Breaking Through

As anyone who has ever turned on a television lately can attest, the main pain point in the viewing experience is navigating the increasingly Kafka-esque series of screens that pop up to prevent you from finding whatever it is you are looking for.

So it’s baffling that so many in the adtech industry seem to think that the amorphous entity known as “social TV” is the savior we’ve all been waiting for, the One True Path to improving the viewing experience. (To their credit, those actually in the TV industry seem less easily duped.)

As a founding member of the 2nd Screen Society who spends most of his days studying the industry and applying that knowledge to (shameless plug) KIT’s award-winning Social Program Guide product, here’s my somewhat educated take on what’s going on right now.

Discovery Is The Key Use Case For Any “Social” Data:  Let’s start with the fairly safe assumption that the average TV viewer’s initial concern is finding something to watch. That means the typical “social” scenario is going to go something like this: "Oh look, 10 of my friends are watching Revolution, I guess I'll watch too."

And for most viewers, that is going to be the only reason they care what their social graph is up to.

So What Viewers Need Is An App That Lets Them Change The Channel: This is the alpha and the omega of any TV-related app. Because putting down the iPad, searching for the remote, and then rechecking the iPad to see what channel number you want to go to is just not a viable option.

“Social Data” Is A Pretty Fungible Term: As our friends at Zeebox figured out, the data you get from your social graph often isn’t deep enough to make a decision. That’s when you want to see things like what most people in your zip code or age demographic are watching, along with some input from critics to help you make your decision.

Our Social Graphs Are Random And Rarely Consist Of People Whose Opinions We Care About: The average viewer only has a handful of friends whose opinions they care about period, let alone whose opinions on TV shows they trust. And it is just way too much hassle to go through 100+ friends and start ranking them. That's why knowing what your neighbors or age cohort or even fellow football fans are watching will often the most useful data point in deciding what to watch.

Twitter Is An Odd Duck: Twitter, the usual source for “social media data” has an unusual audience that rarely reflects the demographics of the show (or anything, for that matter.) In the real world, the one where everyone's Grandma is on Facebook, nobody's Grandma is on Twitter. And unlike Facebook, Twitter's got a whole lot of hardcore haters, people who actively dislike the platform and all it stands for. It's a highly inaccurate gauge of just about anything, though the ease with which its API is accessed makes it an easy cheat.

Facebook Is A More Accurate Gauge:  Unfortunately, it’s rarely used for any sort of real-time interaction: Facebook chats are private and the nature of the platform makes its public postings more about check-ins and reviews than about real-time commentary.

Timeshifting Kills Chatter: The more we watch shows on our own schedule, the less likely it is that anyone we know is watching at the same time. The KIT Social Program Guide app has the ability to capture your friends tweets/posts/comments and display them in real time as you watch, but my suspicion is that outside of sporting and other special events, that functionality will be of limited appeal. And as discussed at length in this piece from 2011, social activity is highly dependent on the type of content being watched and rarely reflects all segments of a show’s fan base.

It’s The Data, Not the Chatter: Social chatter, regardless of the platform, is of little use to anyone. The real value is in the data that MVPDs will be able to collect from users who will have individual second screen accounts. That allows for a scenario where the entire family is watching the same show on the big screen while having individual experiences - uniquely tailored content and advertising - on the second screen. The data around who is watching what (and when) will provide better experiences for everyone from broadcasters to advertisers to viewers. It’s just a matter of who is going to take the lead in implementing a system that allows for those experiences.

Timeshifting Makes User Input More Important: When the answer to "what's on now?" becomes "everything," the most useful interface is one that helps us make decisions. This means bringing the user into the equation.

Current Discovery Models Call To Mind TiVo, Circa 2001. Remember the early days of TiVo when that service used predictive technology to proactively record shows it thought the viewer might want to watch?  It was hardly ever right and caused more amusement than anything. Yet we have not really progressed. Just last week I was reading about DirectTV's new Genie DVR whose main selling point seems to be that it will record shows for you based on what it thought you might want to watch.

Just Ask: Forgetting to involve the viewer is the fatal flaw for most all these solutions. Because no app can correctly guess what you are feeling at a particular moment based on your prior behavior. Imagine, if you will, an app that chooses your dinner for you based on your prior eating behavior and what your Facebook friends had recently eaten as well. The app would have no way of knowing what you were in the mood for on any particular night. But say it asked you for some input, like what kind of food you were in the mood for. If you said “Italian” it could spit back a half dozen viable options and even help you narrow that list down further.

