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GOOGLE'S NEW CHROMECAST IS THE ANTI-APPLE TV AND IS IS ALSO AVAILABLE FOR STREAMING MUSIC THROUGH YOUR AUDIO SPEAKERS

CHROMECAST HAS BEEN REDESIGNED TO FIT YOUR TV, AND YOUR VIEWING HABITS, IN A WAY APPLE TV NEVER WILL.

Today, Google has revealed two new Chromecasts. One is for your TV. One is for your speakers. Both cost $35. And a new app can suck in all of your streaming subscriptions, search them, and get you watching them in seconds.

Google Chromecast for your television (Click Image To Enlarge)

Google Chromecast for your audio speakers (Click Image To Enlarge)

It’s the anti-Apple TV approach. Google’s hardware is cheap, and purposefully forgettable. But more importantly, it uses the apps that are already on your phone to juggle all of the things you want to watch.

New Apple TV and remote (Click Image To Enlarge)

This is Google's big play in TV. Rather than have you download more apps, deal with more logins, and wave a remote at the big screen, Google is countering Apple with what Google does best: connecting your world via invisible Google gunk, to make watching a smarter TV as mindless as ever.

Which approach will prove right?

SO FAR, APPLE'S BUT IT HAD A HUGE HEAD START

If there’s ever been a metric of Google’s sometimes quiet scale, it’s this: In two years, even though your mom has probably never heard of it, Google has sold 20 million of its original Chromecast—a tiny HDMI dongle that connects to your phone and slides into your TV, to stream movies and TV shows.

AppleTV, which launched way back in 2007 with the full Steve Jobs treatment, sold about half that many by 2013, though sales have accelerated as of late, pushing them to 25 million units sold in roughly eight years.

So Apple TV, once a flop of an experiment, is rapidly gaining momentum. But even though Google’s design traditionally hasn’t been placed on a pedestal alongside Apple’s, it can actually have as great of an impact on the market—and even signal winds of design change. Since launching the Chromecast stick, Amazon and Roku both launched similar minimal media devices. Living rooms, once dominated by set-top boxes, have seen an invasion from discreet, USB-style sticks powered by cellphone guts.

Google Chromecast for TV works with all your apps to you can view their content on your TV (Click Image To Enlarge)

JUGGLING YOUR CONTENT, FROM YOUR PHONE

Chromecast’s biggest update is really its app. Formerly just a portal for your Chromecast settings, it’s now a full-blown media hub on your Android or iOS device.

The app sets itself up by scanning your phone for other apps. If it detects that you have Netflix and HBO Go installed, then the content of those apps will simply be added to Chromecast. You’ll see a queue from each service with their own suggestions of what you should watch.

Most notably, you don’t need to log in to these apps again, nor do you need to tell your Chromecast, via your TV, to download them. Google is juggling the backend of all these services, using your phone as your digital thumbprint, to reduce user friction and keep the experience couch-friendly. So all you have to do is tap the thing you want to watch—and while technically your phone will deep link you over to the Netflix app to play the content, and technically the Chromecast itself is running its own version of the Netflix app that’s already buffered this content to make it play smoothly—to you, it just plays.

All of this seamlessness will be Google's sell for making the phone the hub of its TV experience. Meanwhile, Apple TV with apps will function more or less like another phone, with all-new, separate app downloads and logins. And while developers salivate over the idea of Apple TV showing a path to true interactive content, there's no reason Chromecast couldn't do the same through a phone.

Google product manager Micah Collins explains. 

"The real estate from this point forward is the Chromecast app in a device in your hand.  That’s the strategic opportunity that I think is giving us reason to go down this path."

Google Chromecast for TV is a wire not a dongle stick (Click Image To Enlarge)

A WIRE, NOT A DONGLE OR A TROPHY

In terms of its industrial design, the new Chromecast is, notably, no longer a stick. It’s a Beats headphone-like puck that hangs, like one long wire, off the back of your TV or near your speaker. Why a puck? Michael Sundermeyer, hardware design lead on the project, calls it "uniquely Google," a visual play off the Chrome logo that can be more of an icon than a glorified USB stick could have been.

