Back from vacation + Miniwebs new effort

So, back at the desk then, quite a lot of projects in the air at the moment (and one of them going to be ON air as well, next month, more about that one when I have some links to post).

Trying to get to grips with how the economy is affecting the tv and media industries at the moment. It's quite clear that revenues are way down. Still, channels and broadcasters must fill the schedules with SOMETHING. Some shows are being extended (Dancing with stars nowadays 2h show for instance, in the US that is), also reruns, and non-scripted (cheap) formats. The latter category is where we fit in, I believe.

Just read a bit about Miniweb and their partnership with Metrological, bringing yet another new effort in the field of interactive television to the market. What differs this time around is the fact that their effort is looking pretty good... :) TO quote their press release:

"The combination of the Miniweb platform, Metrological’s middleware and hardware platform with the Intel CE 3100 provides, for the first time, an end-to-end platform for the delivery of a fully converged high-quality broadband and broadcast experience. This platform will be as equally attractive to Internet Service Providers looking to converge broadcast content with their existing broadband offering as it will be with cable, satellite and DTV operators that want to combine broadband enabled OTT video with their existing broadcast services. This platform includes support for web-style interaction; centralized video search & recommendations, community functionality as well as advertising and payments services. The platform is now integrated and ready to order now on a 2 month delivery."

The key might be that this works, looks good, is (hopefully) easy to use and possible to produce for. I'd dearly like to try it out, so any Miniwebpeople out there, gimme a shout :)

Interactive television breakthrough?

Well well well, what do we have here?

InformiTV informs us that this will be the year for interactive television to make it's big breakthrough in the US. Why is that then, when this breakthrough was promised some 7-8 years ago the first time? Well, apparently television networks are now feeling the pressure from online and telcom competition, and have decided to embrace interactive television offerings, and the estimated amount of iTV-connected people is somewhere close to 50 million, by the end of the year. This, then, really could be it.... or can it?

We still have the problem of different standards available - Tru2way and EBIF being a couple of them - and the question of what kind of content can be offered that would be good enough to lure the consumers to interact.

As William Cooper on InformiTV states - "Despite, or perhaps as a result of, the dominance of cable television in America, interactive services are around five years behind those in Britain, where ironically most of the action has now moved on to the web."

Quite :)

Well, I suspect we'll see. I, as a developer, will not yet go rushing off trying to create formats for iTV in the US. I would dearly like to see a sound market and some ratings first...

Adobe or Silverlight?

News in from the UK, where both Sky TV and ITV have been relaunching their online tv players with new versions based on Microsofts Silverlight. At the same time BBC are trying, and succeeding to a certain extent, to get people excited about their Adobe-based iPlayer. William Cooper over at informitv has more on the subject, but I can't help but thinking that there are just too many options whenever we're talking about online or mobile video - and it won't be resolved until one company has grown big enough to buy up all the others... Which then again leads to that company becoming too big to be efficient, and new open source etc projects jumping up, and then we're here again.

My point? Well, the only one worth making is probably that it was easier back in the old days, without alternatives. But a whole lot more boring as well!

The secret behind successful tv formats, no 8

Had a lot to do yesterday, adn the missus flew off to Vilnius, so apologies for not updating. Here, no 8 on the list of the things that IMHO are important when devising a new tv format.

8. Keep up with trends and anticipate them

The recent economic crisis in the US and worldwide wasn't that hard to predict. Everything that goes up must come down, at some point, which is just what is happening now.

The same goes for the television industry. Where we, some years ago, had the upswing of reality shows like BB etc, now we have for a couple of years seen the rise of feel-good formats, many with more of a family value to them.

Furthermore, looking at the technical evolution, we had the hype around interactive television some years back, which quickly changed to a hype around UCG (User Generated Content) which next year was the enormous hype around mobile television... none of which has really really taken off as of yet, at least not to the degrees that was predicted at the outset.

What can we learn from this? Well, a good place to start is to look at what formats channels are broadcasting and buying at the moment. Think one, or several, steps ahead from the current situation - what could be the next trend coming around the corner? Right now all sorts of feel-good shows are doing the rounds. Perhaps it's more green television shows? Some have already been made, but there's room for more, if they're done well enough. Or perhaps more elaborate cross media formats, integrating the Internet, television and mobile in new and exciting ways?