Predictive Technology Without User Input Becomes Just Another Parlor Trick: Get it right and it seems like a lucky guess. Get it wrong, and clearly the app doesn’t work. But bring the user into the equation and they take part of the credit. Or the blame. It’s why magicians like to involve audience members.

It’s All About The Interface: A second screen app is going to have to primarily function as a program guide for the MVPD that releases it. (Independent second screen apps are a tough sell if what you mostly want to do is change the channel.) That interface is where the challenge is. Right now we have a system that was designed for 6 channels pressed into use for 600. We also have an industry in stasis, where no one is moving because no one has to: everyone else is all about preserving the status quo, so why take a risk and rock the boat.

The Dinosaurs Meteor Shower: Remember how the iPhone shook up the cell phone industry? That was another industry where innovation was possible but never pursued because no one could see a valid business reason for innovating. Then the iPhone came along and changed everything and everyone else was left playing catch-up. (They still are.) The same thing is going to happen in the TV industry.  Someone (and it might well be Apple) is going to come in and shake up the way we interact with our TVs, which will shake up everyone in the industry, the MVPDs in particular, and all of a sudden innovation will matter again.

Will you be ready for it?

Apples To Oranges

As someone who is frequently driving to unfamiliar locations and who relies on an iPhone based GPS to get himself there, I have to say that the new Apple maps program is quite an improvement, particularly in terms of the graphics, which make navigating while driving a lot simpler.

The problem, for Apple, is that the program it's quite an improvement on isn't Google Maps, which it replaced, but rather TomTom USA, which is the company the app is based on.

While Google maps on iOS is a wonderful thing, it didn't work like a GPS. If you wanted step-by-step directions, you needed a co-pilot: you had to both read and advance the app yourself.

That's why so many iPhone users went out and bought GPS apps like Tom Tom and Wayz: they allowed you to use your phone instead of a unique GPS device to access a program where a robotic voice read you directions as you drove.

That was the hole Apple was likely trying to plug. What they seem to have overlooked was that lots of people used Google Maps for things other than driving directions. Like walking directions. Biking directions. Or just browsing their current location to figure out what was close by.

In other words, from a user standpoint, the new Apple Maps was a GPS replacement app. Not a Google Maps replacement app. Hence the angst over Google Maps disappearance.

It's not that Apple Maps is a bad app. It's got great features like Siri and search integration. It's just that it doesn't do what GoogleApps did.

Not even almost.

Video Interviews From IBC: The Next Web and Beet.TV

I was interviewed on camera twice last week during IBC - you can see the results below.

The first is a conversation with Beet.TV's Andy Plesser about the KIT Social Program Guide, which won the CSI (Cable and Satellite International) Award for Best Social TV App, beating out never.no and three other competitors. We also touch on the Second Screen Society, a very worthwhile organization KIT has played a lead role in helping to get off the ground.

The second interview, with TheNextWeb's Martin Bryant, takes a deeper dive into the current and future state of television and where we see the industry headed next.

(And yes, I need to learn to look directly at camera.)

Enjoy.

IBC 2012

IBC 2012 is on this weekend in Amsterdam and I will be there representing KIT at two different sessions.

On Saturday night, I'll be delivering the keynote at the 2nd Screen Summit Amsterdam with the first live version of the viral "10 Things You Need To Know About The Future of Television" (I'll be providing a more Eurocentric spin for the IBC audience.) There are a lot of really big name speakers as 2nd Screen, so if you are in Amsterdam for IBC,  please check it out.

Then, on Sunday, I will be on stage at the IBC Rising Stars event, along with Naomi Climer from Sony Entertainment and Tony Churnside from the BBC. We'll be discussing what our paths were into the industry and how it's changed over the years. I've pointed out to my kids (several times) that the program refers to me as an "inspirational industry figure" but they seem rather nonplussed.

Check me out on Twitter for updates and other news from the show.

7 Things Obama and Romney Need To Do To Win

I spend a lot of time figuring out ways for brands to get consumers to like them, so here's a bit of advice for the for the two brands running for the US presidency this year.

