TV1Click - TV & Web Convergence Discussion Blog

Is Television Steve Job's Final Frontier? - linked from Daily Finance

By Rick Aristotle Munarriz, The Motley Fool Posted 12:45PM 10/24/11

All of us at TVissimo are curious to see how Steve Jobs is going to change the TV landscape as he moved his company so that now - Apple may be ready to think inside the box -- the television box, that is.

One of the juiciest nuggets in Walter Isaacson's authorized Steve Jobs biography is that the iconic tech visionary was working on an actual Apple-branded television as one of his final projects at the company.

"I'd like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use," Jobs told Isaacson. "It would be seamlessly synced with all of your devices and with iCloud."

"It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it."

A History of Chatter

Professional Apple watchers have been speculating on Apple's evolutionary move into flat-screen televisions for a long time.

"Apple's fantastic ability to create exceptionally user-friendly products could revolutionize TVs just like the iPhone changed the mobile phone market," Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster said more than two years ago.

Ticonderoga Securities analyst Brian White and VentureBeat's Dylan Tweney have continued to add perspective to the speculative fire.

In a note to clients six months ago, White suggested that the Cupertino tech giant may have a Web-tethered television on the market as early as this holiday shopping season. That obviously isn't going to happen, but an analyst doesn't go out on that kind of limb unless he has pretty good sources indicating that a full-blown big-ticket television set is in the works.

Connected bloggers -- including Tweney -- began throwing out a 2012 release date this summer.

However, now that even Jobs is -- or rather sadly was -- publicly discussing an integrated TV that's easy to use, it really becomes a matter of time before Apple makes it official.

There's Nothing Good on TV

Don't confuse this with Apple TV, the small set-top gadget that's been a rare dud in Apple's arsenal. We're talking actual smart televisions.

Google  hasn't had a lot of success with the Google TV platform it introduced last year, but the search engine giant rushed that initiative to the market. Apple will have time to get it right. When Jobs told Isaacson that he finally "cracked" it, he wasn't talking about cracking the screen.

Apple's television should be able to stream your owned content backed up on Apple's new iCloud storage solution. There will naturally be apps and access to the prevailing streaming services. Google TV has apps, but developers will finally get serious about developing for Apple. In other words, even without trying, Apple will raise the bar.

(Spoiler alert: Apple will try.)

Big Boxes: Big Headaches

Apple wouldn't be the first computer company to have dreams of becoming a TV star. Dell and Hewlett-Packard rolled out branded flat screens a couple of years ago. Why not? PC monitors continue to get bigger, and the line is blurred between large flat-screen PC monitors and small flat-screen LCD and plasma TVs.Top of Form

Bottom of Form

Consumers didn't take to Dell and HP as the centerpiece of their home theater systems. HP in particular was just ahead of its time in introducing its Web-surfing MediaSmart line five years ago. However, neither of those two box-smiths have the brand panache of Apple, which can get folks camping outside its stores overnight to become the earliest of the early adopters.

Traditional manufacturers will tell you that making televisions is a cutthroat business with meager margins, but that's obviously not going to dissuade Apple. Its brand alone commands a market premium, giving it a markup advantage that has turned commodity gadgetry -- MP3 players, smartphones, laptops, and tablets -- into juicy profit centers.

Avoiding the Mickey Mouse Mistake

Now that Jobs has gone public with his new vision for television, it will be hard for Apple to resist its introduction. If and when it hits the market, it will be Jobs' baby -- his youngest and final child. And it will be a big hit, at least initially.

A lot can happen between yesterday's dream and tomorrow's reality. Several decades ago, Walt Disney discussed EPCOT on his weekly television show. His Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow was a planned city, with actual residents and self-sustaining operations. The EPCOT amusement park that opened in Florida many years after his passing bears no resemblance to his original vision.

This won't happen here. For starters, the gap between Jobs' words and the actual rollout will be substantially shorter. Apple also has no reason to deviate from the proven formula, and having $81.6 billion in cash and marketable securities gives the company the freedom to once again dream out loud.

The Apple television is coming. Start lining up and thanking Jobs.

See full article from DailyFinance: http://srph.it/rpLCS3

Facebook Making Moves to Connect Friends with TV

We have been writing about social media and TV for some time. (see posts: TV Industry Uses Social Media for Oscars and More; Traditional Media is Expanding its Audience Through Social Media; and Centralization of TV Has Opened Doors for Social Media). Now Facebook wants to make TV more social as reported by Emil Protalinski at ZDNet. They intend to do this by improving how you find your favorite TV content and how you connect to your friends around that content.

Emil reports that Andy Mitchell, SVP of Strategic Partner Development at Facebook, told attendees at the last TV marketing conference PromaxBDA that social program guides are the future for television. He said that Facebook could partner with TV providers to help their customers find relevant programming by leveraging their social graph. We are very pleased to hear about this move at TVissimo as we can support these types of content related connections.

As we know well, current options for finding what you want to watch on TV from the hundreds of possibilities can be difficult. This is why we started TVissimo. Now Mitchell is quoted as stating, “But think about a program guide where you see what your friends are watching, that changes the experience. I think the real opportunity is creating a TV experience in which one or two or three of your friends share their viewing experiences which gets people to become recruiters for your show.”

How about sharing likes on Facebook while at the same time letting TVissimo localize the show to everyone so you get your local channel and time?  TVissimo also has a favorite’s list which you could share with your friends.  This could promote more collective viewing and then the sharing of comments and reactions through Facebook.  These conversations can help drive more traffic to TV shows. The Facebook and Twitter “water-cooler effect” could also make big shows even bigger.  For example, The Grammy Awards had its highest rating in a decade this year with a lot of online support. 

People are increasingly using the Web and TV at the same time. A recent study by Deloitte of American consumers ages 14 to 75 found that 42 percent sometimes surfed the Web while watching TV. So there is a natural audience for connecting Facebook and TV. The many Social Media features of TVissimo could help greatly enhance this experience.

 

 

TV Industry Uses Social Media for Oscars and More

Continuing its coverage of social media and TV, Brian Stelter reported in the New York Times on how TV Industry Taps Social Media, in this case for the Oscars.  Recognizing that people multiple task with their computer while watching TV as I wrote about recently, ABC created a companion Web site with behind-the-scenes video streams. Oscar winners will be seen accepting an award on the TV set, then seen celebrating backstage on the Web.

The article quoted Ian Schafer, the chief executive of the digital agency Deep Focus, who said that Twitter and Facebook messages about shows may well be “the most efficient way to drive tune-in.”  I have found this for blogs and it makes sense for TV. To me Twitter is a great traffic driver, more than a direct message deliverer.  Far from competing than TV, the Twitter “water-cooler effect” makes big shows even bigger. The Grammy Awards had its highest rating in a decade this year with a lot of online support.  Again, the same holds for blogs and Twitter, in my view.

The article also quoted Dick Costolo, the chief executive of Twitter, that online conversations about TV shows turn the programs into events, “meaning people watch them as they happen,” blunting the impact of digital video recording. This makes sense, also the Times noted that digital recording remains strong.

The Times reported more data to support this trend. During the Super Bowl this year, Twitter users set a new record by sending 4,064 messages each second, the highest number of messages per second recorded during any sporting event.. In addition, a recent study by Deloitte of American consumers ages 14 to 75 found that 42 percent sometimes surfed the Web while watching TV. I do all the time, especially during onscreen commercials. The eye balls for ads may be drifting online. 

 

Hey Grammys, You Can’t Tape-delay Social Media; Convergence is Here

As I wrote last week, Multi-Tasking Users Already Driving TV Web Convergence. Now could the Grammy people not know that their show would attract a lot of social media people tweeting about the show, the winners, and the losers.  So why did they do a tape delay for the West Coast? As Cory Bergman wrote, “the taped (delayed) broadcast was getting underway, all of the top Twitter trends were related to the Grammys. This is just another confirmation of what I wrote last week.  You cannot separate TV from social media and The Web. The convergence has arrived.

The live blog on Grammys.com was even worse as organizers didn’t even try to cater to the West Coast audience. Just as West Coast users first logged into Grammys.com, they saw the biggest spoilers of the night from the end of the East Coast show. Cory adds that ‘two-screen experiences are now the norm for many TV households.” This is especially among key younger demograpghics that network television desires. Social engagement is at its highest for live events “where the outcome is uncertain,” said Twitter’s Robin Sloan after MTV’s VMA awards, which was broadcast live on both coasts. 

 

Multi-Tasking Users Already Driving TV Web Convergence

I have written a lot about the convergence of television and the Web on this blog.  There are many plans for this to occur in single box, either through a television or a computer. However, people are not waiting according to a Nielsen study that came out in 2010.  It found that “In the last quarter of 2009, simultaneous use of the Internet while watching TV reached three and a half hours a month, up 35% from the previous quarter. Nearly 60% of TV viewers now use the Internet once a month while also watching TV.”

Mac Slocum at O’Reilly notes the “disconnect between television's lean-back experience and the web's lean-forward positioning.” He believes “a big reason why web and TV haven't yet converged in a broadly adopted super device is because it's uncomfortable -- physically and mentally -- to rock between push and pull. It's a heck of a lot easier to prop a notebook on your lap while the TV plays in the background.”

