Review on Feb 22, 2012

Other Well-funded 3rd Party Apps

3rd Party Apps with Less Funding / Presence

More 3rd Party Apps with Less Funding / Presence

SecondScreen App “Shoot-out” at S3

February 16, 2012

As many of you already know, we are holding a 1-day conference next week at the Loews in Santa Monica (Feb 22) with two parallel tracks: one on Second Screen and one on Social TV.

We are planning to run a 2nd screen app “shoot-out” around lunch time.  Essentially, we are going to take the audience through a three-minute tour of each of 10 Second Screen TV apps where in the 1st minute we walk through a series of use cases for the consumer on a scripted TV show, in the 2nd minute we perform similar tasks on a live / reality TV show, and then give the app developers a chance to show off the features they believe differentiate themselves in the 3rd minute.

Then we’ll let the conference audience vote using Twitter hash tags and combine that feedback with the views of a small panel of “expert” judges (50/50).

Finally, we’ll award the winners in 6 categories at the end of the conference day (just before cocktails):

1. Best in Simple (ability to control the first screen)
2. Best in Social (ability to interact with others via Twitter, Facebook, live chat, etc)
3. Best in Seamless (ability to provide multiple sources for viewing content)
4. Best in Stimulating (ability to provide the consumer with interesting and relevant content during their viewing experience)
5. Best in Discovery (ability to provide the consumer with recommendations on other content he/she may be interested in)
6. Best Overall 2nd Screen Experience

Here are the list of apps we plan to review next Wednesday: