So Pandora’s Box creaked open yesterday and out flew HD digital antennas, this time in the form of Aereo, a legally tenuous startup funded by the likes of Barry Diller.

Aereo (né BamBoom) offers consumers two lightweight mini-antennas (they’re about the size of a dime and look like doll-sized Silly Bandz bracelets.) With your antennas, Aereo gives you access to all the broadcast channels in your area (all the major networks) and a cloud-based DVR that holds 40 hours of programming (you can even upload from both antennas simultaneously.)

For potential cord-cutters, this is huge news. Access to live news and sports has long been the main thing keeping viewers tied to a pay TV provider. With Aereo, they’ll get news and weather. For the most part, anyway. Broadcast-only means no cable networks like ESPN and CNN.

But ESPN and CNN have web-based apps that feature live TV. And along with popular cable staples like HBO, Showtime, AMC, USA , TWC, TBS and TNT, they could start their own web-based subscription services. (NB: Could is a lot different than will — the pay TV providers still turn a serious profit from their deals with the cable networks, while providing the networks with the bulk of their user base. Neither side wants to mess with that arrangement any time soon.)

Aereo, as the LA Times notes, faces a gauntlet of legal challenges and may never actually see the light of day. But the back-to-the-future notion is now out there that miniature HD antennas can easily pick up broadcast signals and stream them across a variety of devices (BTIG’s Rich Greenfield was duly impressed with the 3G stream on his AT&T iPhone- check his post (registration required) for pictures and video ) and once it’s out there, there’s no turning back. Developers will continue to innovate newer and smaller antennas, while improving both picture quality and range.

As that happens, more and more consumers will decide that a handful of broadcast stations (including the big 4 networks) coupled with à la carte OTT solutions (Netflix, Hulu, iTunes, et al) are all they need. That in turn, puts pressure on pay TV providers to create smaller, more customizable packages in order to compete.

While we are still a while away from this, there’s no small irony in the future of television being an antenna. After all, in pre-cable days, TV was actually free.

Global IPTV revenue and subscriber numbers will double within five years, with Asia being the driving force. According to Informa Telecoms & Media, the revenues from IPTV services will reach $11.9 billion by the end of 2016. That’s a $5.7 billion increase from the number recorded for 2011. Additionally, the current global subscriber count of 34.3 million will jump to 76.6 by the end of 2016, which accounts for 5% of homes around the world with television sets, with plenty of room for additional growth.

From a regional standpoint, Asia will prove to be the leader in the growth of IPTV, accounting for a little over a quarter million of the number of subscribers in 2016. The US will be a close second, drawing nearly 14 million subscribers by the end of 2016. Both Eastern and Western Europe will show an increase of over 10 million subscribers. France is currently the IPTV leader in Europe, and their numbers will continue to rise as operators cater to the consumers in the growing urban areas. By the close of 2016, Informa claims that France will have 5.1 million paying IPTV homes.

This news is of particular interest to us, because 9 of our 21 offices are located in the Asia-Pacific region. It doesn’t surprise us that Asia will be the driving force behind the increased usage of IPTV, and we anticipate those numbers to be met before the end of 2016.

Are you surprised by the IPTV-growth facts and figures?

Research group Altimeter was disappointed by the fact that 32% of advertisements didn’t include references to brand websites or social media sites. There were also some campaigns that required viewers to spend too much time thinking about how to navigate through processes to activate perks. According to ReadWriteWeb, “…only six ads used hashtags in lieu of a Website or social media site, but those ads were notable because they did not ask viewers to like them on Facebook or follow them on Twitter. Instead, they asked for viewer interaction.”

The entertainment check-in service GetGlue claims there were over 160K Super Bowl check-ins on their service alone, which went up 700% compared to the 2011 Super Bowl. Lora Schaeffer of Altimeter stated “Coca Cola failed to make its multi-channel experience simple and seamless.” GetGlue thought the exact opposite with Coca Cola. In fact, they named Coca Colas campaign as one of the most successful, alongside Budweiser, Pepsi, and Doritos. Each brand was mentioned over 23K times.

Interestingly enough, according to Networked Insights, while 42% of the social media conversation was about the commercials; 32% was about the Madonna/Halftime Show, and only 2% was about The Giants winning.

Brands such as H&M and Dannon turned to celebrities such as David Beckham and John Stamos to endorse their product, which led to viewers talking up to four times more about the celebrities, than the products themselves.