This is spot on. TV and the Web actually complement each other. I confess to be one of these multi-taskers. This is especially true as I watched sports events. I tend to go to my computer for Twitter or other tasks during commercials. When I look at Twitter I see that others are doing the same thing. I do not watch videos on my computer while I do work on it. I watch them on my TV.  I would not want them on the same device unless it had multiple windows but even then I would prefer two devices. I could then use my computer to search for what I want to watch on TV. I often do this now through Google but would prefer a more robust device such as the one we designed for TVissimo. 

Are you doing this multi-tasking with your computer and TV also?  Do you agree that putting them on a single device might be dysfunctional?

 

Internet TV Continues to Move Forward Despite Slowing TV Sales

The New York Times noted recently that the expected n bonanza in TV sales is fading for several reasons. For one most Americans have already upgraded their old boxy televisions in favor of the sleek flat-panel displays. I have some of each. The new 3-D televisions have not yet caught on.

However, one thing continues, the move to integrate TV and the Web. It is working both ways –making the Web accessible through traditional television and putting television content on new computer devices. They report that ‘One way manufacturers are trying to make these features friendlier is by using Apple’s iPhone model, allowing outside companies like Netflix to develop applications that work on their displays.” Panasonic and LG recently announced new Internet TV platforms that will open up the interfaces of their sets to outside developers.

However, the Times also noted that there is no standard way for the Web TV convergence and this may be a problem.  They write, “But recent missteps by technology companies like Google with its Google TV service, as well as the often confusing mosaic of streaming and download providers, has left the market looking a little muddled.”

We hope that standards will be implemented to further open up this great opportunity for creative applications. TVissimo was designed for this integrated market. 

 

Will 99¢ Change TV Like it Changed Music?

This is a question Stewart Mader asks in his blog Future Changes. He writes that Apple’s announcement of a new Apple TV device with 99¢ TV episode rentals could have the same impact on the cable TV industry as the impact that 99¢ songs had on the music industry. “When Apple introduced the iTunes store with songs priced at 99¢, it changed the “single” part of the music landscape, by allowing consumers to buy only the songs they wanted.” I do it all the time. This changed the buying paradigm.

Many people also want to get a single cable show or channel rather than the entire package they are forced to select by the cable industry.  With the right rental charges these offerings could be cheaper than the DVDs covering the series.  This becomes even more attractive if it spreads to the iPad and iPhone.  What do think will occur? What will you do? 

 

Google TV Gets Poor Reviews and Faces Delays

As reported in the New York Times, Google TV Faces Delays Amid Poor Reviews. The story noted these issues illustrate the “struggles Google faces as it tries to expand into the tricky, unfamiliar realm of consumer electronics, and drum up broad interest in a Web-based TV product that consumers want.”

According to the story, Google has a long history of putting out new products and revising them as they go forward. However, this doe splay as well in the consumer electronics market where companies place big, well-timed bets to attract seasonal shoppers such as holiday buyers or the back-to-school crowd.

“Google as a company is not a particularly partner-friendly or partner-focused company,” said James L. McQuivey, an analyst at Forrester, who added that because of the delay, it might take another year before Google TV has a chance to make an impact in the market.

Google has promised to apply its main expertise — search — to the TV. Instead of the “byzantine cable and DVR programming menus that viewers navigate today, with Google TV, they can search for the name of a show and see when it’s being broadcast and where it’s available online, in addition to viewing links to Web sites about the show and its actors.” However, this is still a work in progress.

But, the NYT concludes, so far, “Google TV is not ready for prime time, according to consumer technology reviewers and some early customers.” We think that they could benefit from the search approach we designed into TVissimo.

 

 

NBC Partners with DC Comics for iPad App

Here is a really cool integration of computers and TV. There is a promotion going on for NBC’s new series The Cape. NBC has partnered with DC Comics to make the full pilot episode available through DC’s free comic book iPad application. This is a free way for fans to check out the pilot before it airs and is a very interesting way of making the show available for fans to see outside their traditional television set.

This is the first time DC Comics has offered long form video through their iPad application (which is also available for the iPhone). Web and TV conversion continues to be innovative and interesting.  Here is a link to download the DC Comics iPad application. 

 

More on KETC TV 'Homeland' Immigration Project

I recently ran a three part series on the KETC TV social media projects. Rob Paterson has posted details of the components of the third project on immigration.  Rob quotes Amy Shaw, KETC's vice president of education and community engagement “Homeland aims to "apply public media sensibilities, expertise and capacity to address a complicated and polarizing issue.” Amy said the project is "rooted in needs of the community.” Homeland is teaming up with KETC's NineAcademy, a free community media program that trains local people in shooting, editing, and storytelling. The best productions will be featured on the Homeland site and on KETC.

There are five sections to the Homeland site. Here is what Rob reported:

360 Degree Perspectives is a blog that explores multiple perspectives on immigration issues, based on KETC's meetings with community members from all spots on the political spectrum.

Fact vs. Myth takes a nuanced look at some of the common information and misinformation surrounding the immigration debate.

Your Voice is a discussion forum for community members. Right now, the conversation is heavily populated by KETC staff, but Shaw is confident that the balance will shift over time to allow for more user-directed conversation.

Homeland Series is a behind-the-scene look at the making of the four-hour series that will air in 2011. The broadcast element of this project is, as Shaw explained, "a piece of puzzle," not the be-all end-all culmination of the project. Community meetings have shaped the entire direction of the project, including the decision to create the four-hour broadcast piece.

Finally, From the Beacon showcases related work from KETC's newspaper partner, the St. Louis Beacon providing cross-platform news coverage to the benefit of both organizations.

This social media effort is very new for the station and as they experiment with community-based public affairs coverage, the team is constantly evaluating what works and what does not. The lessons learned could very well inform a powerful community engagement model for other stations around the country. 

 

Google TV Could Use Help with Search

Jason Hiner recenlty wrote about the five most overhyped tech products of 2010 and Goolge TV made the list. He wrote that there is great potential here and if Google had “focused on bringing Android apps to the flatscreen instead of trying to webify the television experience, this product could have been a huge success.” He feels that if Goolge had done the former it could transform entertainment. We would agree.

To realize the potential Google will have to change its strategy. Jason wrote that what the “company has attempted to do with Google TV is marry Web video with traditional cable/satellite all controlled by one box that you can use to search for the content you want. Unfortunately, the user experience is confusing and cumbersome.”

This is why we created Tvissimo, to give you an easy to use and comprehenisive TV search experience. Now with devices such as Google TV this search capability with Tvissimo can be more easily integrated into the television experience.

The KETC Social Media and TV Experience Part Three: Tackling Immigration Issues

This is the third in a three part series covering the efforts of the PBS affiliate in St. Louis, KETC, to align social media and traditional television.  I am interviewing Rob Paterson who is part of the team supporting the KETC efforts. 

Bill: So now you have tackled a relatively easy problem with war memories and one that is a little more complex with the mortgage crisis.  Now you are going after a very controversial issue.

Rob: Yes. Immigration is an issue that divides the nation. Part of our motive is that many of the important issues in America are like this one such as the war, the economy, healthcare, and education. There is a whole range of issues that are vital to the success of the nation that are locked in ideological dogmatic dog fights that are intensely polarizing. The current media, in the so-called search for balance, enables the extremes to pull the gap even wider. There is no room for a civic discourse that was the American way. There is no room for the community to talk with each other and work out a solution.

This polarization was the context for the third project. It could have been the war or healthcare or similar tough topics. Immigration is an issue that is bubbling up in the St. Louis area so we picked it. The task before us is that we were dealing with a topic where the media often uses fear and gets away from conservation. Can we do better? My own view is that if there is not a defined way to have these conversations what is the future of the country? We will never solve anything.

Bill: I think that you have very accurately portrayed regular commercial television news and how it serves as a vehicle for further polarization in the nation. I recently viewed again the movie Invictus about Nelson Mandela as I am getting ready to go to South Africa. I am a big fan of him. Instead of a vehicle for further polarization what you want to be is a vehicle for reconciliation just as Mandela did through example.

Rob: Yes. I love it. Reconciliation is a wonderful word.

Bill: Invictus is a great movie about engaging both sides. Just like South Africa, America needs the engagement of both sides.

Rob: This is what we are after here. This is the Holy Grail. So how do we do this? We are going to try to put the control in the hands of the public. We are going to try to put the public into the center of public television. This will be a revolution. Currently it is called public television but it is made in the old way using the concept the station is very clever and it is going to give the public what the station thinks the public wants. In this project we want to be led and influenced all along by the public.

We are going to make a four-part TV documentary. We have a very active Web space and an exceptionally active community outreach program. And we have set up a school to teach people how to tell stories using video. This is the new literacy.  Any one can pick up an iPhone or a Flip camera and press the red button but it takes some skill to make a story.

