Shenanize

Opening Presentation by Booz & Co.

TV is still the global mass medium – it is the most widely penetrating technology. Its contested, not by the Internet, but by Mobile. The technology is out there – are the consumers adopting it?

Usage numbers out of the US. Watching TV in the home: 140 hours/month; Watching Time shifted TV 7:54 hours; Watching Video in Mobile: 3:16, Watching Online 3:24, Watching on Internet or PC 27:32 – about 10% of total TV has shifted to “off the box”. What does it mean?

Panel:
Michale Comish – CEO, Blinkbox Entertainment
Daniel Heaf – Digital Director, BBC Worldwide
Patrick Walker – Director of Video Partnerships EMEA, Google/Youtube
Jan Wareby – SVP & Head of Business Unit Multimedia, Ericsson
Moderator: Satci D. Kramer – Editor EVP, ContentNext Media

Staci: Google TV is tied to the box, but how to take it and make it make money?

Patrick: The content is being distributed and as the bandwidth increases the consumption of long form content is usage. YouTube Mobile Usage is larger today than YouTube Web usage was 5 years ago. Consumers are shifting how they are using TV. By using a laptop or a mobile phone while watching regular tv.

Patrick: The rights and contracts are having a challenge keeping up with the changes in technology. Google doesn’t think they have done a good job of communicating what Google TV is or isn’t. It’s being blocked by Fox and many other stations – “you mention people are block us. they are blocking themselves from being seen on us.” Got a good laugh from the audience. But a good point – users will find an alternative way

Staci: Will Google pay re-transmission fees? Patrick: Google sees themselves as a neutral source for accessing the data that is the show. They aren’t rebroadcasting anything they are just a conduit. Interesting POV.

Patrick: Without Google being involved TV is going to the web. They are just enabling the process.

Audience Question: How do you see the consumption of media changing now that it’s on a smaller devise.

Patrick: Being able to access both the mobile content and TV content to have a more enhanced TV experience.

Staci: Will consumers pay extra to have access everywhere?

Panel says: Yes – it’s about paying for a coherent user experience. And the advertisers are willing to pay as well.

Coffee Break – NEED THIS FOR REALS!!

Hugo Barra – Director, Mobile Product Management, Google
Christian Hernandez – Head of International Business Development, Facebook
Ilja Laurs – Founder CEO, GetJar
Raoul Roverato – VP New Growth Businesses, Orange
Moderator: David Rowan – Editor in Chief, WIRED UK

Top 25 Paid Apps on the iPhone people are spending on average $1.27, on the iPad it’s $5.37 – sounds like a great opportunity.

L’Orange is promoting apps as part of the mobile bundle.

The panel agrees it’s impossible to build creative for every platform. The consumer is spending money on the private platform (Apple) although Apple has made some massive changes to the terms of service and allowing apps that are more social including VOIP.

What you want to do with the application is critical – if you want something standard a web app is fine. But if you want to do video and other things then you are going to need to custom create the app to each device. France has 3 million users of mobile television. Ultimately there will be consolidation of mobile platforms – there needs to be competition so that only the best survive and they are forced to be open. It’s a shift of power 4 – 5 years ago the operator was the gate keeper – and now the OS provider is the gatekeeper to the consumer.

Facebook’s future? They didn’t set out to build the world largest gaming platform, but it happened. They are now the second largest driver to media sites. They are trying to make it easier to allow developers to bring consumers from web to wireless seamlessly.

Audience Question: Is Google working on a social network called GoogleMe to compete with Facebook?

OOHs and AHHs from the audience – answer is NO. They think of social as an ingredient of the experience on a vertical. Google has made it more difficult for Facebook to access GMail info – and TechCrunch has covered the whole story. Obviously and uncomfortable moment on the stage here in Monte Carlo. http://tcrn.ch/aN8MTp

The New Wave

Buddy Media
Only 1/4 of all Facebook users are in the US. Featuring Starwood Hotels. There are 1,000 hotels and they are all using Buddy Media to create custom pages, managed by the individual hotel managers. “You’re not going to build blog software to start a blog. Why would you build Facebook tabs from scratch.”

Newspaper Direct – we are all getting a gift of 1 year of newspapers from Igor.
They have 2,000 newspapers from 94 countries. They are all available for distribution on the digital network before they are even printed in their local country. Press Reader is the app. It takes you to a store where you can choose the country and order the paper. It’s not the website – it is the printed version of the physical paper. It is optimized for the platform on which you are accessing it. You can navigate the pages in a carousel and zoom into a story. and if you click on a story title it will give you a plain text view of the article. You can also listen to the paper being read to you and you can share via email, Twitter and Facebook. The next generation that is white labeled for the publisher is a combination of the Web based content and the physical paper in one app. The Arkansas Gazette is an example of this “super app”. The new Galaxy Tablet – the Samsung Android tablet was rolled out in Europe this week and the app is built to work there as well. Spencer comments, “this could be the thing that saves old media.” Check out PressDisplay.com to see how they are experimenting with the possibilities.

Clicker: Based in LA and San Francisco, Paul Whirley COO & Co Founder.
Clicker is a programming guide for internet streaming television and movies. The goal was to design what TV Guide would look like in a full streaming world. It’s a database that can be pivoted and queried for all available content and brings in social conversation from your friends about shows. Clicker.tv is wrapped to allow you to view from your couch. It’s an affiliate based revenue model. They raised 8 mil. in October 08 and in February they raised another 11 mil.

L’Orange: Patrice is going to show off 24/24
Do you know when the first newspaper was published? It was 1631 just after Gutenberg inventing the printing press. In 1980 you got the first dedicated news channel on TV which was CNN. 24/24 Actu by Orange TV, Press, Radio service 100% dedicated to news. It’s about getting the news when and where you want. It works on your computer and all mobile devises. Every screen has been custom designed for that screen. 2424actu.com The search brings everything from all channels.

XBox Kinect Hub
Let me simply say – Oh Hell Yeah I Need One Of These!!! Alex it’s a good thing you don’t read my blog this may be your birthday present 🙂 I’m going to play with this live this afternoon – expect that I will write a full post about that experience later.

Mini Tycon Casino Mobile Social Game by SGN
Passed Farmville to be the #2 game. It’s a casino game. There are few former EA folks that are working on the social game. The vision is to bring social playing into mobile. They are planning on building other apps that will be part of the world. Restaurants, hotels, etc. You can hire your friends to work in your casino. Millions of dollars a week are getting made by companies with these social apps. There are tens of thousands of simultaneous games at once. At most they have had other games that had a million simultaneous players.