Personalisation… What took it so long?

We based personalisation technology to deliver an experience unique to each user is not new. Amazon has been doing it for quite some time, and even some basic movie rental sites have tried it. Most of these personalisation software rely on your behavioral pattern to make recommendations.

Come to think of it, why has this persoanlisation not come to the TV sets as yet? Afterall, in the age of on-demand, or even scheduled digital viewership, this is but a painless task… and seemingly simple that too.

Well an Italian company seems to have finally delivered it. Bee TV,  a startup being run by some acclaimed industry professionals, with the ownership of a Ducth BV holding company seems to be making in-roads into this area.

Their technology works at an upstream level. They work with platforms and broadcasters to deliver  the experience and interface as opposed to selling it directly to the consumers. One can see an obvious business model advantage in their approach, as platforms are the lowest hanging fruits- you go with a few, you would reach million of homes automatically.

However, in my opinion, there is such an opportunity for this type of personalisation to be delivered to the consumers, independant of the platforms- via either a media centre platform, or via a PVR platform. Even a device like Apple TV should be able to do it. For all you know, the new Genius function in ITunes might just deliver this experience on Apple TV for audio-visual content. Alhough it can not be fully beneficial untill Apple TV becomes a PVR.

It is at least a step towards a new direction. Also, can you begin to think how the Google TV Ad serving would work in conjunction with something like this…? Beautifully!

You can watch a demo of the Bee TV service at:

http://www.bee.tv/demo.asp

I will Google you my TV Commercial

You have probably seen the recent news of NBC agreeing to let Google TV Ads sell some of its inventory through Google TV Ads platform. Seemingly harmless, what really is Google TV Ads and what are the potential implications of such deals? I am assuming that NBC is just a start for Google for such ventures.

To begin with, Google TV Ads is a wonderful application. It is the “TV Optimizer” of the modern day and builds on the Google search advertising schematic. The real basis for this breakthrough for Google is not the NBC deal but in fact their earlier partnership with EchoStar (or Dish Network), and Astound Cables in the US. Their new set top boxes of these two cable/DTH operators have the ability to track viewership second by second. Hence at an aggregate level, you can have the statistics on how many times a commercial was viewed, and whether it was viewed through to the end. Google uses this data to find relevance between certain types of viewers and ads and content, and has created a platform, exactly based on their search model, that makes use of this data to “serve” ads to the viewers.

This is a massive departure from our demographic targetting techniques, into a more “mindset” and relevance led placement of TV ads. Much like the difference between placing a newspaper advert, or placing an ad via Google search. It is going to require an equally big change of mindset within the TV buyers community.

What is so unique about it is that this model of TV advertising breaks away from ratings, and yet is highly measurable. Logically, this system should even work for on-demand content. By virtue of this, it creates an alternate trading currency in the market. The fact that the measurements are highly accurate and relevant, Google is potentially able to trade inventory at higher margins and minimum waste (buys cheap, sells cheapish), or pass on the advantage to the advertisers. What are you media agency giants of the world doing sleeping on your laurels, wake up!?

Once this model picks up popularity, there is no stopping all sorts of advertisers to sign up to such deals, though NBC have optimistically said that this venture would attract “an entirely new group of clients”.

What are the disadvantages of it…? It is just US based at the minute, and that too only on Dish Network/Astound homes. Unless the same set-top box technology is exported to other cable/DTH operators, and markets, it is going to remain a limited venture.

Game is not over….

You are not the only one worried about accomodating your Game Console, your satellite receiver, your PVR, your Freeview box (Digital Video Broadcast Receiver, for people outside the UK), and your DVD player on your TV trolley. The good news is that this battle of space is becoming equally important for the big players who are selling you those boxes.

But lets be honest, who do we think is truly best positioned to deliver an all-in-one box? Do we think Sky+ would one day come with a built-in DVD player, or a DVD player would throw in a free Freeview box built in? If you think about it, It is the game consoles that have pretty much every piece of hardware that may be required to deliver an all-in-one experience, and more. The marriage of gaming with the rest of the audio-visual entertainment has been pending, but seems to be shaping up quite fast lately.

Sony just announced a small little addition to their PS3 consoles. Something called PlayTV priced at just £69. This small little gadget instantly turns your PS3 into a freeview receiver, and gives it a PVR capability. This is in addition to their movies and TV programmes download service that they announced sometime back.

How are you going to be reminded to switch between your endless hours spent on Grand Theft Auto, and the news on the US elections? While you record a football match, and get ready to enjoy your new blue-ray release of The Dark Knight? Oh and you also need to remember to download the old episodes of Porridge? How are you going to manage all of this? Easily I say.

By the way, a recent study in the UK reveals that PVRs/DVRs can help improve a relationship! The general percetpion as we all know is that the game consoles can actually spoil relationships. Not if they both come in one box, you reckon?