Convergence, not just a Flashy word!

So it is happening. Finally. Adobe has partnered with TV manufacturers to incorporate Flash directly into TV sets to enable video players, widgets and applications. A step forward towards really converging TV into a smart internet enabled entertainment platform. What is next? Operating platforms and standards for TVs? I have a feeling Windows Media Centre is a thing of the past unless they innovate fast. And for all you know Android might jump up to offer a standardised environment to the likes of Samsung. Touch screen TVs should also not just be restricted to CNN anymore, and will soon be in home. Anyone up for a Giant Android screen or a 50 inch screen iPod touch?

Only if Apple could put this all together in a neat and clean design, and not restrict us to a Quicktime format, we will all be very happy. But such is not life. We will have to live with a less ideal world before our dream screen comes to life. This is just the start of the convergence, and open-source, standardisation, and other such boring debates will have to wait for a bit.

A brief history of TV

Something that I put together recently through different sources. I may have missed out on some major events in the history of TV. Please leave your comments and point me to those events,  and I will update this chart. you might need to download it to view it properly.  If you are not able to view it properly, send me a message and I can email it to you.

Video Search… How is it shaping up?

In the world of on demand content and the fragmented world of digital platforms, it is fairly important for search to work properly for Videos.  After simply just playing with the idea for quite sometime, some of the big names in the industry are really beginning to crack it.

YouTube has its own way of searching for video files that benefits from not only the tags but also google’s search intelligence.  TiVo just recently annoucned their new search function.  Fairly comprehensive though, it only allows you to search through data that sits “outside” of a video file. Not the most cutting edge way of video search, but given its TiVo the usage of this is likely to widerspread and at least it recognises the need for a must have function for the future of Video.

How does the search currently work in Video? Well the simplest way is to search for “tags” associated with a video file, or search for terms within the video file names. Now that is not very effective, as the tags and the name cant possibly fully describe whats inside a video file or in the content, can it? To offset this, some of the set-top box manufacturers including TiVo search through “closed captions” (subtitles for instance) or the Electronic Program Guide data alongside a video file to search for the contents of the video file. It would allow you to even search for scenes with famous quotes from the movies (The BigMac scene from Pulp Fiction for instance). Whilst very useful, its still a very 2008 way of searching for video, and a very cumbersome one that too.

Then there is Blinkx (www.blinkx.com). They have a pretty impressive video portal that actually searches through the contents of a video file, and delivers you the search results. For example you can look for a particular word and see how many video files are returned. A much better schema for search then “tags”. They seem to have been looking for opportunity in the area of direct to consumer, but in my opinion their biggest opportunity is in franchising their technology direct to businesses like TiVo.  Not sure if they are already doing it, but they are the next generation of search in video, and can really help move the game forward.

The more the amount of content available to watch digitally, the more the need for search. The good news is, that the solutions are here today. Only if the industry can push those forward.

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?

What’s in a box?

If the internet TV, or broadcast over IP is such a rage, and if YouTube is all we think the future of content has to offer, have you ever wondered why TV sets manufacturers are not responding to the change and giving their idiot boxes a bit of a smart “processing power”?

I have been personally trying to look for news that might tell me that one or two TV sets manufacturers are going to add features. Fucntions such as a Wifi connection, ability to perform certain tasks such as a calendar, or a task-list or even a contacts book etc. Afterall if home PCs are the order of the day, and if the PCs of today are turning into TVs of tomorrow, why cant TVs of today be PCs of tomorrow?

Well my prayers were answered and someone thought of making the box a bit more smarter than putting just a hard-drive in it for recording of programmes (LG etc). Toshiba recently announced the arrival of TV sets in early 2009, that will have built-in applications which will allow the viewers to connect to the internet via Wifi. Toshiba are also actively talking to application builders to develop widgets for this TV sets.

I wonder what would those applications be… would their environment be “open”- i.e. allowing others to build applications? What luxury! Would I not want to “poke or ping” some of my friends while watching “All about Pamela Anderson” on late night tv? Could social media be truly integrated into the TV technology if that happens? Via a 3-way marriage of your social networking site, a widget that allows you to connect your TV to the internet, and then the sharing (or at least recommendation of) of the conventional “TV listings ” or even the on-demand content with your friends? A bit like what Joost tried to do but failed miserably… but they failed because they had the application, but didnt have the content or the community. What if my status on Facebook, one day, automatically reads “Asad is watching the BBC news at Ten”…

It is all very exciting anyway. I shall wait for such TVs to come out. I want my next HD TV to have a built-in PVR, a Wifi Connection, and an application that will play my DivX files- remotely from my Mac or PC!

