TVissimo | Internet and Television Convergence Discussion Blog

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. 

Online Video Moving Closer to Television?

Here is another angle on the convergence of TV and the Web. The digital marketing firm eConsultancy asks the question, Is online video destined to look like television programming? They quote Brian Stelter in The New York Times today: "News Web sites are starting to look a lot less like newspapers and a lot more like television." Brian also writes that online ads are booming, if they’re attached to a video.

They report that traditional television has been impacted by commercial fast-forwarding, but with online it does not work quite the same way. And as much as people complain about pre-roll ads, they are increasingly watch them instead of skipping through them.

Digital video earned $477 million in revenue in the first half of 2009, which is an increase of 38% from the same time period last year. By online standards this may seem small as online search is estimated to be a $10 billion market this year. However, this growth is good news for struggling media companies. Especially since online views are not poaching traditional TV viewers. During the daytime, online is popular, but at night viewers are switching to television. I think people will switch to online videos as a diversion while working on their computers but will prefer the bigger TV screen for more devoted recreational viewing.

I have written elsewhere that traditional media cannot not simply reproduce itself on new media (see Here is a Creative Blend of Mainstream Media and Social Media and The Misplaced Fear of the Mainstream Media) and this post agrees. It points out that in the longterm, merely reproducing TV content online at a quicker pace is not likely save the networks. They quote Todd Teresi, chief revenue officer at Quantcast: "We need to get to solutions that are as elegant as search. The power of the search marketplace is that Google does not sit there and tell you what you should buy. Google gave people control. That fundamentally is why that marketplace works so well."

I wonder if traditional TV will ever gives us the same control and the online world? It could be a very powerful move. Will hardware be the driver or content?  (see TV Moving Closer to Mobile Phones and the Web).

TVissimo applies search to TV scheduling and can potentially bring that focused revenue model to the table. 

When Will Web TV Really Take Advantage of the Web?

The New York Times reported again on the increasing convergence of TV and the Web, in Rise of Web Video, Beyond 2-Minute Clips. Brina Stelter wrote, “When motion pictures were invented at the end of the 19th century, most films were shorter than a minute, because of the limitations of technology. A little more than a hundred years later when Web videos were introduced, they were also cut short, but for social as well as technical reasons.”

We always tend to first use new media like old media. In this case, we were reluctant to first use Web TV like broadcast TV for the reasons noted. Now broadcast TV is increasingly moving to the Web. The article says that by some “estimates, one in four Internet customers now uses Hulu, an online home for NBC and Fox shows, every month. “Dancing With the Stars,” the popular ABC reality show, draws almost two million viewers on ABC.com, according to Nielsen.”

It goes on to quote Dina Kaplan, the co-founder of Blip.tv, “People are getting more comfortable, for better or for worse, bringing a computer to bed with them.” I have not done this yet even though I have a TV in viewing distance of bed. However, this newer trend is doing what is usually done, simply using the new medium to convey content form the old medium. The first book captured the current version of the epic poems of Homer.

The next move is the take advantage of what the new medium offers. This should happen now that the money and audiences of TV are starting to migrate to the Web. This is what we are doing at TVissimo but proving a comprehensive search tool to explore television schedules.

Web TV Revenues Up In 2008

Liz Gannes reported that according to a new report on the U.S. content market by Convergence Consulting, TV networks made $1.63 billion on web advertising last year. This amounted to 2.4 percent of total U.S. broadcast and cable TV advertising revenue, which Convergence pegged at $66 $67.6 billion. The web figure increased from $1.27 billion in 2007, and it includes both display and video advertising on everything from local news to full-episode viewing of prime-time shows.

Convergence estimates online ad revenue will nearly double by 2011, to $3.23 billion, or 4.6 percent of total TV ad revenue. They forecast that the growth will be driven more by increasing usage than increasing volume of ads; Convergence thinks 4 minutes per half hour is the max people will tolerate online.

We found more interesting that on average, 15 percent of people who watch TV on a weekly basis also watched full episodes online in 2008. That number is expected to rise to 24 percent in 2011, a slight bump over last year’s prediction. This is a big shift and will open up new opportunities. They revenue will climb to be closer to the usage numbers as people figure out new ways to monetize this trend.

More Tools to Support Web and TV Convergence

NYConvergence recently posted that Boxee is Now Available for Windows. The online video platform and NYC-based startup, allows users to watch television shows from the Internet on their televisions. It has released an alpha version of its software for Windows. The new version can be downloaded here once you have registered.

