Shopping at home is fun; we all do it on our PCs from time to time. Some of us even order products off of TV channels like HSN. Until now, though, if you saw something you liked on HSN, you had to get the product code and either call via telephone or order on your laptop. But what if you could order products from HSN as you watch, right on your TV? Our HSN Shop by Remote app for CloudTV does exactly that.
My old pal Remy the Remote and I were chillin’ at my crib one day, and while Remy was in more of a passive mood, I convinced him (or her?) to use HSN Shop by Remote to help me buy a nice leaf pendant. A few button presses later, my purchase was done! Later, while I was out, Remy got hold of the video camera and… well, you’ll see. Remy’s a handful in more ways than one.
What are you doing this Wednesday? I hope you’ll join me and some other bright lights from the cable and interactive TV industries for the CableFAX Webinar, “Capitalizing on iTV.” Personally, I’m looking forward to a spirited discussion about what is, in my view, the single most important issue facing cable operators today.
The webinar will take place Wednesday, July 21, from 1:30-3:00 p.m. ET (10:30-noon for us Pacific time zone folks). Heck, invite the whole team; groups can attend from their desktops or conference rooms for the low price of $329 per location, and included in that price you get access to an archive of the program and the materials for one year, as well as a personalized certificate of completion for attending.
“The cable industry has talked up interactivity for years, but now it’s finally happening. And consumers—trained by years of using the Internet on a variety of devices—finally seem ready to take the plunge. But how will interactivity and advanced advertising work in the real world? What’s the role of EBIF? What do advertisers really want? And what’s the status of cable’s efforts to satisfy those needs? And most importantly, how can cable operators and programmers use interactivity to increase revenue from advertisers, subscribers and perhaps even other untapped sources?
“In this Webinar, we’ll tackle the following areas:
• An overview of the EBIF spec and how it can enable interactive widgets and advertising.
• Examples of ways interactivity could work in terms of polling, audience participation in shows and advertising messaging.
• Ways that deep-dive ad telescoping can use Web-based data on TV.
• Projections of how players can leverage online, VOD and mobile platforms through the TV screen.
• Examples of how programmers and advertisers can work together.”
I’ll be joined by James Mumma, executive director, iTV product development with Comcast; Jim Turner, SVP, product management with Canoe Ventures; and Kevin Hurst, director of product management with Ensequence. Mike Grebb, executive editor of CableFAX Daily, will be the moderator.
The Internet’s ability to untether people has really changed the whole dynamic around what is entertainment and what is necessary and what is not.
While the TV Everywhere initiative pushes video entertainment out of the living room and into roving devices like laptops, PCs and mobile phones, it expands the video entertainment experience. To take it one step further, with what I’ll call People Everywhere, today’s technology, with slight modifications, can push content out to users everywhere and at the same time pull user information that can be used later.
The idea behind People Everywhere is to place existing technology—or stuff yet to be developed—into a device that is carried everywhere. While that sounds like a smartphone, to paraphrase Brian Roberts, it should be a smartphone on steroids. This always-on device would not only keep track of the user’s location but would store that information in a cloud-based file for later retrieval. If the user went to the local mall, the device would know what store and even what department; a sports store and the tennis department, for instance.
On the surface this whole thing does sound somewhat intrusive and creepy. What makes People Everywhere a winning concept is that the user can take that same device and control how information retrieved during the day is presented in its most useful fashion all accessed from a device that might have its own screen but also might, through the wonders of technology, transform into a remote control or mouse that connects to yet another screen. Turn on the TV at home or in the hotel and get an ad not for Slazenger golf balls but rather for Slazenger tennis equipment because you’d been searching the tennis department. Turn on the PC and find not an annoying ribbon for the local car dealer but a more pleasing visage of the latest line of Izod tennis shorts.
People Everywhere is a concept that’s a ways out—but it’s not science fiction. People like Intel are working feverishly on smart remote controls that recognize and sense consumers; cable operators are TV Everywhere outside the normal home entertainment center; every mobile phone knows where you are; and motion detection is a video game must. Put them all together in one small package, connected, of course, to the cloud and you have People Everywhere; an idea waiting to be born.
Last week, sports news was more active—and interactive—than usual. Consider these events: The World Cup semifinals and finals, the LeBron James “Decision,” and, um, the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest.
I suspect there were a few old-timers who were watching these events without taking frequent glances at their laptop or mobile devices to chat with friends, read stories related to the events, view live blogs, or look for related video content. For the rest of us, though, it was one eye on the screen, one eye on… well, some other screen. Horror of horrors, for some it might even have meant walking back and forth to a whole-‘nother room to do so!
All of this got me to thinking about a cloud-based platform (I’m a marketer so repeat after me: “like CloudTV from ActiveVideo”) could enrich the viewing experience by giving us all the sports content and applications we’re looking for on a single screen. Some examples:
• If you’re a serious Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest viewer, then you were watching it in full HD on ESPN and you knew that six-time champ Takeru Kobayashi was embroiled in a contract dispute with the organizers. (Over hot dogs. Go figure.) ESPN couldn’t cut the mustard when it came to showing video of Kobi trying to crash the stage and getting hauled away by the NYPD, but you could have relished every moment if you’d been connected to the cloud. Your RSS feed would have delivered Deadspin’s video of the arrest as soon as it was available. You wouldn’t even need to look for it; it would be right on your TV, just waiting for you to press “play”.
• As a marketing bigshot, I was fascinated by all three rings of the LeBron James circus. But wouldn’t it have been great if the blogging and commentary and tweets around “The Decision” had been delivered to your TV screen, as the event happened? With a cloud-enabled TV, you wouldn’t even need to have toggled between apps. Your personalized apps—your social networks, your favorite blogs and news sites, your chat network, and of course, the ESPN show itself—would be right there on your TV screen.
• Same with the World Cup. There’d have been a red card or two if your kids had been toggling between TV apps just as Iniesta connected on Sunday. With the cloud, there would be access to a whole world of video, conversation, opinion, shopping and more—without interrupting the game itself.
The common thread: This isn’t “the Internet on your TV.” This isn’t a PC-like or browser-like experience on your TV. Rather, this is the Internet delivering content to your TV and becoming the coolest TV network ever.
In case you haven’t noticed, my team and I have been producing a series of videos that show all the amazing ways CloudTV™ can enhance your TV experience. It takes a good deal of work, and sometimes all the coffee, soda, Red Bull and Five-Hour Energy drink in the world can’t help us get past those punchy moments at the end of the day.
So we decided to dramatize that phenomenon with a little riff on the infamous Miss South Carolina Teen USA debacle, before I get down to the meat and potatoes of this episode: how CloudTV™ can deliver the kind of iVOD experience that TV viewers everywhere are craving. Here’s the result… and yes, I am ACTING! Anyone know a good agent?