KIT digital’s solutions for TV properties give brands the ability to extend their messaging to online, mobile, and social communities, taking engagement and viewer participation to a new level. As exciting as the response to the second screen experience with the Super Bowl was, it would have been that much more monumental if all the advertisers would have lived up to the hype surrounding their social TV campaigns.

We are going to Dubai to present our new broader portfolio of services and solutions that we worked so hard to deliver for you. At Cabsat you will have a chance to experience our Broadcast Integration Services (BSI): flexible solutions designed to meet the needs of the world’s biggest broadcasters. We will show how we apply our design and construction expertise to broadband-enabled installed and mobile broadcast facilities such as newsrooms, studios, control rooms, transmission centres, Earth stations, disaster recovery suites, and outside broadcast vehicles.

We will also be presenting KIT Socially Enabled TV: a “lean back” experience that transforms viewing by integrating a “second device” such as a tablet or smart phone, into an interactive super-remote synchronised with the TV viewing experience.
You will be able to learn more about the KIT Video Platform, our cloud-based video asset management system, enables media & entertainment, network operator, and non-media enterprise clients to produce, manage, and deliver live and on-demand, socially-enabled video experiences from any source to any screen.

At the Cabsat show the KIT digital team will be taking meetings throughout the week to share some of the video and social TV experiences we’ve developed for well-known brands like Channel 4, Channel 5 and Prisa TV.

If you’re interested in a stopping by our booth at the Cabsat for a demo, or just in speaking with our media specialists with expertise span from traditional broadcast systems engineering to over-the-top broadband TV applications, reach out via our website contact form or send us a direct email to emea.sales@kit-digital.com, and we’ll be in touch quickly to schedule a meeting time.

Looking forward to meeting you in Dubai at KIT digital booth – Hall Number: Sheikh Saeed 2 Stand Number: S2-E41.

Bloomberg BusinessWeek reports that KIT digital increased its workforce by a whopping 319% during the most recent two-year period. This represents the third-highest growth rate among large U.S. technology companies (market value > $100 million.) Impressive numbers like this put KIT in the same league as rapidly expanding tech leaders like Apple, Google, and Amazon.

To learn more about job opportunities at KIT, please visit our “Careers” page or recruiting section on our LinkedIn Page.

http://www.kitd.com/company/careers/

http://www.linkedin.com/company/kit-digital-inc/careers

Back in seventh grade, I remember learning about some Renaissance-era British doctor who, in order to study the process of digestion, would swallow food in a linen bag attached to a string that he’d then drag back out of his stomach.

So comparatively, my experience using various social TV apps during the Super Bowl in order to report on them, was relatively painless.

But still.

So few of them were done with any forethought whatsoever. When we are watching TV, it’s generally a pretty immersive experience. We’ll multitask in short bursts, but please do not ask us to decide whether we want it shipped to our home or office, if standard is okay and did we still want to buy it with our American Express card ending in xx-4099?

Here’s the deal: E-commerce is best left until the show is over. Ditto getting “more information” on anything. So let me save something for later in a basket, bookcase, coupon book – whatever you want to call it. But don’t make me stop and make decisions I have to think about.

Especially on a tiny smart phone screen. Best Buy had a well-done commercial but the Shazam app took me to a screen that said something about saving money if I upgraded my phone. (There were too many words for me to actually want to make sense it all.) What were they thinking? I’m not going to stop and spend 45 minutes upgrading my phone in the middle of the Super Bowl.

AmEx had something like that with (I think) FourSquare. If I remember, they were giving me 5 dollars off when I spent 10 dollars, but again, the process was way too time-consuming and confusing for me to actually be sure about what has transpired.

Another note on Shazam– which advertisers seem to gleefully be using as an audio-based replacement for those RFID tags no one ever figured out how to operate: The commercial starts. It’s 30 seconds long. 2 seconds into it, I see the Shazam logo. I then have 28 seconds to (a) find my phone, (b) turn it on, (c) find the Shazam app, (d) open the app and wait till it loads (e) hit “tag this” (f) wait for the tagging to happen.

That’s pretty ambitious for 28 seconds.

The Takeaway: Keep it simple. Keep the words short and sweet. Ditto the graphics. Tell me exactly what you want me to do and when and how: I’ll; appreciate both the brevity and clarity. Save all the heavy lifting for later and make sure it’s easy to  find whatever it is you wanted me to do or look at when I get back.

Because I’m watching television. And you’re just interrupting.