Functionally, the round shape allows the Chromecast to fit several antennas with different orientations to capture floating radio waves with dependability. "Having multiple antennas with different orientations and purposes is a way you make Wi-Fi reception reliable," Sundermeyer explains. For the Chromecast Audio, the puck features a 3.5mm jack, RCA, and optical jack for plugging into any speaker you like to stream services like Spotify, Pandora, and Google Play Music.

For the video version of Chromecast, which streams HD (not 4K) content, Google designed what it believes is the thinnest magnetically shielded HDMI cable in the world to connect from the puck into the TV, even within the tiniest gaps of a wall-mounted set.

Sundermeyer explains. 

"It was a lot harder than any of us believed. HDMI cables tend to be really thick, rough things. They barely bend at all.  We wanted something that just the weight of the puck would make it drape a certain way . . . [and it] had to fit with the design, strong enough to withstand shoulders of twists and bends."

To get the mix of shielding and flexibility, Google enlisted its own mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, and designers, who spent months sandwiching materials like kevlar and molded plastics until they got the cord just right. And, if you really think about it, maybe it’s not so crazy that Google spent so much time on the wire. Because when you actually install the Chromecast, it dangles from the back of your TV, hidden in the shadows of wiring, rather than featured like a sleek trophy of capitalism on your media shelf.

The Chromecast is, in essence, a wire, a symbolic product that’s almost mocking Apple’s prominence on your shelf, while reinforcing the idea that Google’s value—and what really matters—is really the information piping through the line.

STRATEGIC OPPORTUNITY

When you consider that the Chromecast is really just your cellphone identity playing out on your television, it’s easy to see what Collins meant by the "strategic opportunity" at play: The cellphone could scale Chromecast to handle other services in your home. Apple TV isn’t just an entertainment device, after all. It’s Apple’s trojan horse for Homekit and the greater Internet of Things hub in your home. (Notably, Microsoft had the exact same play planned for your Xbox One, though it will probably never come to fruition at this point since the Xbox has been repositioned as a gaming machine to tackle the PS4.)

It seems that the Nest thermostat will be Google’s Internet of Things hub. But when you think about just how challenging it will be to control a whole home of lightbulbs with a remote aimed at a 50-inch screen, the solution seems simple: This would work so much better on a multitouch screen that’s always in your pocket, but could be easily extended to any shared screen in your home.

Of course, Apple won't go that route. It makes too much money off hard products to leverage the true power of its own preeminent smartphone—leaving Google just the "real estate" it needs to take over your TV, your home, and maybe even your future, starting at just $35.

COMMENTARY:   Engadget prepared the following comparison between the new Google Chromecast TV vs ROKU Streaming Stick vs Amazon Fire TV Stick:

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I use the original Chromecast for TV and just love it, but I use it mostly to watch YouTube videos. Love the fact that the new Chromecast for TV automatically recognizes any apps you may have installed on your mobile device (phone and tablets) and seamlessly allows you to interact with each app without having to "boot" them separately like you need to do the older Chromecast for TV.  This is a nice feature which Apple TV also incorporates, but Apple requires you to hook it up to your regular TV and use the remote control.  With Chromecast TV you are completely mobile and can take Chromecast TV on the road and hook it up to any TV that has an HDMI port. Your mobile device is your remote control. I have two HDMI ports on my Vizio, and my old Chromecast TV works great, albeit a bit slow at times. The newer Chromecast for TV's WIFI performance is supposed to be significantly better and faster, eliminating the latency caused by the buffering of the older version and the result is much better video and audio performance. Can hardly wait to upgrade, and at $35.00 it makes this so much easier.

Here's the video of Google's unveiling of the new Chromecast for TV on September 29.  

  

BREAKING:  AMAZON BANS SELLING CHROMECAST AND APPLE TV 

Effective September 30, 2015, Amazon announced that it will stop selling media-streaming devices from Google Inc. and Apple Inc. that aren’t easily compatible with its video service, the latest example of the company using its clout to promote products that fit with its own retailing strategy.

The Seattle-based Web retailer sent an e-mail to its marketplace sellers that it will stop selling the Apple TV and Google’s Chromecast since those devices don’t "interact well" with Prime Video. No new listings for the products will be allowed and posting of existing inventory will be removed Oct. 29, Amazon said. Prime Video doesn’t run easily on its rival’s hardware.