ROMNEY

1. Resurrect Massachusetts Mitt: A lot of Democrats might be convinced to vote for the socially liberal/fiscally innovative governor of Massachusetts. You might win them over if you can convince them that's who you still are.
2. Teach Ann to smile. You lose those precious likability points every time CNN pans over to her and she looks like she's just smelled used kitty litter. Which happened a whole lot during the convention.
3. Understand that people don't dislike you because you are rich: Mike Bloomberg is much, much, much richer than you and yet no one seems to begrudge him his wealth. Despite the fact that he's not a Democrat. Figure out why that is and do whatever he is doing. Hint: stop trying to pretend your father's position had nothing to do with your success. No one buys that for a minute. But George Romney's name could only open doors. You still had to deliver. Focus on that.
4. Buy a crowbar and whack Paul Ryan across the nuts every time he says the word "Medicare." It's unimportant whether his plan is sound or not-- you lose votes every time he says it.
5. Explain why being a businessman makes you a better president. Remember that FDR, JFK, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton never ran businesses. You need to give concrete examples of what you would do to create jobs, loosen spending, etc. and why having run a business-- a business like Bain, no less, that does not actually create anything tangible-- will make you a better president.
6. Understand the limits of rational decision making. You seem to see the world as a balance sheet, where there's a logical answer to most problems. But in doing so, you discount the importance of emotional decision making and the incredibly important role it plays in getting people to buy products and vote for candidates without ever fully understanding why they're doing so.  Hint: You mention Steve Jobs in your speeches. Jobs understood the power of the ego over the id. Emulate him.

OBAMA

1. Stop blaming the last four years on Congressional Republicans. You made a lot of mistakes too. Own up to them, tell people what you'd do differently. Carrying on as if we'd be in the middle of an economic boom if only the Tea Party didn't exist doesn't help your cause.
2. Define Obama 2.0.  1.0 was all about stopping the slide towards another Great Depression and passing Obamacare. You even slipped killing Bin Laden in there. Those victories aside, the reviews on your first term have been universally mediocre. You need to give us something beyond Hope & Change and being Not Bush. You've had four years of on-the-job training. Explain how you've grown and what you've learned.
3. Stop hiding Michelle. She's got the most relatable life story of any of the candidates or their wives: working class girl from Chicago public schools studies hard, gets into Princeton, becomes a successful attorney. All she's missing is a glass slipper. Understand that you, Mitt and Ann come off like characters from a TV show: not a lot of children-of-well-known governors out there and I think you get that the only person in the world with a background even remotely like yours is well, you. Did you watch that inspirational speech Marco Rubio gave at the Republican convention? Change a couple of minor details and Michelle's got the same story. Stop hiding her away and use her likablilty to your advantage.
4. Pretend you actually like being President: All too often it seems like you're doing us all a big favor by taking the weight of the world on your shoulders. So kill the martyr act. One of the reasons Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton were so popular is they both actually seemed like they were having a blast being president. I get it's not who you are, but at least try.
5. Remember the guy who talked about having to figure out his mother's insurance bills. That was probably the moment you won the election. Because no matter what we thought the solution should be, nothing (a) crystallized the problems with the current health care system and (b) humanized you like that story about fighting with the insurance companies over erroneous bills and denials of payment while your mother was dying of cancer. Everyone could relate to that story. Find that guy again and become him.
6. Buy the rights to the scene in Up In The Air where George Clooney and Anna Kendrick are brought in to fire people. The one where Jason Reitman used real people who'd actually been recently fired. Run it as often as possible the week before the election. The Bain connection will not be lost on anyone.

BOTH OF YOU:

7. Stop campaigning to 27 undecided voters in Ohio. Geting lost in the weeds like that just makes the rest of the country feel cynical and uninspired. You are both capable of bigger thinking. Go there.

Dear Zuck: 5 Ways To Fix Facebook (And Get Your Stock Back Up)

Dear Zuck:

It breaks my heart to see your stock tanking because investors aren’t seeing eye-to-eye on the monetization thing. Especially since, from where I’m sitting, it doesn’t seem that hard. So here’s what you do to get your stock back on track again:

1. Forget about display ads. You’re never going to fix them. Apocryphal story: The other day, I overheard my eighth-grader and his friends talking about how you should never click on Facebook ads “because they’re just spam and they might break your computer.” Clearly not accurate, but here’s the thing: most of your users share that sentiment. All those years of ads for hair replacement services, Christian singles organizations and party clowns trained us to see that space as the Facebook equivalent of junk. So when you throw a Pepsi ad in there along with the miracle diets, most of us assume it’s not a real Pepsi ad and assume it’s a come-on for free Canadian Viagra, computer viruses or worse. 
2. Stop giving away the brand pages. At the same time you were delegitimizing your display ads, you were creating a whole ecosystem around your brand pages... and giving it away for free. What’s more, you’ve trained users to believe that brand pages are the only way big brands interact on Facebook. The success of all those contests and promotions bears that out. And yet you are giving this away for free. Make them pay for it Zuck. And while you’re at it, share some of the data you collect or even just give them rights to the 500K pictures users put up during a promotion. And make them pay for that too. I know you worry about user experience and all, but seriously Marc, I doubt most of those five hundred thousand people even realize that you own the pictures they’ve posted, not the brand. 
3. Get rid of the timeline from brand pages. Timeline is a great idea. Sam Lessin is a really smart guy. But the old tabs and unique homescreen format is something you can sell to brands. Every brand manager and agency I've spoken to is freaked out by timeline and they all agree it's greatly reduced the usefulness of their Facebook presence. Beyond that, consumers don’t expect brands to have timelines: they are not our friends. Ergo, friends have timelines, brands don’t. If you want to make money off brand pages, you’ve got to make them brand friendly. 
4. Stop trying to protect us from ourselves. I get that you don’t want the news feed turning into a advertising channel. But your users are smart enough to know how to block brands whose messaging has become annoying. Most of the brand messaging in my newsfeed is harmless and of the stuff I let through, a lot of it is actually useful. Put your trust in the free marketplace of ideas theory and let us eliminate the noise ourselves. (Because one person’s noise is another person’s “like”) 
5. Innovate: Once you’ve committed to brand pages, stop treating them like the crazy uncle in the basement and make them more useful. Here’s a freebie that should be pretty simple to implement: you know how I can select how frequently I hear from a person? Give me the same options for brands, only use language that make sense for those interactions, e.g. “all updates/contests and promotions only/product news only.” That’s the sort of option that works for all three parties: you, us and them. You’ve got a whole lot of smart people working for you, I’m sure they’ll come up with lots more of these. 

So take this for what it is: the semi-informed ramblings of someone who has no idea what’re really driving your decisions beyond what he reads in the trade press. If you like what you read though, you can always friend me and we’ll take it from there.

Apple TV Is Going To Be Software, Not Hardware

Back in January, we predicted that an Apple TV would be sold like an iPhone, via a proprietary deal with a select MVPD, who’d offer their subscribers an iPhone-like discount on the beautiful new box for a two-year engagement.

So now I’m invoking Clause 34.2.A of the 2007 Addendum to the 2005 International Internet Code* to take that back.

Sort of.

I still think Apple is still going to offer someone a proprietary deal for its product similar to the one described above. Only the product is not going to be a TV set, but rather  software that will put a beautiful new interface on the TV you already own.

There’s no need for Apple to build a TV: the ones we already have work really well. They’re dumb terminals. There’s not a whole lot of clamoring for improvement on the size and shape of the screen or the quality of the HD display. (Compare that to the cell phone market where the iPhone was as remarkable for its shape, screen size and screen quality as it was for its app-based interface.)

And that’s exactly what the TV industry needs right now: a well thought out interface.

The typical MVPD on-screen experience is the polar opposite of “user friendly,” what with two thousand random channels displayed in a grid with the HD ones crammed somewhere in the middle. Add in On Demand and DVR menus that were apparently designed by the same people who created Brain Teasers. A notable absence of customization and personalization features. Topped off by search features that require you to scroll through a keypad using nothing but your remote control. (Possibly from the same Brain Teasers team.)


And these are billed as vast improvements from earlier versions.

So back to Apple. What’s the one thing Apple arguably does better than anyone else? User interface. Say what you will about the iPad, it’s beautiful and it’s intuitive. And right now, TV needs something that’s beautiful and intuitive.

It’s also something Apple can completely control as it operated on (wait for it) a closed system. (Apple, as you may have noticed, is all about closed systems and control.)


Which makes the first real TV OS the obvious move for them.  The OS would live on the set top box of whichever MVPDs they signed a deal with. It would be a premium product that would turn millions of dumb terminals into objects of great envy. While being rightly hailed as yet another incredible innovation from Apple’s design geniuses.