For Sale: Jennifer Aniston’s Sweater

The TV industry’s most read news this week perhaps has been TiVo’s collaboration with Amazon on product purchase.  T-Commerce, or Watch-Click-Buy phenomenon is not new. Some of the big industry players like TimeWarner have tried it in the US without much success in the past.

In the UK, Sky has been toying with this for a long time with their Interactive Feature- The Red Button. They have been able to pull in some of the businesses to do “press to buy” type of campaigns. Brands like Dominos Pizza have struggled with generating critical mass of response through such campaigns in the UK though.

Imagine a situation where you are watching Jonathan Ross and suppose he is talking to J K Rowling about her new book. On your screen popsup a flash asking you to press a button to order that new book from Amazon right then and there. Or you watch an ad for a DVD release of a film and you have an option to order it right then. Conceptually, it is workable, logistically it is doable, the only question is how popular it would prove to be from a consumer stand-point. Chances of it being popular are quite good. Afterall, there is quite a lot of hype around Interactive Advertising on TV these days. My fear is that content producers might just overdo it in their search for more revenues from different sources. 

This particular partnership also has a bit more chances of success than some in the past because consumers are already quite comfortable using Amazon. TiVo or DVRs’ penetration is increasing by the day. Amazon sell a wide range of products, and hence the points of entry for consumers are aplenty. Also, Amazon’s Unbox (movie and songs download service) has already been on TiVo and has enjoyed reasonable success.

On the other hand, would there be questions on Amazon’s pricing of the products, which we all know is not the best amongst online retailors? Would consumers leave their favourite vendors and purchase products, for convenience, via TiVo?

Branded Content, if put in this perspective, also takes a completely new angle. How annoying or acceptable would it be to see a pop-up every time there is a product shown on screen- during a drama, a movie, or a talk-show? It sort of reminds me of the onslaught of pop-up windows full of advertising on the internet. Like we have pop-up blockers for internet browsers, would there will be pop-up blockers one day for TiVo or other DVRs? We know that anything that gets overly commercialised gets instantly rejected by consumers.

By the way, just in case you are wondering where the title of this post came from, Forrester Research’s Josh Bernoff once described this phenomenon of “watch click and buy” as ”Buying Jennifer Aniston’s Sweater”.

Games Consoles and Television

One of the most popular uses of a television set has been that of a screen for the gaming consoles. TV is now beoming a lot more connected with these consoles, or should we say the new generation internet-enabled gaming consoles are now beginning to recognise the power of being connected to a device like the television set.

When you have a programmable micro-chip and gigabytes of storage on any device connected to a TV, it is really difficult to resist using it as a “record and playback” device (Like a PVR/DVR) or even as a conventional set-top box to receive broadcast signal. All the popular consoles have been trying to get into this game for quite some time now to see how can they get a larger share of “screen time”.

Just yesterday at the E3 Gaming Industry Trade Show in LA, Sony reveleaed a double-capacity PS3 (meaing it has a 160 gig of hard-disk) and launched a service that allows users to download and rent movies- a direct competition to a device like Apple TV. This is not the first entry into Video-on-demand by a gaming console- however it appears to be one with some really valuable content on offer- given Sony’s own access to such assets.

Late last year, British Telecom partnered with X-Box for their TV distribution service where viewers are able to watch the BT’s video-on-demand content. Nintendo’s Wii jumped on the bandwagon this April announcing that the BBC IPlayer would be available on the consoles. Both these efforts mean that the owners of Wii and Xbox consoles can now watch TV programming- on demand- whenever they want to- on their TV sets and not on their computer screens. The open-ness of the availability of this on-demand content, however, is not that great. It is usually limited to one or two content-providers.

It is not just the gaming console’s partnerships that are helping define TV of the future. There are some really interesting examples of how TV content is being integrated into various games. Grand Theft Auto (developed by a company called Rock Star Games) has special TV content within their newest version of the game where gamers can, for example, watch Ricky Gervais perform live in a virtual comedy club in the Liberty City. Ricky did a special recording for the game.

Gran Tourismo 5 (developed by Sony), the most popular racing game in the world with over 50 million copies sold worldwide, has a virtual TV station of its own, called GT TV. BBC cracked a deal with GT TV last year whereby 40 episodes of Top Gear were made available to watch on GT TV. GT TV also features news and updates from the motoring world.