In addition, Boxee users will now be able to watch Major League Baseball games live and on-demand from MLB.TV and the company has new content partnerships with Digg, allowing users to watch videos that have been "dugg," and Current TV, making shows, including The Rotten Tomatoes Show, infoMania, Vanguard, and the SuperNews animated series, available to users.

This in an excellent move to further support this convergence.

More on Convergence of the Web and TV

Gant Robertson wrote on the movement from the Web to your TV set in the Globe and Mail. He noted that Aux TV will become what is believed to be the first Internet broadcaster to be converted to an actual television station in Canada about a year after it was created online. He added that the “Internet has always been seen as the next frontier for television, but the move by Aux marks a shift in the other direction, where a channel is tested first online, then draws enough of an audience that the cable companies want in.”

We see this movement in both directions continuing as the distinction between TV and the Web continues to blur. They are both channel for video based content and increasingly they are carrying some of the same content. Each channel influences the other. It is nice to see the movement go the other way with Aux TV. Grant notes that In the “fiercely competitive world of television, where dozens of prospective broadcasters vie for placement on the dial, ideas can be tested online without having to first convince regulators or cable and satellite distributors.”

The Web opens up a great sandbox for the low cost exploration of concepts for television. Then the successful ones can migrate to TV and then back again through vehicles like HUlu and Joost. Some high-profile investors are betting on this through Aux TV, including Toronto venture capital firm JLA Ventures and several well-known names in the broadcasting sector, who combined to inject $5-million of capital. I think they are making a safe bet on the trend. We will have to see if the content on Aux TV makes them a real success story.

David Purdy, vice-president of television services at Rogers, expects to see more of the Aux TV model. He is quoted, "I think you're going to see an increasing cross-pollination from TV to PC, and PC to TV…And ultimately everything is going to be available on a mobile device. So where something started, which platform it started out on, is probably not as important." Wise words.

Television Trivia Sites

We recently discovered this sites that focus on television trivia and offer quizzes. Hope you find some of them fun.

Absurd Trivia – TV “Absurd Trivia is a community powered site, where all of our trivia quizzes are written and rated by our ever growing population of members. Got an idea for a quiz, then submit it to us and the thousands of trivia fans that visit us daily can play it.”

Movie and TV Entertainment Trivia – provides many categories

Fun Trivia – has different types of trivia including television. The link is to the television section.

80s Television Trivia Questions - Questions about television of the decade.

TV and Movie Trivia Tribute – “Challenges your knowledge of TV shows and movies.”

TV Popquiz - TV trivia game. Subjects include television, cartoons, sit-coms, soap operas, game shows and dramas.

TV Show Trivia and Fun Facts - Tidbits of information and history on shows from the 1950s to the present. Includes celebrity entertainment news.

TV Tunes Online: TV Trivia - Trivia in the form of quizzes for several television shows organized by type.

Television History Web Sites

Here is a collection of web sites that focus on the history of television. We hope you enjoy them and let us know of others. Some of them cover both film and TV.

Classic TV Database - Listings and reviews of popular American television programs from the 1950s to the present day.

George Eastman House - Collects and interprets images, films, and equipment in the disciplines of photography and motion picture. Located in Rochester, New York. Entrance Charge.

Museum of the Moving Image - Located in Astoria, New York. Integrating works of art, artifacts, audio-visual presentations, and interactive exhibits. Entrance charge.

Early Television Foundation - Early television hardware, restoration tips, database of prewar sets and historical TV information.

Fifties TV - U.S.-orientated catalog of popular television in the 1950s.

MZTV Museum of Television - Online collection showing the development of television.

National Cable Television Center - Education, training and research about cable telecommunications and the history of the American cable industry and its pioneers.

The San Francisco Film Museum - Non-profit organization dedicated to advancing the art, history, and technique of film and digital media. General information, film collection, resources, and events.

Television History - The First 75 Years - Features technical information, program guides, timelines, hardware, TV facts and examples of early televisions

Television Forums and Chat Rooms

Many people like to discuss their favorite television shows on the web with others. Here are some sites to engage in these conversations. Let us know if we missed your favorite.

Able2Know: TV – forum for members to discuss their favorite TV shows and related news.

High Def Forum – focuses on high definition technology. Topic threads include TVs, DVDs, cameras, camcorders, players, recorders, and receivers.