Now I will weave this together.  The outreach people have been talking to thousands of people in St. Louis about their experience with immigration. We have sent out a survey to all of our members and we are getting some responses back. My job is to use Darwin to see what everyone else outside St. Louis is doing.  From this we have been designing the four part television series. In the past the TV producer comes up with a story and films it. We have done the interaction part in steroids. We are making the film as a result of the understanding and knowledge we have gained from the local community and beyond.

There has been nine months of active interaction with the community and the world beyond. We created a Web site that enables us to go out on a daily basis and ask people questions about what is going on and have the answer up on the Web site the next day.  We never used to be an instant anything but on we have learned to do online video.

What this means is that there will be a news item that I might pick up or we learn through other means. Then we will go out and have people react to this item and put up their answers within a day. So the whole thing feeds on itself. We have taken people who have never done anything like this in their life. They have now learned how to produce content on a twelve-hour cycle. 

Bill: So they produce this content but how is it turned around?

Rob: We shoot it with a Flip camera. We edit it with iMovie. Then we upload it to YouTube and it goes on our site. Nothing could be farther from a heavily produced segment.  We do not take a camera crew out. The people on the street do not even see the camera even though we tell them it is there. They sign a release form but there is no big camera presence or crew.

Bill: Once it goes on YouTube and on the site what happens?

Rob: We are building a mosaic of responses. The question is how do you have balance? The answer is that you do not try to balance everything off in one show each time.  The typical TV thing is one side says black and the other says white. You put them together and you have a dead program or just ranting.

Bill: So you achieve balance over time.

Rob: We are achieving balance over time through a mosaic.  In a mosaic the pattern emerges.  We are neutral in that we not offer judgments on what any one individual says. But the pattern over time comes out.

We spent the last two months on the site learning how to do all this. This interview is timely because we about to promote the site. It has been public for a while but we have not promoted it.  We had to learn to do many things and we were not ready for show time. Now we have enough material on the site that the mosaic is starting to appear.  This will feed into the documentary that will be filmed by the professionals. We are also sharing ideas about what will be in the documentary in the hope that people will add to or adjust what we do.

We are going to do something that is extremely difficult. We are going to film the documentary as an interactive process with the community. We will use professional filmmakers but with community involvement.  We will be finishing the documentary over the next four months and interacting with the community over this time about what we are doing.

Bill: So the documentary draws on the mosaic as raw material.

Rob: Yes and also parts of the documentary will be revealed while we are still in the editing phase and see what kind of response we get. So this will be as interactive as you can get. It has never been done before so we are a bit nervous about how it will come out.

Even though the final documentary will be filmed by professionals, much of the content comes from the community. To this end we have children of Bosnian refuges learning how to use Flip cameras to record stories and this is great fun.

Bill: What are the immigrant groups that you are looking at?

Rob: We had to learned how to best categorize them. When we started there were so many groups we were not sure what to do. Now three groups have emerged. There is the group most Americans are worried about, the very large numbers who are coming in from Mexico and other Latin American countries in the last twenty years. The majority of these immigrants have come in the last ten years. The large group of Latin American immigrants mainly work in food related jobs such as picking crops, serving food, performing lower level aspects of meat packing, etc. These are the types of jobs that many Americans will no longer take.

At the other end are what we might label as the best and the brightest. These are very clever people who come from many countries around the globe to get a better life.  At least a quarter of the best startup companies in the US have been founded by these people. This is a reliable source of new jobs. Most of the job loses have come from traditional companies and twenty five percent of the new jobs have been in companies that were founded by immigrants or children of immigrants. These immigrants are not limited to a few countries and come from all over.

The third group of immigrants are refuges. They come in completely different circumstances. There was the civil war in Bosnia and America made room for a large number of Muslim Bosnians who, if they had not come here, might have died or fared poorly. The same goes for a large group of Liberians. These two groups come from very different parts of the world but they share common experiences and have seen terrible things we would never want to see. 

The refuges have a particular process. It used to be that you would arrive from Sarajevo and you would get three months support from the Feds and that would be it. Now it is eight months. In that period you have to assimilate, get a job, and get started.  This is very difficult.

The common thing that all immigrants share is that getting legal is all but impossible.  Many people might say that I have no problems with immigrants as along as they are legal. One problem that is not understood is that getting legal status is all but impossible. Even if you have family it will take between ten and twenty five years.

 

 

 

KETC Social Media and TV Project Part Two: Supporting Those Affected by the Mortgage Crisis

This is the second in a three part series covering the efforts of the PBS affiliate in St. Louis, KETC, to align social media and traditional television.  I am interviewing Rob Paterson who is part of the team supporting the KETC efforts.

Bill: Tell me about the second phase of the social media project.

Rob: The second phase of this experiment came as the financial situation in the US started to get bad. The idea was to connect people in St. Louis to resources, both online and physical, that they could trust to help them with mortgage problems.  We started this on our own and then we discovered something about the community. There are all sorts of organizations that work on issues like the mortgage crisis but most of them never talk to each other. Many of them are quite suspicious of each other as they compete for funding. We acted as a resource to help bring these groups together. We found a means through the United Way where people could phone in and get help from any resource. 

We used the Web site to support his. We decided from a tool point of view that we were not going to use tools on the site that anyone else could not use. So we used the free and easy ones.  We used YouTube and this was a big deal for us at the time. It is taken for granted now but using a tool that everyone can access on the Web-based was new.

Bill: The concern with YouTube was losing control over the content?

Rob: Yes. But after we used it successfully we thought of other uses. The station has a wonderful series titled, Living St. Louis, that has many episodes on the community that you could no longer see after each was shown. As a result of this project, the station converted the entire series to YouTube and made it available through the Web site and a YouTube channel in a searchable archive. It gets a lot of traffic now. So as a byproduct of doing this effort we found a way to make some of our quality content more accessible and drive up traffic.

Bill: I can really see the benefit here. One of our local Boston stations has a similar series and I am always disappointed if I miss a good episode, as there is no way to see it after its scheduled showing. I would be very excited to have the ability to search an archive to see if there is an episode that covers a place where I am planning to go or to help me determine where to go.

Rob: It sounds like an obvious move but it is new for broadcast TV. By doing these new projects we can break through what is considered normal and the old culture of control. We were so successful with the mortgage project that we got funding to bring this to over 30 markets around the US. This was the first time we had a national project. There were actually over 60 stations as we did radio and TV.

As a result of this many of these stations who had never done this type of project or run this type of Web site or used YouTube, Facebook or Twitter, now did new things. In many cases the radio and TV people in same area did not talk to each other, as there was a sense of rivalry and distrust. Now they communicated on a common project.

This effort helped stations go beyond simply being a public media and better become a public service media. In other words, they could help their community deal with an important issue.

Bill: Isn’t being a public service vehicle part of their charter. Perhaps they may pay lip service to it in most cases.

Rob: Public service is specifically part of their charter. However, many forgot this and thought they were a television station. It’s like the credit unions that tried to be banks. Now the new social media is allowing public television stations to fulfill this responsibility. But the barrier is culture and mindset.

In the sixty TV and radio stations that participated in the mortgage program you could divide them into three groups. First, there were those who got it and fully participated, pushing through the cultural barriers.  Then there were the stations that understood it intellectually and partially participated but need another project like this to go further. Finally, there were those that just went through the motions because funding was attached.

Bill: Was the goal of this program to provide better coordination of mortgage relief services to the people?

Rob: Yes, and just as important it was to enable the people in the community to find a safe and trusted channel to these resources. Here is the interesting part. The TV viewership for public television tends to be age 55 or older, well educated and of European descent. Because the issue of mortgage foreclosure affected so many people outside this demographic, we started to attract people outside this core demographic who had never been part of the public television audience. We were now reaching people online who did not watch the station’s Newhour and who might not ever watch it. However, we really helped them and they got engaged with the station through the Web and remain attached to it.

Bill: So you were reaching out to people online that you were not reaching through the traditional channels.

Rob: Yes. The Holy Grail in public television is to expand the audience. With social media we can enjoy the support of a much wider audience without compromising the quality of the broadcast television.  These people become attached to the station because it helps them.

Bill: What you also do is become a role model for traditional commercial television that, I believe, has the same charter to provide a public service to the community.

Rob: Yes and the commercial stations generally pay even less attention to this responsibility.  This is a good time to transition to the third phase, the coverage of the immigration debate.

Bill: We will begin to cover this in the next post as the third part of our series.

 

 

 

The KETC Social Media and TV Project Part One: Documenting World War Two Memories

The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) St. Louis station has been conducting a series of projects integrating social media with traditional broadcast television. This integration of old and new media is a topic we have frequently covered here and KETC is doing some of the most innovative work in this space. They began with a project on preserving World War Two stories from local vets. A second effort supported those caught in the mortgage crisis. In the third initiative they are using social media to help facilitate more rational conversations on immigration issues. In this post I discuss the first effort and the other follow.

Bill: Rob can you provide some background on the KETC social media project? What are its objectives? What has resulted so far?