All this is really exciting. What is even more exciting is to think about the implications of it all on the advertising and media industry. Integration of the content into games is a really clever way of getting the consumers to pay for the content. In terms of advertising time, all of these efforts seemingly fragment the distribution of content, and hence perhaps the buying of advertising. However, it is not really difficult to imagine a situation where a “central” ad-server sells time on all of these platforms- much like the Apple’s patented technique, and major media owners like BBC, Sony reserve the right to sell and place advertising into their content themselves. Not different from what the TV stations do now, regardless of which cable or satellite platform distributes them (Sky, Virgin etc).

Pricing of Content

One thing is for sure, the on-demand, commercials-free nature of broadcast has huge implications for the pricing of TV content, for both consumers and advertisers. Afterall the media owners, or the content producers, have to generate streams of revenue that would continue to justify the ever-increasing costs of production.

In an on-demand world, there is quite a possibility of doing a pricing model where consumers get to decide whether they want to see any advertising at all or not. If they do, one can even push the extent of advertising they would be exposed to. For instance, if a consumer decides to pay 100% of the price for a movie, he or she may watch it without any advertising. But if he or she decides to let advertising subsidize it, the payment might actually be just 50% of the actual price.  On devices like Apple TV or other media centres, this is quite possible to do even today.

Apple have just patented a technology whereby they can “insert” advertising into any audio-visual media file (mpeg4 etc). What this technology does is that it puts “tags” within the file at various intervals, and then when a viewer reaches that point in a programme, the programme is interrupted and a series of ads are streamed-in from a remote location. The movie or programme continues once a number of ads have been watched. This service is much like an ad-server for internet banner or search advertising. This allows for insertion of ads with precise targetting as each and every playback can have different advertising inserted.

Now from the pricing point of view, how would advertisers begin to pay for something like this? Interesting thought, as the waste element of mass TV broadcast advertising can now be down to zero. As in internet advertising you pay for a click, you would in this case be able to pay for a “view”.

Google have also started experimenting with content distribution via their ad-sense server- and are figuring out ways of incorporating advertising into streaming content. It is over the internet on computers for now, but it might well be on the televisions of future. I will write more on the innovations in the TV sets business in the later posts. For now, click on this New York Times link for a read on Google’s initiative:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/30/business/30google.html?_r=2&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&adxnnlx=1214845383-dD7MC4+qhkFGE45rIjp/gQ&oref=slogin

Would PVRs/DVRs survive? If so, in what shape or form?

Everyone is impressed by the growth of PVRs/DVRs. It is truly overwhelming, and of course the reason is that these devices completely changed the viewing experience for us.

The first big thing about the PVRs was that it liberated programming from the shackles of TV listings, and allowed you to watch what you wanted to watch, whenever you wanted to do it. The second advantage was that it allowed you to skip advertising- just like any other recording medium would have been able to do.

In essence, what PVRs/DVRs actually do is store hours of content on a hard-drive next to your TV so that you can access it anytime- making your viewing experience virtually that of “on-demand” TV. But do remember that it is a virtual on-demand experience. What would happen if the TV really became on-demand? What would you do with your PVRs? Why would you want to spend money buying storage capacity in your home, when your broadcast provider is already doing that for you at a remote location?

If there is ever a case of having some sort of storage or digital play-back device at home, it is that for a device like Apple TV, or a generic media player attached to your TV. What that allowd you to do is “rent and buy” movies and TV series for you to keep- just like your old DVD collection. A mixture of an Apple TV like device, with a PVR might just be a better answer. There are some devices in the market currently that aim at doing that, though without much of an organised interface, or thought behind them.

There are also quite a few services that offer video-on-demand. Virgin’s limited on-demand TV is one example. All the major broadcasters such as BBC, ITV and Channel four have their programming accessible through the internet- though ironically so far you can only play that programming on your computer.

From an advertising point of view, PVRs or on-demand TV presents a very simple challenge. How do you insert commercial breaks back into programming? Afterall, not all content can be branded, and there is a limit to a viewer’s capacity to watch “sponsored” programming, and ad-breaks still are a relatively more favourable choice then seeing a dish-washing liquid being talked about in an episode of Heroes.

There are technologies that are being worked on and experimented with to get the commercial breaks back into digital media files (that can be played back on TV- on-demand). Keep reading this blog for more on those.