According to a report from ABI Research, Best Buy is planning to set up displays in store to showcase devices connected to the Internet (TV’s, Set-top boxes and blue ray players).  The hope is that with a bit of education, consumer adoption will get a push, lighting sales in all areas of Internet driven electronics.  According to ABI, Internet connected living room devices are expected to become a mainstream feature in 2013, with 19% of all flat panels shipping this year to showcase Ethernet.  Of course, we’ve all been to Best Buy displays where they don’t work or the sales staff knows less about the features then today’s educated consumer, but what will all this mean to marketers?

As the hardware evolves, so will the software and the business models that push content through those new applications.  You can imagine a world in the near future where televisions last longer because the renewed focus on hardware and CPU capabilities pushes for an improvement on overall system performance.  In these scenarios, you really will be asking, what’s the chip inside?  And an entire generation of people will grow up with never experiencing the separation of broadband from broadcast. Read More »

This year’s Grammy awards recently demonstrated an exciting concept for a number of other award franchises (Oscars, Tonys, Emmys and on and on); that the “award show” is not dead but can no longer be played out in a pure broadcast silo.

According to Variety, 26.6 million people watched CBS’s 3.5 hour broadcast, marking a 35 percent increase from the 2009 show, it’s highest viewer ship in the last six years. While the trades blasted the overly complex structure and the lackluster MJ tribute, the audience was listening and watching on a number of other platforms that created community and pushed to the broadcast show.

Being with the slogan, “We Are All Fans;” this years Grammy’s sought to connect with the audience on a whole new level. WeAreAllFans.com was the Grammy’s “crowdsourcing” site which featured Twitter comments and videos reflecting the audience’s conversations and reactions to the broadcast in a 3D data visualization, a perfect way to engage the Grammy demographic, on their terms. Read More »

Broadcom announced this month that LG Electronics had selected its BCM3549 Media SoC (System on a Chip) as the core for its new line of connected HDTVs. The new LG models will feature their Netcast Entertainment Access which provides viewers access to broadband content and services including Netflix and media widgets right through the TV screen.

This announcement further supports the prediction that 2009 will see the dawn of the Connected TV. Although, to be fair, Sony has had a broadband TV solution since 2007 through their Bravia Internet Video Link. The BIVL, which provides a wide variety of hyper-syndicated & premium content to certain Bravia models, is a small broadband-connected device that connects to the back of the set. This year Sony is scheduled to begin shipping the Bravia XBR9 and Z-Series which have the BIVL module integrated in the TV. Read More »

Last week the NY times reported on the insanely divergent number of Hulu users reported by Nielsen and comScore, both reputable measurement firms.  Nielsen reported 8.9 million visitors to Hulu in March while comScore counted 42 million. Nielsen also shows Hulu losing audience in April while still managing to add video views, also known as streams.

So who is really watching Hulu? And why isn’t Hulu countering with its own measurement numbers; assuming they manage their servers, couldn’t they tell the world who is hitting those streams? Read More »

Recently I attended the TV of Tomorrow Conference which focuses on understanding how the interactive multiplatform television industry is structured. It also looks at the emerging business models in this space, and how user-generated content, social networking and other Web 2.0 phenomena are impacting the television space.  (Check out Tracy Swedlow’s blog for more on the evolving interactive television industry.)

As a speaker and panelist, I took some time to chat with some industry professionals.  Most prominent this year was the universal admission that cable is falling behind in terms of interactive deployments and broadband video or “over-the-top” video services (meaning they ride on top of the broadband bus, but they don’t require any business or technology affiliations with the underlying broadband network) are leading the way with true interactive capabilities.

From Yahoo to Hulu, to the new Boxee…over-the-top is exploding. Read More »

1)    I turn on the Tivo and select the latest episode.  I have saved the Friday night broadcast viewing for Saturday afternoon…when I have time to savor it.

2)    I log on to the Facebook group to  to check out the chatter.  What a bunch of frackin’ geeks.

3)    I watch more of the show.

4)    I pause the show to hit the main fan site,  and watch a webisode that I missed, that feeds nicely into the episode I’m watching.  I do a search on Battlestar webisodes and find them all over. Including veoh.com where some brits complain that they can’t find the webisodes anywhere else due to rights issues and “thank god” for video sharing sites.  I want to tell them that the BBC player needs to be available in the US so I can watch the last few Dr. Who episodes…but why get into a battle.  (I will do a Dr. Who search later tonight to see if I can grab anything.  I yearn for new Dr. Who episodes and don’t understand why David Tenant can’t sacrifice his career goals to continue playing the role forever. He is obviously selfish.  But he’s the doctor and so groovy).

5)    I get a snack

6)    I watch more of the show and pause…sometimes  the lighting is so dark it reminds me of the W hotels, when I bang into everything in the lobby.  I somehow connect Starwood points to Battlestar episodes and wish for a little more brightness in space.   Star Trek was well lit. What the frack!

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There’s talk in Washington of a delay of the transition to digital TV. I can understand the reasoning – the federal program that offered $40 vouchers for those who want to buy the devices needed to pick up digital signals, ran out of money.

While I sympathize with the reasoning, delaying the transition is a very bad idea. Here are four reasons why:

(1) It turns a minor bungle (the underfunded voucher program) into a much bigger bungle. For years now, the switchover date has been drilled into our heads. To push back the date is going to cause more confusion than just biting the bullet and going through with it.

(2) Second, the transition has been, if anything, far too overhyped. According to a recent report by Nielsen, only 5.7% of households are unprepared for the transition.

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Yahoo announced this week at CES that its content and widgets would be made available across a variety of new internet connected televisions from the likes of Samsung, Sony, LG and Vizio.  Users can enable the widgets by just connecting their TV to the Internet and choose from content providers like Flickr, Showtime, MySpace, eBay and others. See a demo here.

While the Internet is all a buzz with the recently expanded Netflix partnerships, it’s interesting to note that it may be the OEM’s who are opening the door to how television and content are experienced in the home. On the floor of the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show, more then ever before we are seeing the aggregation of technology and content solutions convening together to create “living devices.” Read More »

On November 19th, Microsoft released an update to the Xbox360 platform dubbed NXE. The moniker is short for New Xbox Experience. The smooth, new interface deepens the integration with the Xbox Live Marketplace and brings to the platform similar graphical navigation found on Windows Vista. The remodeled environment presents a much more media-centric twist to the experience. Doubtless, this was the goal.

In the game consoles arena, the Xbox 360 has always stood out in terms of it’s use as a media content platform. Within the interface, as much real-estate is given over to media as gaming. This is especially true of the new NXE interface which does a superb job of blurring the lines between on-line media and locally available content.

By comparison, the Playstation3’s Avatar-based Sony Home, while certainly fun to use, is very game-like. And although that will probably appeal to their gamer constituency, it a little top-heavy for the average media consumer.

This divergence in experiences will likely further polarize the audience for the two consoles.

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