Oliv3r.net - forum with TV show discussion, spoilers, previews, quiz leagues, and photo galleries.

Talk about Television – discussion forum with threads relating to individual shows, stations, programming, cable, and DVD compilations.

TubeYak Forum - general television discussion forum that includes sections for many of the most popular television shows.

TV Fan Forums - forum devoted to the discussion of both regular and reality television shows ranging in variety, from 24 to Dancing with the Stars.

TV Forums - forum for television equipment, repair, shows, and systems.

TV FunSpot - forum community for television discussion, and the participation in TV-related games.

PC Magazine’s Best Web Sites for Movie Fans

Here is a very useful list, The Best Web Sites for Movie Fans, for those who want to understand many aspects of the movies you watch on TV or want to set as alerts on TVissimo to make sure you do not miss them. There are many categories, reviews, news, facts, trailers, spoilers, social networking, and blogs. I added a number of them to our movie site/blog list in the side bar.

As a sample, the two I liked the best are quoted below:

MovieMistakes.com

At first glance, MovieMistakes.com isn't much to look at, but look deeper, and you'll see that the site is chock full of the worst movie goofs in recent history. Did you know that there are already 66 found mistakes in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull? For example, "In the chase scene around the campus, Mutts' motorcycle has a belt drive. Harley Davidson did not make belt drive bikes until two decades later." Currently, Apocalypse Now holds the record for the most goofs, with 396. There's also a list of the "best" movie mistakes, the most mistakes of 2008, movie trivia, best movie quotes, and even TV mistakes.

The Four Word Film Review
What's unique about this movie reviews site is that no more than four words can be used. Some example reviews of Kung Fu Panda are: "Slacker Black repels attack," "Bear is grasshopper," and "Saving Valley? Panda fu!" The site has over 272,000 reviews and features over 25,000 films. An amusing element of the site is the clue balloon in the upper right hand corner. From the four words provided, guess which movie it is describing. Click on Clue if you need some help.


Television Awards Web Sites

Here is where you can find information about the major television awards, as well as some that are less known. Let us know if we missed any.

Academy of Television Arts and Sciences - Official Emmy Awards site.

Aurora Awards Independent Film and Video Competition - Honors commercials, cable programming, documentaries, industrial, instructional, and corporate videos. Includes information on entries, rules, winners, and categories.

Hollywood Foreign Press Association - Official Golden Globe site with news, winners, award history, photos, videos, and mission statement.

Midsummer Awards - international festival that was founded by working creative people. It is sponsored and organised by people who are themselves in the business of creating and producing films for television and cinema. Includes background information, entry forms, and past winners.

PRISM Awards – Provides awards to the Entertainment Industry for the accurate depiction of social issues.

Screen Actors Guild Awards - Official site with news, history, rules, past and current nominees and recipients, photos, tickets and other details.

The Telly Awards - US award for non-network TV commercials and programs, and for non-broadcast videos. Features entering information.

Videographer Awards - International awards competition honoring excellence in commercials, video production, broadcast television and cable.

Public Television Sites

Here are some of the web sites connected to public television. We hope you find them useful. We will add more to the side bar listing as we find them. Suggestions are welcome.

Association of America's Public Television Stations - A nonprofit membership organization established in 1980 to support the continued growth and development of noncommercial television service for the American public.

Corporation for Public Broadcasting - CPB funds Public Television and Public Radio programs.

Current Online - web service of the biweekly newspaper about Public Television and Public Radio in the United States.

Independent Lens – “Airing weekly on PBS, the Emmy Award-winning series Independent Lens is like an independent film festival in your living room. Each episode introduces new documentaries and dramas made by independent thinkers: filmmakers who are taking creative risks, calling their own shots and finding untold stories in unexpected places.”

Independent Television Service (ITVS) - The Independent Television Service (ITVS) brings to local, national and international audiences high-quality, content-rich programs created by a diverse body of independent producers.

NETA Online - National Educational Telecommunications Association site.

PBS Station Finder - Contact information for every PBS affiliate. Links to web site if available.

PBS Online - web site from the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) features companion web sites for nearly 250 PBS programs and specials, as well as seven online neighborhoods that aggregate content by genre and interest.

Sports Television Review Sites

It has been hard to find sites and/or blogs that review TV sports shows even there are a lot of these shows on a topic where many people have strong opinions. Here is what I found so far. I welcome your input of more good sites or blogs.