Though not nearly as genius as what will happen two years later, when Apple introduces an improved version of the interface as a second screen iPad app (available through the Apple store) to anyone whose MVPD has paid through the nose to support the Apple TV platform and get a customized app for their subscribers in return. Said app replacing the need for a set top box and creating a whole new world of second screen experiences.

Caveats: It’s quite likely that an Apple TV line-up will only have 50 or 100 channels, as not every network will want to/be able to accommodate Apple’s demands. Apple may even pare down the list themselves, so as to create a “Best Of” type collection. Either way, you can be sure most all of the usual suspects will be there.

And profiting handsomely from it along with their friends in Cupertino.

UPDATE, 8.15.12: The Wall Street Journal is reporting tonight that "Apple Inc. is in talks with some of the biggest U.S. cable operators about letting consumers use an Apple device as a set-top box for live television and other content, according to people familiar with the matter." 

This also ties in with a post we did back in January, predicting that Apple would be looking to do an iPhone like deal with major MVPDs. 


*I just made that up

Why #NBCFail is #Doomed

This ran on Digiday last week and stirred up more than a bit of controversy. 

It sure sucks to be NBC this week. The Peacock Network is at the center of yet another Twitter-centric firestorm around a relatively minor First World Problem that’s got the cable-free utopians in yet another uproar.

Granted, not showing the opening ceremony in real time online or on Bravo was a bit of a miscalculation. But it’s certainly not the disaster of apocalyptic proportion the Occupy TV types are making it out to be. It was a business decision. And while I get that no one else you graduated with from Vassar has cable, between 80 percent to 90 percent of Americans do, so NBC really isn’t all that worried about the 2 to 5 percent that don’t. No matter how much you tweet about it.

They (and the rest of the TV industry) actually do get that change is coming. It’s just that right now, it’s not profitable for them to radically overhaul their business models to reflect that change. Which brings up another thing the #HowMuchWouldYouPayForHBO and #NBCFail crowds seem to be blissfully oblivious of, which is how the TV business actually works.

So lets start with one of Occupy TV’s big pain points: NBC had the temerity to require users to authenticate with a valid cable subscription in order to watch the live stream of the Olympics online. But in England, the BBC was giving it away for free! You know what else the Brits can do? Go to a doctor and have the government pay for it. They’ve got socialized medicine and socialized television. The BBC is run by the government*. It’s like PBS with a sense of humor and a Democratic Congress in power.

NBC has shareholders, profits and the knowledge that most people in the U.S. circa 2012 have cable subscriptions. NBC also needs to sell the entire NBC line-up to the various MVPDs (Multichannel Video Platform Distributors, i.e., what we call cable companies nowadays so the telcos and satellite providers feel included). That’s a big part of their income. The MVPDs know the networks are trying to get the most money out of them while making them take every channel they offer, so they are looking for any chance to push back at NBC for that. The MVPDs also know that Internet viewing is cutting into their audience, so they want NBC to make viewers authenticate, because then being a Time-Warner subscriber has added value.

The other thing you need to watch video online is an Internet connection. But guess who owns all the best Internet connections? Your MVPDs. They also own most of the Internet connections, thanks to the double- and triple-play packages they sell. So right off the bat, they can make it expensive for you to cut the cord by charging you more for an Internet connection than for an Internet + TV connection.

And if that doesn’t work, there’s plan B: bandwidth caps. That can make it very expensive to watch TV online, especially if you are a heavy user. Then again, cutting the cord really isn’t that much of a cost-cutting measure. It’s a political/ethical statement about how much you don’t like the current state of pay television. It’s also why analyst Rich Greenfield is spot on when he says that the first successful virtual MVPD is going to be a premium experience, where viewers pay more for a
beautiful, intuitive interface, true “TV Everywhere” functionality and a host of other features the MVPDs have been too slow in developing.

This will be what shocks the MVPDs into action and gets them to make much-needed changes — not the adolescent whining of Occupy TVers who’ve recently suffered the double indignities of not being able to watch either “Game of Thrones” or the Olympics in real time because they don’t have cable subscriptions.

And those Sudanese refugees thought they had it rough.

UPDATE: NBC released a whole bunch of stats to the Wall Street Journal. Seems they are having the best Olympics ever, with record-setting ratings and may actually wind up making money, rather than losing millions as was reported originally.

*Okay, it's technically funded by licensing fees, but the government has oversight on the network, which does not have to answer to shareholders the way NBC does.