Roku Inc.’s set-top device, Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox and Sony Corp.’s PlayStation, which work with Amazon’s video service, aren’t affected, it said. Amazon’s Fire TV stick, which plugs into an HDMI port to connect televisions with streaming services such as Netflix and Prime Video, is the company’s best-selling electronic device.

  

Courtesy of an article dated September 29, 2015 appearing in Fast Company Design and an article dated September 29, 2015 appearing in Engadget and an article dated October 1, 2015 appearing in Bloomberg

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NETFLIX STOCK HITS ALL-TIME HIGH ON NEWS NETFLIX PLANS TO ENTER CHINA, IN PARTNERSHIP TALKS WITH JACK MA'S WASU

On May 19, 2015, NETFLIX’S STOCK REACHED an all time high for the third day in a row.  Shares peaked at $628.50 a share.  And some analysts expect the price to keep climbing.

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The record share price peak followed reports from two Wall Street analysts that called Netflix undervalued.  Last week, analysts at Apex Capital largely agreed.   The firm said.  

"Netflix is quickly becoming one of the most powerful media companies in the world.”

The firm added that the streaming video giant could soon become the next $100 billion tech company.

Wall Street, it seems, sees the future much the way Netflix does—a future where Netflix takes over everywhere. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said in an earnings call last month.

“Internet TV is growing around the world at incredible rates.  And so we’re really propelled by that big macro trend.”

These skyrocketing expectations, and accompanying stock price, are in large part due to Netflix’s rapid expansion abroad—in particular, reports since Friday, May 22, 2015, that Netflix is in talks to expand into a huge new market: China. But as all conquerors know far too well, the path to world domination doesn’t come without resistance. Despite its aggressive growth, the company has already experienced pressure from its European markets to improve its service—and fast. 

The Path of More Resistance

Netflix is growing, and quickly, even in its more mature markets like the US, but especially abroad. In the past few years, Netflix has been rapidly expanding to reach beyond US shores. The service now touts more than 20 million international subscribers in more than 50 countries, including the more recent additions of Australia, New Zealand, and even Cuba. By 2017, the company says it wants to be in 200 markets. But even in Europe, Internet speed and access has been a limiting factor. In a recent talk in Germany, Hastings was asked if Netflix would consider a download option so German subscribers wouldn’t have to be dependent on streaming. Hastings’ answer amounted to “no.”

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What’s more, if content is king, European subscribers have been markedly disappointed with Netflix’s offerings. In France and Germany, for example, the original content selections are not as wide as those offered in the US, in part due to licensing deals with local broadcasters  and distribution rules in different countries. (To get around that, some are opting to use a VPN to access the American service, according to The New York Times.) European filmmakers are also unhappy that Netflix is encroaching on their turf—one recently shouting at the Cannes Film Festival that Netflix “will destroy the film ecosystem in Europe.”

Piracy is another major concern for Netflix abroad, according to the company’s latest letter to shareholders. In the Netherlands, for example, Netflix has seen competition from apps such as Popcorn Time that make illegal streaming as easy as a legal service. (Netflix has called the app’s success in the Netherlands “sobering.”) In fact, House of Cards has become hugely successful in China thanks to pirating.

More World to Conquer

Rather than being deterred, Netflix seems to be confronting those obstacles by growing even more. The streaming giant has plans to expand to Japan later this year, and analysts expect the company will try to break into the Chinese and Korean markets soon, too. For any company dependent on subscribers, the biggest fear in any single market is reaching the saturation point. For Netflix—and its share price—to keep growing, the company is betting it will need to continue to expand.

But a new market brings new demands. In its letter to shareholders, Netflix said that early signs indicate that promoting original content helps bring in new members. So, to get new subscribers in France, Netflix is launching an upcoming French-language drama Marseille, advertised as House of Cards for the French. But for an expansion into China, despite being a market already primed to love shows like House of Cards, censorship and stringent regulations on content could prove tough, which is why Netflix seems to be looking to find a partner to smooth its entry.