Hollywood Reporter – Their site says – “Go behind-the-scenes and beyond the locker room of sports on TV with HollywoodReporter.com. Stay on top of up-to-the-minute sports programming news, corporate partnerships, sports television ratings, production information, licensing and more. Our journalists cover all the network and cable sports TV shows from a unique, insider perspective.” You have to register but it is free.

Best Seat in My House – “Pete Dougherty has been the Times Union's sports on TV/radio critic for nearly two decades as time and space permits. Now neither are an issue, and whatever Pete takes in from his couch, in the car or on the Web, he'll discuss here.”

Sports Couch Potato – “Sports broadcasting specialists: The blog delivers all-pro news and commentary -- from the booth to the satellites, from AM radio to high definition. All sports media considered. Covers the controversies, the personalitiies and the big networks.”

Hugging Harold Reynolds – “We embrace sports. We know sports. We love sports. But we aren't going to take anything too seriously.”

Television Soap Opera Forums

People like to talk about soap operas. Here is an initial list of web sites that allow you to do it with many others. Let us know in the comment field if you have another favorite and we can add it to the list.

Coffeerooms - features discussions for daytime and primetime shows.

Media Domain Soap Opera Discussion Group - message boards and chat for all soap opera fans.

Message Central's Soap Opera Discussion Forum - discussion forums for all of your favorite soaps.

Prime-Time Soaps - a place to discuss prime-time soap operas.

Soap Fan Chat Page - fan page for daytime Soap Operas.

The Soap Opera Network - includes forum discussions on news, spoilers, scoops, and ratings.

Soaps World - message boards and chat on the soaps.

More Mentions of TVissimo: Cynopsis, Film News Briefs, TVover.net, Clooney's Cookie Crumbs, and Technews.am

We are pleased at the response to our launch. Here are some more reviews and mentions.

Cynopsis Media covers the entertainment industry. Wayne Karrfalt provided this review of TVissimo on their site – you have to scroll down to the website of the day section: “Sometimes you hear about a show or a movie but can't remember what channel it's on or when it's supposed to air. Enter TVissimo, an online TV search engine that allows you to search your provider's schedule by title, star, description, director, year it first ran, or anything else that shows up in the program's listing info, as provided by TidalTV. It's much more efficient than a general Google search because TVissimo only indexes TV listings. The site just redesigned its interface to add a cool new social function - now you can build customized favorite lists and send TV program alerts to your friends via email, text or Twitter. This may be a little superfluous for DVR users, many of which have their own programmable online guides, but it's a nice way to prod all your friends to check out a new show. A Facebook app would round out the alert/recommendation feature nicely.”

Film News Briefs – describes itself as “Originally this was just an internal email list sent within a film company so they wouldn’t have to buy trades for all its employees. Slowly the list spread throughout the industry and is now the best way to get a quick download of industry news. For full articles please don’t forget to visit the original sources but never stop reading the news in brief, cause come on, you only really have time for an overview of the facts. They also covered TVissimo as a website to watch.

Technews.am describes itself as “ a new community for breaking news across the technology sector. We are still in pre-alpha, so please bear with us.” We appreciate their coverage.

Clooney's Cookie Crumbs is a very active blog that covers George Clooney and wrote this post on Finding Clooney on Television. It said, "I used it and it seems comprehensive. It's free to join or use as a guest." Thanks.

TVover.net is a weblog for news and information about IPTV, Internet TV, online video and related topics. They also provide a directory of web sites offering online video and Internet TV, forums for discussion (IPTV Forums), and informational site (IPTV Information). They covered our TVissimo launch and in another recent post reported that online video is up 24.4% to 41.6 billion views in 2008. We cover online video as well as traditional broadcast TV.

TV Tango Provides Everything About Television

TVTango.com provides a comprehensive and up-to-date guide to online TV information, including TV Series, TV Movies/Miniseries, Episodes, Awards, TV DVDs, and TV Downloads. The site is run by Maj Canton and is headquartered in Los Angeles. Her award winning book, "Maj Canton's Complete Reference Guide to Movies & Miniseries Made for TV and Cable" is trusted guide in the entertainment industry. Maj and her staff have now moved this extensive database onto the Web through TVTango.com.

It provides an innovative, user-friendly way to search and browse TV show databases. It is a great complement to TVissimo’s search capabilities as you can find information about shows you want to watch. We were very impressed with the offerings. You can find more than 30,500 TV series and 4,200 TV Movies & Miniseries.