Rob: KETC is the public television station in St. Louis. Since Jack Galmiche took over as President four years ago, his mission is to find a new model for a public television station in America. Like others, he understands that the old financial model for public television cannot continue to be successful. The old model worked on the premise that that public TV has quality content that you cannot get elsewhere. You have to adhere to our broadcast schedule and if you like what we bring you will support us financially with donations.

This old model will not work going forward as you can get great content for free anytime you want from many sources. While there is still a legacy group of supporters, this dwindling group will not take any TV or radio station securely forward into the future.

So the question becomes if we cannot rely on the old base of support, what will become the new base? Over the past four years Jack and his team have been working on a hypothesis that social media can help reach and sustain a new base of support to augment the old one. The current project on immigration is the end result of a series of experiments using social media to expand the base of support. The hypothesis goes on to say that public television should be in a great position to become the safe place where the community can interact with itself on issues that it cares about since public television is so trusted.

The first time we did this we used a very safe topic around the Ken Burns series on World War Two. As this series was being aired we went out to the local community through social media and other means, We said that there are many veterans in our community and you may or may not have shared your personal stories with your family.  Ken Burns is providing the stories of some vets. We are going to provide an easy means for you to share your own stories of the war that can be recorded forever. We will provide a way for these stories to be shared. 

This effort around World War Two stories went really well. We found a way to enable people to use the Web to share their memories. We discovered a way to engage a community around a topic. In this case, an important one, but also a safe one. No one was going to object to us having grandpa tell his war stories. One of the great examples occurred when one vet came to the station and asked to see Jack. He gave Jack his war medals. He said that he had never told his war stories before and for the first time he felt safe enough to do it. He wanted to tell then before he died. We were all moved by this experience and felt we had learned something.

Bill: This is a topic that is very near to me as my father was a World War Two vet who as a commando, often operated behind the Japanese lines. He was reluctant to tell more that general overviews of much of what he experienced but I know that it had a profound effect on him. He gave his medals, not of disrespect, but more out of modesty, to me incorporate into my childhood reenactments of World War Two. This was a favorite play topic for us in the 50s.

Rob: We are the same age and we did this also.

Bill: This occurred in the raised cemeteries of New Orleans that we pretended were urban battlefields.  There are many friends my age who also report their father’s reluctance to take about the war.  So what do you see that occurred that enabled these men in your community to share their experiences? How did social media play into this?

Rob: There was definitely a social media component. We had a dedicated Web site. We had a way of getting content to us and then we would put it up. We ran something like an antiques road show where people came in and told their stores and we recorded them. We found that the grandchildren started to ask their grandparents to tell these stories. For many men and, in some cases, women, once they saw others telling their stories and it was safe, they felt comfortable doing it themselves. They also realized that this might be their last chance. We have now set up a permanent memorial of all these stories so they will live on through the Web.

Bill: So, if I am hearing your correctly social media was used in two ways. First, to make people more aware of what you were doing. Second, to share the content once it was collected.

Rob: Yes and we had never done anything like this before. The Web had simply been the place to find out the schedule for TV shows or asking for donations. This was the first time we had a two-way interaction with the community through the Web. We asked for stuff and we got stuff back.

Bill: So what did you learn from this first step that you applied to the next step?

Rob: We learned how to start to work together. The tools are free and easy to use. The underlying story was a breakdown of the silos. To work well on the Web you have to have all the parts of the organization working well together. So we had cross department meetings to get the work done.  We had producers, marketing, outreach people, and our one person Web department. These cross department meetings had not occurred. As we moved forward this integration was a big deal and key enabler.

 

 

Traditional Media is Expanding its Audience Through Social Media

While this is about radio, the same principles apply to television as we saw in the last three posts on KETC TV. Rob Paterson recently wrote about: It's not the content but the connection that counts - NPR Rocks. He posted that NPR is trying to attract an younger audience and has succeeded “not because of a content shift but because they made it easier for a younger audience to connect to content on their terms! The secret was in the flexibility of the new connection NOT the content.” They used social media and mobile apps to achieve this connection.

Rob points to Jolie O’Dell’s post on Mashable, How NPR Is Leveraging the Twitter Generation. She made this statement that I totally agree with.  “…the future of news media lies in successful integration of social media to get the attention (and click-throughs) of a younger generation — a generation whose news needs are vastly different than those of the generations that preceded it.” 

NPR is becoming a poster child for this social media effort. They found In a recent survey of more than 10,000 respondents, that its Twitter followers are younger, more connected to the social web, and more likely to access content through digital platforms such as NPR’s website, podcasts, mobile apps and Facebook. The survey found that, 59% of respondents said they use NPR.org, 39% listen to NPR’s podcasts, around half use an NPR mobile app and 28% access NPR via Facebook. The survey also found that, 77% of NPR’s Twitter followers said they get all or most of their news online. These Twitter followers are more likely to expect breaking news, likely because of Twitter’s real-time nature.

I am sure that more television stations will follow this movement. 

 

 

 

Google Tv Adds Twitter

Google has announced some of its partners and Twitter is on the list. According to the Twitter blog, Twitter on Google TV has most of the features and functionality in regaular Twitter. You can look through Tweets, @mentions, and favorites. When you click on a Tweet, you can reply, retweet, favorite, or share it. You see additional options depending on the content of the Tweet. For example, you can visit a URL or click a hashtag to search for it on Twitter.

If a user is mentioned, you can visit that user’s profile to see their Tweets or follow them. If there is a link to a photo or video, you can see a thumbnail version. Clicking the link will take you to the site so you can see a larger version of the photo or watch the video.

The search box provides access to trending topics and recent searches, so you can see popular topics and revisit past searches. Twitter for Google TV is preinstalled lets you share videos, web pages, pictures, and other content on the Web Twitter. You do this through the “Share” option and select Twitter. I think this is an essential feature so I am glad they enabled this.

This is part of the growing convergence of the Web and television. Forrester expects there will be 43 million internet-connected television sets in United States homes by 2015. Google TV also announced that several television networks and media companies, including HBO, the NBA, and CNBC would be its partners in offering Web content and programming to allow for on-demand viewing and apps built for TV.

NBC Universal said it will deploy CNBC Real-Time, which allows for stock-tracking on the screen alongside the live broadcast of CNBC business channel. The National Basketball Association created N.B.A. Game Time for following basketball news. So far the major networks, ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC, are absent from Google’s partner list. 

 

Will Traditional Media Firms Control the New Web Video?

That is a question that the Economist asks and comes up with a yes answer at the moment.  I have already written a bit about how Google, Apple and Microsoft are making plays in this market.  The Economist reports that in the first seven months of 2010 that 12% of all the flat-screen televisions sold in America in the first seven months of this year were Web connected and the number may increase dramatically. However, many of these consumers do not know how to use this connection and/or are not interested in it.

The three tech giants are challenging the cable and satellite vendors and looking for ways to run around them. However, there is another group that holds much of the cards in this game. There are only a few big film and television producers, and they have slowed down this game according to the Economist. Apple has been unable to set up a subscription service for television and films. Hulu, owned in part by the studios, has similarly failed to obtain many shows from cable TV or from CBS, America’s most popular broadcast network.

Traditional television is going as strong as ever. According to Nielsen people watch online video for three hours per month, compared with 158 hours for traditional television. The only winner so far is Netflix, which rents DVDs. It has been amassing subscribers with 15 million so far. Now it is gradually moving into online distribution, and is becoming popular on connected TVs if anyone uses them. Neltflex will be built into the new Apple TV. The Economist also reports that Netflix has lots of money to spend on rights, and its wants to acquire some content exclusively.

This continues to be an interesting game to watch. 

 

Is the Clunky TV Remote Going Away?

This is the question that the Wall Street Journal recently proposed in the article, Left Behind: the Clunky TV Remote.  The growing number of smart devices with Web access have much easier interfaces that the complex TV remote. Imagine that you had to work with your computer or your smart phone with an interface w like a TV remote? Or in my case several TV remotes. Soemtimes they do not work and at best they are slow and overly complex. They only reason that they get anyway with it is that we are used to it. But now the new devices are chaning our perceptions.   

This will change. For example, as the WSJ reports, Sony Internet TV, which has Google TV software built into it, offers Web browsing, software applications and access to services like Netflix. Any developer can write apps for Google TV. In  additioin, Apple TV displays shows and movies in easy-to-navigate grids of colorful artwork, and the remote has just six buttons. At the same time, Comcast and Time Warner Cable are working on iPad applications that use the device's touch-sensing screen to browse their channel guides and switch to a new channel, so consumers can ditch their cable remotes.

 The WSJ quotes Paul Liao, president and chief executive of CableLabs, the cable industry's nonprofit research and development group, "We are headed in the direction where the cable box will go away." It will be a good move in our opioin and this is the envirobnment where Tvissimo would work well. 

 

Will TV Be the Next Target for Checkin Services?

Foursquare has become huge as a location checkin service. There are others, as well in the field. I have not gotten the bug but it took me a while to warm up to Twitter. Now, as Mashable reports, a number of services have popped up that re-purpose the checkin concept, popularized by Foursquare, and connect it to media and entertainment, as opposed to location.