UPDATE: Check out similar conclusions from Jeremy Toeman at LiveDigitally ]]> http://www.kitd.com/2012/02/dont-make-me-think-second-screen-experiences-and-the-super-bowl/feed/ 0 http://www.kitd.com/2012/02/register-now-for-our-social-media-week-2012-panel-on-social-tv/ http://www.kitd.com/2012/02/register-now-for-our-social-media-week-2012-panel-on-social-tv/#comments Sat, 04 Feb 2012 05:58:23 +0000 Alan Wolk http://www.kitd.com/?p=4848 Continue reading →]]>

My Social TV App Thinks I’m My Dad:

Privacy Issues In The Age of Convergence 

Thursday, February 16th @ 5PM  

Edelman Worldwide, 250 Hudson Street, NYC  

Streaming and VOD details to be announced here shortly

Join KIT’s own Alan Wolk, Viggle’s Mike Sommers, Dan Neely from Networked Insights and The Blair Witch Project and Campfire’s Mike Monello as they discuss hot topics in the world of social television.

Moderated by Digiday writer Jack Marshall, the event is filling up fast, so register now at  http://socialmediaweek.org/event/?event_id=2279

The event is free, but registration is required.

The rapid adoption of viewing live TV in tandem with a “second screen” device is bound to make the 2012 Super Bowl the biggest social TV events of the year. As a matter of fact, every major Super Bowl commercial has a social TV component. We think this is the right approach: 30-second commercial slots can’t stand alone, and advertising campaigns should go social.

Music app Shazam is making all the right moves for the Super Bowl. They made headlines last year upon the launch of Shazam for TV. This year, they will power nearly a third of all Super Bowl advertisements. With over 175 million users (60 million in the U.S,) Shazam is considered one of the driving forces behind second screen interactive television. TV check-in service GetGlue, in comparison, is 2 million strong. Shazam, along with other major media companies, is relying on viewers to use their phones to interact with commercials for more than catching up with the latest buzz. This takes social TV advertising campaigns to a deeper level.

Marketers and advertisers are experimenting with social media because it adds value to the pricy commercial time-slots they’ve purchased. Consumers are more likely to buy products upon the recommendation of friends and family members, and second screen campaigns are the ultimate way to capitalize on those conversations.

Alan Wolk, Social Strategy Director of KIT digital wrote an article, When 30-Second Spots Morph Into ‘Social Intermissions.’ Wolk stated, “With social TV… TV’s already strong economic foundation may end up strengthened.” A few short months later, and it already has.

We will keep tabs on the success of the Super Bowl going social. Stay tuned for our follow-up after the game.

Are you going to watch the Super Bowl with a second screen? Answer in our poll on Facebook!

Netflix and Facebook’s legal teams are afraid that “frictionless sharing” could be seen as a violation of VPPA, which prevents video rental stores from sharing the rental records of customers. Netflix and Facebook argue that it should be permissible so long as video service providers obtain “informed, written consent” over the Internet.

Those who oppose an amendment to the act argue that intellectual privacy deserves an extra degree of protection, because it is what helps shape ones understanding of values, sexuality, politics, and other sensitive matters. This is an idea that was followed by librarians for decades as they kept records confidential to protect their readers.

KIT digital believes the diverse usage of social media created a new range of intellectual records, and a new way of thinking. The concept of people sharing what they watch and and read is increasingly widespread. Continued and expanded discussions on these topics are extremely popular. The VPPA was applicable in its time, but is now outdated. As long as consumers have a say in what they choose to disclose, an amendment to the VPPA doesn’t pose any harm. Netflix and Facebook will just make it easier to do so for users who grant them permission.

Would you mind sharing what you watch with the people in your social networks?

UPDATE: Despite an easy time in the House, the bill is raising some questions in the Senate.

Wikipedia had a 24-hour blackout, making their pages unavailable while featuring a message detailing their opposition to SOPA. According to Wikipedia, over 162 million people saw their message during their blackout, and 8 million people used their search tool to find the contact information of their elected representatives. Over 4.5 million people signed a Google petition against the bills, and 25 senators switched sides and started to oppose PIPA. Additionally, there were over 2.4 million SOPA-related tweets on Twitter during the course of 16 hours. SOPA serves as a blacklist to censor/shut down websites with or without prior notice to the owners. PIPA gives the government the right to take legal action against sites that contain such material.

KIT digital continues to feel that Congress ought to find a way to work alongside content producers and technology companies on a reform that would work to benefit them all while still preserving an open and free internet. Otherwise, the impact would lead consumers to feel that they’ve become ‘corporate pawns.’

Are you pleased about the outcome?