Video from Digday Panel on Social TV

Complete video from one of the most interesting panels I've been on in a while, about the future of Social TV.  Hosted by Digiday reporter Jack Marshall, my fellow panelists were Sabrina Caluori, VP of Social Media & Marketing at HBO and Cinemax and Kimber Myers, Director of Partnerships at GetGlue.


 

The Yin and Yang of TV Today

As we move towards the TV/Internet convergence, the industry seems to be moving along two different paths for every issue that arises.

This presentation attempts to shed some light on where things are headed and what the likely outcomes might be.

The Ying and Yang of TV Today

View more presentations from Alan Wolk

The Battle Of The Century?

Fall 2011: TV manufacturers are busy rolling out “smart” TVs that connect directly to the Internet. Apple, Google, Roku, Boxee have brought the price of a connected box down to the $99 mark. Meanwhile, both networks and web based services are launching apps on PlayStation, Wii and Game Boy.

So which technology is going to win out?

None of them.

It's not really a difficult question. The pay TV providers - Comcast, DirectTV, FIOS et al are going to win. Just like they won the battle of the DVR. Only this time the battle will be even easier.

Their "killer app" is convenience. The last thing the average user wants to do is buy yet another device they have to figure out how to install and maintain and eventually upgrade. They are much happier to let someone else do all the work for them.

And it's fairly easy for all the pay TV providers, be they cable, IPTV or satellite to add access to both the internet and internet-based content providers like Netflix and Hulu. The winning solution doesn't have to be anywhere near as elegant as some of the current interfaces: it just has to be considerably less of a hassle.

That's what took TiVo from a verb to "are they still in business?" The DVR/cable box combos of the late 90s/early 00s were pretty clunky. But they were practically free, didn't take up any extra space and were installed, activated and fixed by your local cable guy.

The other killer app here is that the pay TV services own the internet pipes. Something like 90% of Uverse and FIOS customers get their internet and TV service from the same provider and the numbers for the cable services are not far behind.

That means there's not a whole lot that Apple or Google can do: unless they somehow manage to wire the entire US over the next few years (or buy one of the companies that has) they are at the mercy of whoever is bringing the high-speed broadband connection into the house.

Now for the good news: your cable TV provider owning access to all the new internet-based TV services may actually be a good thing for you.

Here's why: Broader access means bigger viewership numbers for all those internet-based content providers. And smaller numbers for the existing broadcast TV networks. Your service provider should be able to use that to push down the exorbitant fees they've been paying the broadcast networks all these years.

Which, if you're lucky, should get passed on to you in the form of a lower monthly cable bill.

Which is something no one would object to.

UPDATE (11.4.11) Today brings news that Google may be stepping up their game: they have been using Kansas City as a test market, and there are reports that they are looking to roll out a full-on Triple Play service there to compete with telcos and cable companies. If it's successful, the question remains as to how quickly they'd be able to roll something like that out nationally.

Final Episode of Social TV Series now up on Digiday

This part looks at the process by which we publicly rate and review shows and how that then triggers our friends decision-making process.

You can read it here

Part 2 of DigiDay SocialTV series: When 30-Second Spots Morph into ‘Social Intermissions’

Part 1 made it onto their list of Most Popular Stories, here's hoping Part 2 will do the same.

Please leave comments, etc. over at DigiDay. Thanks.

The Thing About Siri

When I first played around with Siri a year or so ago, back when it was still an iPhone app, my initial reaction was "Wow. This is the Jetsons. Now."

The only problem was, it didn't really work. It made a lot of mistakes and eventually it started to feel like using AOL to check the weather circa 1993 - I could run upstairs, find a Zagat's and look up a restaurant in less time. (Not to mention clicking on over to Yelp.)

Still, the idea itself was pretty seriously breakthrough and I wasn't surprised to read that Apple had snatched it up.

The Siri that Apple released with the iPhone 4S is a huge step forward from where they were last year, but it's still not there yet.

And that's a problem, because aside from Apple fanboys and tech bloggers, voice recognition is the sort of thing that doesn't get a second chance. 

People will play with Siri for a while - there's a meme floating around the internet about Siri suggesting escort services when someone complained about being horny- no doubt to be followed by similar memes-- but the third time your average user says "sushi" and Siri shows them "slushy," it's going to be relegated to the Fun Toys category rather than Useful Tools.

Voice recognition is one of those categories where we've been disappointed for so long by products that make things more, rather than less, complicated, or that need "training" we're unlikely to give them a second chance.

That said, I'm still very intrigued by the possibilities of Siri and similar technology. But only when they finally get the whole voice recognition thing right.

Three Stages of Social TV, Part 1, now up on DigiDay Daily

A revised version of the Three Stages of Social TV post is up on DigiDay Daily today, check it out here

You can also see me at DCM East in New York, tomorrow, October 13th at the Millennium Broadway Hotel, where I’ll be acting as emcee and leading the afternoon panels on Monetizing Social Media and Creating An Online Community

The Next Big Battle: Media Buying

As TV and the web finally come crashing together-- what with Cablevision announcing that they'll offer Netflix and Hulu via their set top boxes, and Netflix looking to revive Arrested Development-- the next big battle between the analog and digital worlds looms: who is going to serve up the advertising in this new era?

In one corner, you have the traditional TV buying giants, companies like MediaVest. who are tied into the ad agencies via their common holding companies. And in the other corner, you have the big web-ad buying services like Double-Click, who also have cozy relationships with ad agencies.

I'm not placing any bets here, as the new market has yet to fully develop. But at some point we're going to get to a place where 30 second commercials are being served up during a program being streamed from a website somewhere and both sides are going to think they should, by rights, be the one serving it up.

As the convergence happens, the level of data available to media buyers will greatly improve. They'll know your previous viewing patters, what times and shows commercials for a specific brand are likely to be watched or ignored, whether a show has High Social or Low Social content, even how often your IP address has been served a specific commercial.

Now which side is best  positioned to take advantage of this new data is not clear. Which makes this one to watch.