Now checkin to TV and movies is more virtual than physical but that is fine in a virtual world. In practice, this entertainment checkin behavior is more familiar than location checkin. It actually emulates the way we experience entertainment in our everyday lives. Mashable writes, “the desire to share is unchanging — it’s how we share that will continue to evolve with the help of social media and entertainment checkin services.” I agree.

Mashable mentions three entertainment based checkin services: GetGlue, Philo and Miso. They all have mobile and web applications designed to support and enhance this natural entertainment-driven social behavior. Here is what Mashable wrote:

GetGlue’s iPhone app extends beyond just television content and supports checkins for books, wines, topics, celebrities and video games. Rewards come in the form of stickers earned from app activity. GetGlue has been around for years attempting to master social recommendation via the browser. With the move to mobile, the company can marry checkins to the social intelligence previously harvested.

Philo is hyper-focused on live television. Viewers use the iPhone app or web to check-in to the live content they’re watching. Philo pulls TV listings directly from cable providers, so viewers can even see the content that’s trending locally and pinpoint where to watch it. App users earn show-specific awards based on their behaviors and work their way up a Hollywood-style ladder to earn “Director” and “Executive Producer” “credits” for shows.

Miso is also about creating a social television watching experience. The alpha service currently has iPhone, iPad and web apps that support TV show or movie checkins. It bills itself as “Foursquare for TV” and has its own game mechanics and badges that are designed to hook viewers with the promise of unlocking additional content.

It seems that checking-in to television shows or other entertainment modes, if done right, can create a connection between media consumers with similar interests.

 

The Upcoming Battle for TV’s Operating System

You may ask what does an operating system have to do with TV. With the convergence of TV and the Web is has lot to do with it. One of the latest Retrevo stories by Andre Eisner covers this contest with Apple, Google, and Microsoft doing the battle here. Andrew writes that Microsoft does not have much of a chance of winning this battle for the TV OS. Google TV going for control of the living room like it controls Web search. Apple is countering with an updated version of their Apple TV that will put Apple iPhone/iPad apps firmly in the living room TV.

Andrew writes that at the moment a TV OS vacuum exists and unfortunately for consumers, TV manufacturers appear to be filling it with their own proprietary offerings. He argues for standards and we agree. He concludes that the TV industry needs to move away from closed environments and let their connected TVs work with all the apps and streaming content that consumers are finding so appealing. True Web TV convergence needs to occur. 

 

Centralization of TV Has Opened Doors for Social Media

Mike Frey through Social Media Today provided an insightful post on How Traditional Media Created Created Social Media. Mike opens with this observation. “Prior to conglomeration there was a time that radio, television and print were local community outlets.  At one time the big three were locally owned, and concentrated on local community.  Now most decisions that are made for communities regarding their major media are made from thousands of miles away.  What music to play, what programming to air, and all the cuts made at the print level most stories come off the wore than actually written by reporters.”

I also remember this local control in the three traditional media and have been disappointed in its passing. Now many people use social media to make up for this loss of community as Mike notes.  I certainly get much of my news through my Twitter friends and share back what I learn through Twitter and blogs. Like Mike, I stopped my subscription to our Boston print paper as it got smaller and, more importantly wrote about stores I had already heard through social media. I found myself often failing to walk down the driveway to pick it up. Now I still read the New York Times online for national and global stories. Even the TV news is a bit old and I watch more to see how they spin stories than to get new news.

Some traditional media outlets understand this trend and are looking for ways to become more connected to their community through social media. I have written about many of these efforts on this blog. 

TV and Web Convergence Already Here in Some Ways

Many firms are competing in the race for the single box solution to TV Web convergence. Mac Slocum of O’Reilly Radar reports that new data from Nielsen suggests they are headed in the wrong direction. “In the last quarter of 2009, simultaneous use of the Internet while watching TV reached three and a half hours a month, up 35% from the previous quarter. Nearly 60% of TV viewers now use the Internet once a month while also watching TV.” 

I am doing this now as I watch TV while I write this post.  This is usually an easy multi-task. Mac notes the differences between television's lean-back experience and the web's lean-forward positioning. Competing manufacturers did to consider this difference with the Web’s pull potential and TV’s push.  

The Nielsen report also said that that Americans watch network programs online when they miss an episode or when a TV is not available. Online video is used essentially like DVR and not typically a replacement for watching TV. Mac adds consumers are supplementing their consumption with online video, not replacing it. This is where I liked the On Demand options to see TV shows when I want to. I used this extensively for the Treme series that came on too late. It also helped me watch each episode at least three times.

Now Mac takes this data to an interesting conclusion. He writes that it matters if content is consumed, not how it's consumed. Much effort has gone into bridging the web and TV worlds through brute force into a single box. However, the most successful cross-media efforts are the ones that let consumers interact through the tools they already use. This is why many enterprise 2.0 collaboration platform vendors enable their users to interact with their tools through email. What makes more sense: integrating Twitter into a television's hardware or helping users tweet during a show? I would choose the latter. 

China Pilots Web TV Phone Convergence

China launched a major pilot project in July in 12 cities nationwide to help converge the telecommunications, Internet and broadcast networks. Cities chosen for the pilot project include Beijing, Shanghai, Dalian, Hangzhou, Shenzhen and Wuhan.

It is reported in the People’s Daily that the project aims to make the three sectors compatible within China to allow users to make telephone calls, surf the Net and watch television through wireless gateway or one cable. It will enable telecom carriers, Internet companies and broadcasters to enter each other's fields and provide services, and is expected to create billions in investment in the coming years.

In China, the move to bring the three sectors together has been considered for more than a decade. However, it made little progress until now because of factors such as technological challenges and contention among stakeholders. It will be interesting to see how this move shakes out. 

TV’s Emmy Awards Take on Social Media

I enjoyed this year’s Emmy Awards a few weeks back, especially the hosting by Jimmy Fallon. He was best when playing a character such as Bruce or Elton. Jimmy is also a master of using social media to promote television.  This year the Emmy’s also made good use of social according to Mashable. The blog reported that NBC is using web services such as Twitter, yfrog, and Ustream to bring a more real-time experience to the event. NBC set up a special website set up for fasn to send tweets to Jimmy.  During the live presentation a backstage show was streamed online via NBC.com, Emmys.com and Ustream.com.

NBC also had a backstage show with multiple cameras that fans can view from the Internet. The locations included the producer’s table, control room, makeup and the press room. Mashable wrote that this is pretty innovative, as it provides a nice compliment to the live telecast. I would agree as it is good use of parallel channels that people can watch at the same time. I also occupies the web channel to keep people from straying for the show’s content. The Twitter service yfrog also participated in real-time with its own page that will be bringing fans photos and videos in real time from the event.  It is great to see this continued convergence of the Web and television. 

Raleigh NC TV Station Launches Interactive Web Widget

The convergence of TV and the Web moves forward. The TV station WRAL in Raleigh NC was the first U.S. station to broadcast HDTV back in 1996. It is now the first station to launch a dedicated application for new “connected TVs” that use a broadband connection to pull content through the Internet.  Working with News Over Wireless (NOW), WRAL created an interactive TV widget that works with the Yahoo Widget Engine included in Internet-connected TVs from Samsung, LG, Sony, Vizio and others.

The widget allows viewers to access the station’s local news, weather and sports information, including both graphics and streaming video, with a click of the remote. The WRAL widget content is displayed as a partial overlay on the screen on top of whatever viewers are watching, whether it is normal WRAL programming, a competitor's programming or even a Blu-ray movie.

WOW is now working on new widgets for 30 stations, making use of much of the same content and graphical design it has already created for their mobile products.

Jimmy Fallon Links Social Media and TV in New Ways

I have been following the convergence traditional media and social media for a while and wrote about Jimmy Fallon in this context (see Social Media is Changing Late Night TV Landscape and Much More). Jimmy has now started his own hashtag: #whydonttheymakethat and solicited fan submissions, some of which made it on the air! Here is a link to a Late Night with Jimmy Fallon episode as Jimmy has some fun with this hashtag. He actually reads some interesting product ideas. While this has started as a humor stunt, there could be some crowdsouring potential here.

At a minimum it is another creative link of social media and traditional broadcast TV. He got thousands of tweets from his audience showing the power of TV to integrate with social media. The late night hashtag has become a regular part of the show. Some of these ideas were great and most were funny. move over Cisco i-Prize and GE. 

I recently wrote that the convergence of TV and the Web is not waiting for the single box solution. Many creative efforts, such as this one are already occurring. 

TiVo Launching Assault Against Google TV

According to New TeeVee, while Google is planning to have its integrated TV and web offering available on Sony TVs and Blu-ray players, as well as Logitech set-top boxes, in stores by the holidays. However, TiVo says you can already get similar functionality on its existing products and this has been able to do so for years. TIVO claims it revolutionized television by creating the DVR, and later, added search functionality to make it easier to find the content that users wanted to watch, long before others offered this capability.

TiVo VP of Marketing Tony Lee is quoted, “We haven’t just entered a new era of TV and Web convergence –- that era started years ago. We believe the defining theme of this era is about making all the content you want television-centric, in one single approach.”

