Cee Mee – Cee Who – Cee What

I got into interactive TV in the late 1990′s.  I was so happy Canoe Ventures took up the challenge of interactive advertising  (though they now seem to be dropping interactive TV) and conducted some research but I just read the report that was posted – very light.  We are talking about 4,000 televisionaries and results around their tests and experiences.  The market for this in USA alone is 115 million -  4,000 does not seem a big enough sample.  Why aren’t more brands and agencies getting into this?  Canoe Ventures got some $150 million to make some headway into the new media world for the cable industry.  I sincerely hope there is a more detailed report somewhere.  Love the concept but feel we are missing the Internet, mobile, ipad and tablets and user interaction with TV +++

Patent litigation comes to Interactive TV sector

Invidi Technologies Corp filed a patent infringement complaint against Visible World and Cablevision.  They say these companies provide addressable advertising using Visible World’s “Connect” product.  Invidi says they have developed software that provides multichannel video provders with the capability to increase the efficiency of TV advertising.  This will be an interesting case to watch and its worth noting that  Invidi already raised $117 million from investors including;  Google Ventures, Motorola, GroupM and DirecTV.

What was the real outcome of the cable interactive solutions event?

The recent Cablelabs and Canoe Ventures initiative on advanced advertising seems to have been a real hit with brands according to several blogs.  Twenty four companies participated (not clear if they were selected guests or an industry invitation was sent – also not clear who paid for what which usually shows if the event was meaningful).  Key interactive vendors (mostly long time cable suppliers) also demonstrated solutions.

The event lasted a week and Id love to see the agenda and what was actually gleaned from the event.  I believe these insights are what Canoe needs to be learning and sharing with their investors and advertisers.  Any clues from Cablelabs or Canoe greatly appreciated but the summary that vendors were enthusiastic about a common platform was a bit lame – well yes – one platform, one format, easy implementation – but I had over ten companies working with me on interactive applications in 2001 and the interactive world of cable got bogged down with cable supplier battles and ad agency myopia.  Will it be different this time?  Yes, yes, yes – roll on interactive cable apps!

Sony discuss Internet TV strategy for Europe with Ovum Research

Ovum recently summarized a briefing they attended on Sony’s European TV strategy.  Basically its splits into Video on Demand (VOD) service via the PlayStation Network and an Internet video strategy that provides catch-up broadcast TV content.  The content line-up is looking impressive with deals made with most of the big players in European broadcasting plus deals with popular sites such at YouTube and Dailymotion.

Roll-out is starting but the launch of Bravia Internet Video disc players, TVs and home theater devices in the first half of 2010 really set the strategy in action.

The challenge of quality of video services continues to be an unanswered question with Internet TV but VOD downloads should work and offer competition to satellite, IPTV and cable operators.  2010 may very well be the year interactive TV really happens!

Verizon working with Ad Council to deploy cross-platform advertising

Congratulations to John Harrobin at Verizon for taking the initiative to approach the Ad Council.  The two organizations have worked together to expand the reach of a public service message to teens.  The informational campaign is running across FiOS TV, Verizon mobile and FiOS Internet.  At last we are actually seeing some innovative thinking and pushing the envelope!  I am looking forward to hearing the results and challenges if Verizon and the Ad Council choose to share them.

Let the games begin – cable start charging for web content

Time Warner and Comcast – two industry cable giants have announced an ambitious pilot program to charge subscribers for viewing TV content on the web.  Not sure where this leaves the Hulu business model – maybe it becomes a primer and short form video place to visit.  The words walled garden creep into mind again with cable looking to keep control of its subscribers wherever they view programming.  Looking forward to watching this space emerge.

Online video grew at 24% and Forrester forecasts 11% growth in interactive marketing in 2009

Hulu is growing at a phenomenal rate but is still only 4% of the online video  marketplace.  The biggest site, YouTube, owns over 58% of the market and continues to grow at 36% but the comapny is still trying to work out the business model.  Overall online video usage grew by 24% to an average 9.5 billion streams a month with 35 to 49 year olds watching the most video online every month.

The latest Forrester research reported an 11% growth in interactive marketing for 2009 taking the spending to $25.6 billion.  Interactive marketing includes search, email, social media and mobile marketing dollars and although mobile shows some 70% growth, the size of mobile advertising is still very small – forecast to reach only $391 million this year (and this is larger than some other leading research companies have forecast).   The interactive marketing growth was seen as a result of marketers seeking lower cost and more accountable channels.

Media Giants bring in new Digital Leaders

Both Hearst and News Corp have recently hired new heads of digital.  Jon Miller will be the new Chief Digital Officer at News Corp – formerly an AOL executive and more recently with Velocity Interactive Group.  Miller will need to guide Hulu and Myspace through to profits and to a winning advertising business model.  We wish him well.

George Kliavkoff, a former NBC Universal leader who helped launch Hulu and a guy Ive got a lot of time for (heard him speak on a couple of occasions and he is firmly planted in today but keeps his visionary glasses on and is not afraid to fail – as long he does it fast – I seem to remember him saying at one conference) joins Hearst to manage the company’s ownership in cable companies and to look for new investment and alliances presumably to bring the media giant into the new media world with a leading strategy for new businesses and applications to generate more revenues from current businesses and content.

Great to see traditional media looking to drive new media but having been part of one of Honeywell’s drive to ram marketing down the throat of an engineering oriented company, I continue to doubt that these appointments can be truly effective – its like saying we know the bus driver can no longer handle driving the bus so we have brought on this new guy who will try to drive the bus without access to the steering wheel…. hope Im wrong but if I was heading up these giants I would be doing it differently.  We wish them both well and continue to be on stand-by should either feel our advice and experience may be of use.

TV.com v Hulu and the effective use of Web 2.0 tools

As Troy Dreier discusses in his article for Streaming Media this week, TV.com has really embraced web 2.0 tools and is looking for a total engagement of the audience. See the full article at http://www.streamingmedia.com/r/printerfriendly.asp?id=11078 Im looking for players in the Web 2.0 space who believe they have an application that can take this audience and community build to a new stage. I will be at the show 1 and 2 April – see my linkedin account and email me to meet up.

Jimmy Fallon late night talk show that aims to cross media platforms

Im looking forward to the new talk show (even if I record it as its on too late) with Jimmy Fallon who promises to embrace all new media formats as well as broadcast TV.   The key will be the interaction and integration across the various platforms and I think we will see some new experiences if the network gives Jimmy some freedom to experiment.  Want to get one of my clients onto this show to talk about where casual games are today and a new concept – the game plays you versus you playing the game.   Id also like to see some advertisers pushing the envelope with new formats – any brave brands ready to dive in?