With a comprehensive interface, the site aggregates more than 35,000 titles, offering the user a fast and effective way to find the information they want. From any page on the website you are one click away from finding the information you want. A team of experienced editors review all content prior to publishing it to TVTango.com, ensuring that all content and links are viable and correct. Maj is a very experienced reviewer and has provided television program data and reviews for numerous media outlets including over 400 reviews for the BBC's "Radio Times Guide to Films" and for their weekly entertainment magazine, "Radio Times".

Here are some of the features of the site:

Aggregated External Links - there are nearly 75,000 links to title pages at IMDb, TV Guide, Wikipedia, tv.com, British Film Institute, and Zap2It. All links load on the TV series home pages — just click the tabs to quickly switch from site-to-site.

Broadcast Grids – you can type in a date and see what aired on TV that day. To generate these grids, TVTango.com uses a table of ~918,000 shows, including series episodes, TV movies, miniseries, theatrical films, specials, awards, and sporting events.

Media Links - media links are provided for individual episodes and TV movies. Not just a single link for the entire series or season. TVTango.com has more than 150,000 links to shows so users can watch or buy video.

Search Capability - you can obtain a list of people who wrote TV movies about many topics, such as true crime for CBS or get a list of military sitcoms on ABC that premiered in the '70s.

Ratings – TVTango.com has household ratings data for all shows since June 1, 1983 and viewer/share data for shows since September 25, 2000. For example, you can find ratings for which TV movie had the highest rating in 1990. You can find the ratings data for a specific episode of "Friends"?

Today in TV History – this is an interesting feature as you can find out which TV series, Movies, and Miniseries premiered on this date in the past. You can see what TV characters had life-changing events (births, deaths, weddings) as well as learn about firsts and lasts in TV history.

Maps of TV Land – allows you to navigate real maps to see where TV characters lived and worked.

We highly recommend that you check out TVTango. It will give you a lot of ideas for shows to search for on TVissimo.

Innovative TV and Web Site Interaction: SnapMyLife Partners with Travel Channel

There is an increasing web and television interaction (see Twitter and TV – a Good Combination – Making TV More Social, as well as all the TV related blogs lists and review sites in our side bars). Here is another creative example, SnapMyLife, a Newton MA based mobile photo-sharing site, and The Travel Channel have a partnership giving viewers early access to content from the popular No Reservations program. I have enjoyed this show a number of times.

No Reservations features host Anthony Bourdain and his culinary and cultural adventures around the world. It is now in its second season with SnapMyLife. Before new episodes air on Mondays at 10:00 p.m. ET on the Travel Channel, SnapMyLife will post ‘sneak peek’ photos and content at at a special section of their SnapMyLife site. Their SnapMyLife users are able to comment on the photos. (photo from No Reservations story on this move)

The sneak peek photos are taken by Anthony and his crew as they are shooting episodes on location. The photos capture behind-the-scenes footage of the show’s production, giving millions of SnapMyLife users a unique look into the life of a traveling television crew. Thus far this season, a loyal following of SnapMyLife users and No Reservations fans have subscribed to receive No Reservations photo alerts in the form of MMS and emails when new content is available.

SnapMyLife was launched in April 2008 and has quickly grown to more than 1.5 million unique visitors per month and more than 600,000 registered users. Mobile phone users from every country in the world use SnapMyLife to share pictures, make friends, see location-tagged pictures on interactive maps, add favorites, comment, and chat. SnapMyLife recently raised an additional $5 million in venture capital funding from its current investors North Bridge Venture Partners and Carmel Ventures.

UK TV Show Search Engine 123WebTV is a Success

We were pleased to see this story, TV show search engine hailed a success, in Tech Watch. 123WebTV was launched in September. It is a search engine, that searches for all British TV and Video content available in the internet. In a few weeks the site has already notched up over a hundred thousand visitors from the UK. The company counts this as a great milestone.

123WebTV was started by former executives from UK television efforts, Sky and Kangaroo. They are expecting the visitor levels to reach around 250,000 within six months, started up the search engine. This number of visitors will establish the site as the UK’s number one search engine for TV and video content. Tech Watch reported that most of the content and site access is free to visitors, although there is some content which is only available through subscription.

I took a look. The site favors browsing and shows how the UK television is much simpler than the US television. At TVissimo we need to understand your town and cable provider and then look at hundreds of stations. In the UK it is only a few stations on a national basis. If you are interested in what is happening n British television, you should take a look. If you are in the US, we welcome you to TVissimo.