However, TeeVee notes that TIVO’s current search model isn’t robust enough for the broader global web. It wonders what consumers choose: TiVo’s walled garden approach, where they have access to a few, pre-chosen content sources, or Google’s open web model. With Google TV available by the end of the year, the votes will be counted soon.  Will the Web TV convergence lean to the TV side to the Web side? 

Bing Moves into TV and other Entertainment with New Search Vertical

As Mashable reports, Microsoft’s search engine has become more media-focused with the launch of Bing Entertainment, a new vertical centering on music, movies, TV and games. The goal behind the new destination is to make it easier to find what movie to watch, what music to listen to, what casual games to play: “Spend less time searching for entertainment and more time doing the stuff you love.” This is also our objective at Tvissimo.

Bing Music allows users to preview entire songs from the 5+ million song library, plus get lyrics, artist profiles, upcoming concerts and events, and purchase tracks through iTunes, Zune or Amazon. Bing Movies brings together visual search results with customer reviews, showtimes, in-line movie trailers, one-click purchasing, related Facebook and Twitter updates, plus Bing Maps integration for planning an evening out.

Bing TV looks at more than 1,500 shows and 20,000 full TV episodes from partners including Hulu, CBS, Viacom and others. Along with access to episodes and reviews, users can also socialize search results and episodes via Facebook, Twitter, instant messenger or e-mail. Bing Games aggregates reviews, cheats and walkthroughs for console and PC titles as well as providing 100 playable casual games right in-line.  There is certainly a market in TV related search. 

Cisco Joins Tablet Market with Android-Based Device

Forrester projects tablets will outsell netbooks by 2012, and desktops by 2013.  Cisco is joining the rush to mine this gold field. It has announced the Cius, an Android-based seven-inch tablet computer aimed at the enterprise market. The device will feature both front and rear-facing cameras, Cisco TelePresence-compatible video conferencing and access to applications such as Cisco Quad, WebEx and AnyConnect Security VPN Client, as well as access to the Android app store.

As ReadWriteWeb reports, Cisco has been diversifying its product line beyond networking equipment in recent years. This tablet complements the company's cloud computing, collaboration and conferencing initiatives. Cisco has been selling VoIP and video-conferencing hardware for some years now, and entered the consumer video market with its Flip Video acquisition last year.

Cisco is not relying solely on an Android device to penetrate the tablet market. It is already offering WebEx for the iPad.  Needless the say, these tablets offer a great viewing platform for Web-based TV. We look forward to seeing how this potential evolves. 

Sofanatics.com is Social TV Service for Sports Fans

The convergence of social media and TV keeps getting richer. Sofanatics.com, a social TV service for sports
fans, has secured seed funding from a top-of-the-line Internet entrepreneurs and a professional footballer Aki Riihilahti. 
Sofanatics is a web service, where sports fans can connect with their friends on a
 webcam chat, while watching sports on TV. Sofanatics was launched to the 
international audience on June 11 at the start of the FIFA World Cup in South Africa.
 During the World Cup, Sofanatics has had visitors from more than 130 countries.
 The football fans have been sharing their fan photos, cheering for their teams, and
 made new friends across the borders.


A Sofanatics user can sign in with a Facebook account, invite
 friends to Sofanatics, and connects with them on a webcam chat.  According to a recent MIT report, Social TV will be one of the top 10
 emerging technologies in 2010. Sofanatics is deeply integrated with Facebook. The Facebook Open Graph lets people find like-minded sports fans 
and bring them together for a specific event.

Social media is already very connected to TV. All popular social networking services like Facebook and Twitter are filled with fan messages every time a major sports event takes place. Sofanatics is just making the
 social viewing experience richer and stronger than before. Their motto is "you'll never watch alone."

C-SPAN Teams with Foursquare to Bring Innovative Tips to Travelers

We have written about how Foursquare teamed up with the History Channel. They have also partnered with some other traditional media channels such as Bravo, The New York Times and MTV.  Mashable recently reported on their connection with C-SPAN. The cable network will have a major presence on the Foursquare, starting with Foursquare.com/cspan, a homepage customized for the C-SPAN/Foursquare partnership. It is the central viewing for C-SPAN content, including official tips and information about the cable network’s new Foursquare presence.

Foursqaure and C-SPAN will partner to provide tips to help in your travels. For example, in public locations throughout Washington, D.C., C-SPAN will offer educational tips about U.S. public policy, politics, and government. If you check in to the U.S. Capitol, you can access a YouTube video explaining aspects of the Federal Budget. In the future more tips will be added outside of the D.C. area.

This is another great example of the creative opportunities than can arise with social media and traditional media collaborate rather than compete.  The convergence of TV and the Web will led to innovation when done right. 

Enhancing the TV Viewing Experience

PSFK recently posted on How To Enhance The Viewing Experience, Rather Than Interrupt It. The increasing availability of smart phones and tablets such as the increases the number of screens that consumer can view – or interact with – TV programming.   But will each medium take advantage of its characteristics to enhance the experience. Bob Greenberg, CEO at R/GA, recently provided some additional perspective in AdWeek in his post, The Future of TV. He notes that as TV use broadens the convergence of Web and broadcast TV will continue.  He also offers some predictions and suggestions.

Utility-driven marketing and interactive TV viewing: the experience of watching TV has shifted to a more active experience rather than the traditional passive couch potato image. Many consumers view TV while surfing the Web, texting or chatting. TV people need to recognize this and enhance this experience.

Social TV: Bob offers an example: last year’s partnership between Facebook Connect and CNN’s presidential inauguration; many players are creating a conduit for viewers to interact during programming. There are many others. Darwin is working on one through a PBS affiliate.

Social interactivity (via co-viewership, gaming): MTV turned TV watching into a gaming experience by inviting viewers during episodes of the The Hills to join chat rooms to write and rate comments. Comments with positive ratings accumulated points and respective winners. The one with the most points wins. There are many other examples.

TV commerce: The click of a mouse or the touch of a screen will eventually allow us to purchase products directly from video content. Operators will no longer need to be standing by.

The traditional media people who best integrate with new social media will be the winners. 

The Return of Entourage and it Web-based Promotion

 The wonderful Emmy winning HBO series, Entourage, returned for its seventh season last Sunday at 10:30PM with a number of follow up play times   It will feature ten new episodes.  We were interested in its promotion through its comprehensive web site.  You can go behind the scenes, get gear, and look at the most outrageous moments from the past season.   You can also engage in conversations with other fans, become an official fan, purchase the DVD of the past season, and download wall paper for your computer with images form the show.  

The show is great but we also like their creative use of the Web for promotion. HBO is doing similar thing for other shows such as my favorite, Treme, about my home town New Orleans, and its people as they struggle to emerge after Katrina. There you can download the best songs form each episode an find out true events that inspired the writers. 

iPad Gaining Market Traction

This should not be a surprise but a recent study by Retrevo has confirmed that netbooks are getting stiff competition from iPads.  They found that of people currently looking to buy an iPad or Netbook, 78% of them are leaning toward an iPad. 22% are leaning toward a netbook.  They also asked if buyers held hold on buying a netbook after the iPad was announced in January.  Here the results were mixed: 30% said no I went ahead and bought a netbook, 40% said yes but I eventually bought a netbook, and 30% said yes and I bought an iPad.

The study was one of many conducted by Retrevo. The sample size was over 1,000 distributed across gender, age, income and location in the United States. It also found that with laptops getting cheaper and lighter they are squeezing netbooks on the other end. Of those consumers who wrestled with the decision to buy a netbook or laptop, 65% chose the laptop and 35% chose a netbook over a laptop. In a similar way those now considering a laptop or netbook over the coming year 35% are leaning toward a netbook over a laptop and 65% are leaning toward a laptop over a netbook.

We also think that the iPad will also provide a great vehicle for online television and further push the convergence of the Web and TV. 

Will Google Success with TV When Apple and Microsoft’s Attempts Have Fallen Short?

Here is more on Google’s recent move into television that we covered last week. Leslie D'Monte covers Google’s linking of the web and television. She notes that Google believes there is a huge market opportunity in this space with around 4 billion people across the world watching TV. But also notes the not-so-successful forays of Apple and Microsoft to bring the internet to TV with Apple TV and MSN TV.

The browser on Google TV is simply the Linux version of Google Chrome. The user interface will have to be modified for TV. The same Android software that powers Google's mobile devices is being used with Google TV. With the browser built in, Google TV is expected to help you access all of your favorite websites and easily move between TV and the web. The open platforms of Andriod and Chrome open up room for developers to add to the initial functionality.

Leslie notes that many other players have been in this market for a while. TiVO had many fo the features in 2003. Other TV hardware providers that are competitive to Google’s partner, SONY, have other means to access the Web. Moreover, one could view content from Amazon Video-On Demand, YouTube and Netflix even in 2007. Then there are competing set-top box products like Boxee, PopBox and Roku.

All this competition does seem to ensure one thing, the Web and TV are becoming more connected to the benefit of viewers regardless of which vendors win. 

Will Google TV Threaten Cable Providers?