I have my ideas, but since you're not paying my wages, I won't reveal them here :) But the conclusions are there to be drawn - go to c21:s pages to look for the latest news from the television industry, to informitv to read up on the interactive and cross media field, and why not the different ratings institutes (like Nielsen) around the world to look at what's selling right now.

With regards to technical solutions, don't jump on bandwagons. It'll only end with a crash, most likely. As Bill Gates said in 1995 (I think) - "We ALWAYS overestimate the technical progress for the coming two years, but we always UNDERESTIMATE the progress for the coming FIVE years".

Once again, think ahead. Don't do what everyone else is doing - in 2001 it was thousands of rip-offs of BB, Survivor etc. In 2008, rip-offs of Strictly come dancing or Farmer wants a wife, or why not game shows like Deal or No Deal. You can find hundreds of them, just go to MIPCOM this year and you'll see.

If you need any further hints and tips, gimme a call :)

Tomorrow, number 7!

euroitv 2008 day 1

This is what it looks like, EuroiTV 2008. The aula is actually the venue where Mozart performed his first opera. They're REALLY big on Mozart here ;)

It's been a pretty interesting day so far. Some obvious stuff, some old stuff, but also some good stuff.

For me, one interesting session was the one on mobile tv. Research shows that we should NOT promise or advertise mobile tv as 'tv in your pocket', as this gives the wrong reference to people - they compare it to normal television, and for many reasons, technical and user experience ones, mobile tv falls short. We need to give users other reference points.

Nokia had done a test with 24 people in Dublin over the weekend - Nokia people - sending live videos to friends and family, and also to youtube. A good idea, but as only 11 of the 24 managed to send videos, and these people were from the company mind you, it goes to show that the usability and technical issues are still very much something that needs to be worked on.

From Japan there was some results showing that people use mobile tv without sound, with subtitles and no headphones. Short entertainment was the most popular genre.

Right now we're listening to 'social television'. Some nuggets here as well, though not many so far.

Salzburg is 30 degrees right now, next to no wind, all in all pretty stifling. Here's hoping for a thunderstorm a bit later!

Eyes on iTV

Summary of the first day of the Eyes on iTV conference:

William Cooper of informitv and BBC fame talked about interactive television, IPTV, broadband video and gave a good, broad overview of the field. Conclusions - lots of things are happening at the moment, what with AppleTV, Joost and other P2P television systems (apparently BBC are set to launch their own version in the near future), IPTV, video on demand over broadband and so on. Television is changing, and changing pretty quickly. The era of television and broadcast is fadeing, while the era of the consumer choosing what they want to watch and when they want to watch it is rapidly on the rise. Mobile television on the other hand... well, William at least remains sceptical.

Frank Alsema gave a number of examples of cross media, UGC concepts, for kids and adults, like The Blackbeard Connection or Moovl. Lots of things happening, all in all.

I did a session as well, a case study of the development process behind The Space Trainees.

Day 2 of the conference has just begun, and we're currently listening to Konstantinos Chorianopoulos from the university in Weimar, about the academic and practical aspects of interactive television.

Oh

Been some time since I wrote something. Been a couple of hectic weeks as well - the week leading up to last week was all filled with preparations for MIPTV, whereas last week was filled with... well, you guessed it, MIPTV.

A weekend at the hospital with the astmathic son was also part of the agenda, as well as me staying in Cannes for the following weekend accompanied by the missus - so, both bad'n'good, as always.

MIPTV was interesting. As always, everyone agrees that content is king. But WHAT kind of content? Well, that's another question altogether... Our format, "The Space Trainees", was a storming success. Lots of interest, hopefully some action afterwards as well. Will get back on that later.

As of now - be sure to register for the iTV conference in the end of May! It's gonna be way interesting, with some pretty darn good speakers and a funky cocktail to boot! Come on, register now, places are few! :)

Register! Register now!

Registration for the Eyes on iTV conference in late May has now opened at the website. Register now! Not only is it cheaper, you also get first pick of the t-shirts :)