This is the question that Sean Portnoy asks on ZDNet.  He begins by noting that despite the buzz surrounding its launch, Apple TV never gave cable companies much to worry about. Now it is Google’s turn.  Perhaps to no surprise he notes that Google’s approach is far more insidious with its more open approach.

First, Sean notes that by buying a Google TV box for a one-time fee or a new HDTV with Google TV built in, you are then not resigned to pay an extra monthly fee when pay TV providers decide to add new features like Web integration to their packages. 

And we all know that this Web convergence is coming. In fact this convergence tees up Sean’s second and potentially bigger issue. With Google TV more subscribers will no longer see the need to continue being cable customers, since much of their viewing needs could be met with online video they could watch through the Google TV platform.

However, the battle is far from over as there are still plenty of people who are perfectly satisfied continuing to order on-demand movies from their cable box instead of streaming them online from Netflix or Amazon. I am one of them so far and just paid to see two new movies through Comcast this afternoon.. Perhaps I am just lazy but ease of access is a big factor with entertainment and I am not a gadget person like many others.

Google TV may urge on more innovation or reform by the cable providers. I have seen a great increase in Comcast’s on-demand since options like Netflicks became more prominent. Hopefully this will result in a win for consumers regardless of the outcome.

The greater convergence of TV and the Web through Google TV and/or cable providers will open up the path for more services like the access of scheduling through TVissimo. 

Is The Remote Becoming Obsolete?

NPR recently asked this question, Is The Remote Control Becoming Obsolete? Omar Gallaga, the technology-culture reporter for the Austin American-Statesman, replied that the proliferation of wireless devices is making the remote control as we know it obsolete. He notes that there have been quite a few apps that have come out in the last year not just for the iPhone and the iPod Touch, but also for the Android phones and for BlackBerry and Palm that allow you to connect over Wi-fi with either a computer that's hooked up to the TV.

Omar goes on to say that there is one device that he has been trying out lately called the Red Eye, which is an app and a hardware device that beams a signal to these devices including TV and kind of doubles as a remote control. Omar notes that there's still some things about it that don't quite work, but he definitely sees that that's where things are going.

If this new way of connecting with TV brings in the intelligence of the computer that will have a lot of benefit for the viewer, including bringing in a search engine such as TVissimo. 

Is the Web Killing Broadcast TV?

Not yet perhaps but the new Retreveo study, Is the Internet Killing Broadcast TV?, shows that there is an increase in online TV watching amongst people under 25.  The study found that 23% of people under age 25 watch most of their TV content online. 6% of them watch all of their TV content online. In contrast, 8% of people over age 25 watch most of their TV programming online. 5% of them watch all of their TV programming online.  The study also found  that 17% of men watch all of their TV content online. 9% of women watch all of their TV content online.

In addition, 15% of people surveyed said higher cable and satellite prices would drive them to watch all of their TV shows online. Amongst all respondents 26% of people have canceled, or considered canceling their cable or satellite service. In contrast, 57% said they were happy with their service and would not consider canceling and 17% said they would not cancel because they would not be able to watch their favorite TV shows.

Retrevo also asked, "What would it take to get you to watch all your TV shows online?" The results indicated that 20% said HD content, 19% said premium shows like those offered by HBO, and 15% said live sports. I am surprised that more did not cite the last factor as that may be the hardest programming for online to tackle.

 

History Channel Brings in Foursquare

Here is another creative mix of new and old media. Foursquare and the History channel are partnering to promote the upcoming premiere of America,, the Story of US, a 12-hour television event and education initiative that tells America's 400-year history. The series debuts on Sunday, April 25 at 9pm ET on the History channel. You can participate through the Foursquare site.

It works like this. Upon checking-in to select locations, users will receive a “Fun Fact Pop Up” with interesting information about the location by the History channel. For example: users in New York who check in to St. Paul’s Chapel will discover George Washington worshipped there on his Inauguration in 1789 and users in Los Angeles who check in at the Cinerama Dome will find out it opened in 1963 with the premiere of 'It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World' and that it’s the world’s only concrete geodesic dome. Users are also encouraged to leave their own comments about the sites for others to discover.

Ten randomly selected foursquare users will win History channel prizes each week from April 25-June 6. Narrated by Liev Schreiber (X-Men Origins: Wolverine, A View from the Bridge), America the Story OF US is the most in-depth television series ever produced by HISTORY, as well as the broadest educational outreach initiative the network has ever undertaken. 

This effort also represents some of the potential of having old and new media form partnerships around specific topics.  It is focused and draws on the best aspects of each channel, the depth of broadcast TV and the social aspects of new media. Foursquare is the new darling of social media and it can certainly elevate awareness of the History channel project. 

Social Media Moves Further into TV with Miso

Tech Crunch reports that Miso is an iPhone app that incorporates the “check-in” idea with watching movies and television shows. So, for example, if you’re watching the current NBA playoffs, you can check-in to make your friends aware of what you’re doing. You can also send these check-ins to Twitter, Facebook, and Foursquare, checking you in there in the process further spreading the social media word on your TV activities.  It is acting like a Foursqaure for TV.

There is the badge you get for checking-in at the movie or TV. Right now there is nothing attached to the badge but eventually in the future these types of check-ins could unlock special content from shows. There are a lot of promotion and ad possibilities.  For example, there could also be sweepstakes you could enter by checking-in. The creative implications of the Web TV convergence are just emerging. 

Netflix Plus iPad Becomes TV Anywhere

I was interested to see that included in the new iPad apps is one by Netflix that will make the Apple 3G iPad a device to watch movie and TV content anywhere and anytime you want it. This applies to the on-demand version of TV that is becoming increasingly popular. While a streaming TV service has been available for a while now, this app combined with the portability and Apple’s interface design may make the iPad a portable TV like device for an audience that wants the content when they want it, how they want it. 

It will be interesting to see if Apple moves to allow for broadcast TV also.  We have discussed if Apple will impact the television business model?  This is another move in that direction.

 

Social Media Revolution Displayed on YouTube

This video discusses the TV Web convergence a good bit along with other social media impacts. The video itself is a good demonstration as it has been viewed well over a million times and is displayed on the world's number two search engine, YouTube.

Smartphone Surge Predicted in 2010

Here are more 2010 predictions. Forrester has issued a report, Collaboration Needs Will Fuel A Smartphone Surge, by Ted Schadler with Matthew Brown, Brownlee Thomas, Michele Pelino, and Peter Schmidt, with the subtitle: The Surge Can Be Funded Through A Bring-Your-Own Smartphone Strategy.  I appreciate receiving a review copy.  It predicts that 2010 will be the year of the smartphone surge. I see this as very relevant to our discussions as they will become another vehicle for television as the Web and Tv continue to converge. 

The Forrester team surveyed 3,904 information workers and found great excitement about about smartphones, “attracted by the ability to email, collaborate, and work with documents from anywhere.” While only 14% percent of information workers across the US, Canada, and UK already use smartphones, another 64% would like to. This compares with general consumers usage at 78% with mobile phones and 11% with smart phones. That yet to be fulfilled demand in information workers, along with some employers’ willingness to share monthly mobile costs, sets the stage for the surge. This calls for KM and other information professionals to determine a strategy for effective and coordinated usage. There is also the numbers to pressure mobile carriers to cut costs across plans.

I imagine that most smart users also use a fraction of the capability of their devices. I know I do. I see my colleagues using much more capability.  The report provides along list of potential capabilities and their current usage from email (92%) to enterprise apps (7%). Some others include: personal contacts (84%), work calendar (83%), IM (48%), emergency response (17%), and team collaboration (12%). The last one should go up dramatically if the report is correct it its predictions.

Location flexibility is the top reason (60%) for using a smartphone over a laptop. The increased reach will provide the ROI for smartphone, according to Forrester report. While this seems obvious, there seem to be two reasons here: the portability of the device and the extended access, and these will continue to evolve. Having greater wifi access will mitigate one difference and such devices as the tablet might go into the other.  However, I think the convergence of capabilities into a single type of device that takes two forms will balance that out.

In other words, content that used to come through many channels such as music, TV, Web, phone now comes through one device (see for example,  TV Moving Closer to Mobile Phones and the Web andWho Will Win TV Sets or Computers? I now have all my music and photos on my iPhone, as well as my laptop and have stopped using separate devices for them. However, this device will take two forms, one that sits on a desk and perhaps even connects to a larger monitor and one that fits in your pocket. There will be an increased need to synch these devices and both will be TV players. 

Social Media Use Rises in Traditional News Media

According to the Guardian (BBC tells news staff to embrace social media), BBC news journalists have been advised to use social media as a primary source of information by Peter Horrocks, the new director of BBC Global News. He took over last week and said it was important for editorial staff to make better use of social media and become more collaborative in producing stories. They quote him, "This isn't just a kind of fad from someone who's an enthusiast of technology. I'm afraid you're not doing your job if you can't do those things. It's not discretionary."

I would agree. Getting material for articles is of several ways that traditional television news media needs to make use of social media to survive the social media onslaught. For BBC news editors, Twitter and RSS readers have now become essential tools and aggregating and curating content with attribution are essential skills. In addition, BBC's journalists have to integrate and listen to feedback for a better understanding of how the audience is relating to the BBC brand.

This is all part of the convergence of television and the Web and traditional media with the new social media.  I am sure that other television news programs will be taking a similar turn. 

Google Getting into TV Act

We have recently written on how Apple might impact the television business model. Now Google is getting into the act. Amy Vernon writes how Google's Open-Source TV: Coming soon to a set near you.  She notes that it goes beyond a simple set top box and is truly being more of an OS.  If it goes the open-source route it's said to be headed in the impact will be huge.

With print, the Web has initially been a competitor that has brought many outlets down (see Who killed the Rocky Mountain News? from John Temple). Now, print is slowly beginning to learn how to co-exist with the Web. However, with TV, it seems that the Web firms are trying to better integrate and the traditional TV content producers are mostly on board to make this work.

Google represents one of the latest Web firms to get into the TV action. Amy writes: “if anyone is down for the democratization of Internet-based TV viewing, it's Google. And with a built-in browser plus expected apps from YouTube, Hulu and Netflix just for starters, it's conceivable that the pace with which the average consumer has been moving from the broadcast/cable/satellite model (which are all pretty much the same, just different technology and channel capacity) could accelerate exponentially.”

Now Google is partnering with Intel and Sony for technology and content. This is a smart move.  Recently they brought in Logitech to offer a single remote for all this stuff, including your laptop.

The High Def Digest picks up the story and notes that, “Google has learned a lot from Apple, and it’s pretty evident that they’ve taken those lessons to heart. What was once a humble search engine based out of a garage is now the company behind the Nexus One phone, Android operating system, Chrome OS, Chrome internet browser and now open source TV software and, potentially, a set-top box or two. The guys at Google have also learned a bit about what not to do. With Google TV, they’re taking a full 180 from the incredibly restrictive Apple TV.”

They note that Google TV is not a standalone product but an operating system for set-tops.  It will have a built-in browser so you can go after unlimited content.  This will open up a lot of ad space for them. It will also up more opportunities for Web-based devices to support TV better such as our vision for Tvissimo. 

Will Apple Impact the Television Business Model?

Things continue to move fast in this sector. Apple and other Web apps have certainly impacted the music industry and print publishing.  Now there is a move to impact television by changing the business model. Instead of subscribing to cable for a fixed fee to get a lot of stuff bundled, Apple wants to sell TV programs one at a time, like they do with music, for a low cost per program. A recent Fast Company article best that they will succeed (see: Apple's iPad Disrupting the Network TV Business Model? I'd Buy That for a Dollar!).

Naturally, the TV industry is exhibiting broad concern over this plan. While they're want to get on the  Apple's iPad bandwagon as a TV player, they are worried that lower prices will cut into their revenue streams. Now TV has its markets to protect but there are also 125 million registered iTunes users, representing a huge potential market, waiting to be tapped by someone. The main worry on the TV side is that production is expensive and each show represents a huge investment in time and money. Can they get their money a buck at a time?

The Fast Company article, which builds a story in the New York Times, suggests that they would be fools to not do this. If they do not offer programs at attractive prices, people will just steal the shows as it is not that complex to do in the digital world. If the price is right, it will convince most people not to do to the trouble and potential risk to resort to piracy.  It will be very interesting to see how this shakes out. 

Some Initial Review's on Apple's iPad

The Apple iPad has been announced with much fanfare. I feel it will become a major TV player, among other things, as the Web and broadcast TV continue to merge. As the tweets started to flow with the announcement with links to other reviews I saved some of the more interesting ones. There was certainly a lot of buzz. The tweets reached over 7,000 a minute during the actual announcement. It ranked close to the 9,000 a minute during President Obama’s State of the Union address.  Here are some useful reviews:

The iPad and the Chasm between Work and Home Computing (Rob Paterson)

With Its Tablet, Apple Blurs Line Between Devices (NY Times)

Apple iPad: The Best iPod Touch Available (Forrester)

Apple's iPad Mistakes (PC World)

Apple’s iPad: A New Category Of Device (PSFK)

Does the Apple iPad Make Strategic Sense? (HBR)

Will the iPad Help Media? Possibly. Save Media? No. – GigaOM It's the Costs! (Rob Paterson)

 

Clicker Brings You What’s On Online

Clicker is a search service to find what is available in video on the Web. There motto is “What’s On Online.”  At the site you are greeted with a simple Google style search filed as well as links to what’s new, what’s hot, recommended and your playlist if you have signed up for the premium service. The basic features are free. You can search by show or by topic. Clicker indexes television shows, movies, music videos, and original web content. 

 Clicker recently received $11 million in expanded venture capital funding. The series B round was led by Jafco Ventures. Benchmark Capital and Redpoint Ventures also participated. The company has now raised approximately $19 million since its launch in January 2009. The site does not provide video itself. It links you to the growing amount of content that others are producing. The Clicker catalog now includes more than 600,000 episodes from 10,000 shows. It lists those titles in more than 14,000 categories.

Jeremy Scott provides a nice Clicker review at ReelSEO,  Clicker Wants To Be Your Web TV Search Engine – They’re Mine. He writes that Clicker solved his frustration in finding out what is on the Web after he dropped cable. Jeremy gives the example of searcing for his favorite show, Lost. It “reveals a host of options.  The first thing you’ll notice are some brief stats:  there are apparently 129 episodes of Lost available online for free, with another 86 available for purchase.”  Plus there was a lot of related content on the same theme.

This is a nice discovery and one that will make Web video content much more attractive to me. It is the same concept that led to the design of TVissimo to address the issue of what is on in broadcast television and our listing of selected Web video sites such as Hulu. It will be interesting to see how Clicker evolve as the Web and broadcast TV continue to converge. 

Demand for TV and Web Convergence on the Rise

Rob Paterson recently wrote about TV and Radio and the web on the Fats Forward blog. He reported some interesting survey data. The desire to hook up their TV to the Web is rising in US Internet users. In 2009, the percentage of US interest users that would like to hook up their TV to the Web:  ages 14-26 – 74%,, ages 27-43 – 71%, ages, 44-62 – 59%, and ages 63-75 – 46%. In talking with a number of people in their 20s and 30s, they say that they only watch TV in the OnDemand mode. I have tried this and it was a great way to watch and tape the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Concert.

Rob wrote that he has cancelled his cable access and has been connecting directly to the web for 2 months now. He writes that the reasons for doing this are: greater control, , no ads, no paying for unwanted content, and plenty of good Web TV content. Also the the pathways there – iTunes, Veoh, YouTube are good enough and getting better. He uses a simple mini connector on his MacBook to link to his TV set and uses the screen management feature to synch the screens. I can do the same on one of my TV sets, the one I purchased in 2009. Rob adds that in 2010 even these simple technical hurdles will go away.

Rob predicts that in 2011 the Web will be the channel for TV. Others have said it will happen in 2010. For example, eMarketer CEO Geoff Ramsey writes in his 2010 Predictions Round-Up, “The Consumer Electronics Show in early 2010 will usher in TVs with direct Internet connectivity, or with on-screen access to content portals such as YouTube, Blockbuster and Netflix. As online video becomes intertwined with the living-room TV experience, download and streaming services will take on a prominent role in the home entertainment ecosystem.”

I am looking forward to this as I watch Van Morrison’s live performance of Astral Weeks on my TV through DVD. It should only get better. 

TV Rose in Popularity in 2009

Television does not seem to be suffering the same way as the newspaper,  its older mainstream media cousin. Deloitte’s 2009 “State of the Media Democracy” survey reports a 26 percent increase in the Americans choosing TV as their favorite type of media compared to the previous year. This is likely influenced by the recession. More than 70 percent of those surveyed rank watching TV in their top three favorite media activities. When ranked alongside activities such as surfing the Web, listening to music or reading, 34 percent of consumers place it at the top. This is a substantial increase from last year and more than double those selecting the number two choice, the Web, which came in at 14 percent. 

When watching their favorite TV shows, 86 percent of respondents prefer watching on their television set, either live, via their DVR/TiVo, or using an “On Demand” feature.  While less than 10 percent of Americans say they prefer watching the same content online, a growing number of consumers are using online platforms to watch their favorite TV shows. 

Consumers are watching close to 18 hours of television programming on their home TV in a typical seven day week — up notably from less than 16 hours last year. Looking at the interest in TV – Web convergence, 65 percent of respondents would like to be able to easily connect their home TV to the Internet so that they can view videos or downloaded content. This is a significant trend that has gained strength over the last three years. Of course, the reverse could occur with more TV on computers.  A move in this direction would allow for more search and data mining capabilities. 

The report also looked at advertising. TV still holds strong here with 83 percent of consumers identifying TV advertising as one of the top three media with the most impact on their buying decisions.  In the online world, over half of all U.S. consumers believe that online customer reviews and ratings influence their buying decisions more than any other type of online advertising, and 51 percent have purchased products based on an online recommendation. In addition, 24 percent of U.S. consumers would like to have an online service that recommends a product based on other consumers’ preferences.