Netflix has enormously popular original content, the revenue to invest in new shows, and the data to predict the programming subscribers will like best. It’s a recipe for world domination. The company, and now Wall Street, just better hope it translates.

COMMENTARY:

Q1 2015 Earnings Report Highlights

Here are some of the highlights of Netflix earnings report compared to forecasts that were announced on April 15, 2015: 

• Earnings per share: $0.77 (adjusted for foreign-exchange rate changes since last year) vs. $0.69 expected.
• Revenue: $1.57 billion vs. $1.57 billion expected; $1.4 billion total streaming revenue; $415 million international streaming revenue.
• Subscribers: 62.30 million vs. 61.44 million forecast; US streaming net additions 2.28 million vs expectations of 1.8 million; international user additions 2.6 million vs. 2.25 million

Netflix shares increased by more than 12% in after hours, largely because of the big increase in new-user additions.  It added a record 4.9 million new users globally in the last quarter, bringing total number of users to 62.3 million. Both its US and international user additions beat expectations.

Its total streaming revenue was largely in line with expectations, up about 32% from last year. The subscriber growth was higher than expected as its total paid members came in at 59.6 million, slightly more than the 58.7 million forecast. All in all, Netflix added about 14 million new users over the past 12 months.

Netflix said in a statement.

"We think strong US growth benefited from our ever-improving content, including the launch of the third season of House of Cards and new shows Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and Bloodline. In addition, retention continued to improve due to the growing value of our service overall. We are forecasting Q2 US net adds of 0.6 million, similar to the year ago quarter." 

In Q4 2014, Netflix launched its streaming service in Australia and New Zealand as part of its plan to finish its global expansion within the next two years. Netflix said it expects to add 1.9 million international users in the next quarter.

Netflix also confirmed that it's seeking shareholder approval for a stock split.  Its stock closed at $475.46 per share on Wednesday, April 15.

Here's what Netflix CEO Reed Hastings had to say about the quarter's performance:

"During Q1, higher-than-forecast net adds and US revenue, coupled with lower-than-forecast content spending, resulted in a US contribution margin of 31.7%, ahead of our 30.1% estimate. In 2015, we expect to run ahead of our US contribution margin growth target of 200 bps/year on average because a greater share of global and original content costs will be absorbed by existing and new international territories as we continue to expand globally (since we allocate global content costs by geography).

In addition, starting in Q2 we intend to shift some of our US marketing budget to international to take advantage of the substantial available growth opportunities. This, in the short term, drives down international contribution profits and drives up US contribution profits. We are still targeting 40% contribution margin in the US in 2020.

Our international segment was fueled by continued strong growth across our 50+ countries as well as a successful March 24 launch in Australia and New Zealand, which adds about 8 million1 broadband households to our addressable market. In ANZ, Netflix benefited from high consumer awareness, a fervent fan base for original series like House of Cards and Orange Is The New Black and operator relationships with Optus and iiNet, the second and third largest broadband providers. We expect international Q2 net adds of 1.90 million, up 70% vs. last year. Later in 2015, we will launch additional markets, starting with Japan.

The strong dollar hurt financial results during the quarter, negatively affecting International segment revenue (lower by $48 million y/y using Q1 2014 forex rates) which carried through into a $15M negative forex impact on international contribution loss. These forex headwinds offset better than expected subscriber growth to result in contribution losses close to our expectations. As a reminder, we absorbed on average 5% higher VAT rates across our European markets starting January 1. We’ll have a full quarter of content expenses in ANZ in Q2 and expect the international segment loss to grow to $101 million, increasing throughout the back half of 2015 as we expand to additional markets (consistent with what we’ve said).

Our strong performance led to overall operating income that exceeded our projections ($97m actual versus $79m forecast). Net income was negatively affected by currency-related transaction losses included in other expense; excluding these forex losses, Q1 EPS would have been $0.77 vs. our $0.60 forecast and our actual EPS of $0.38."

Netflix reported total worldwide streaming revenues of $1.4 billion for the quarter, up 7.28% from Q4 2014 and up 31.33% from Q1 2014.  U.S. streaming revenues for the quarter were $985 million, up 7.41% from Q4 2014 and up 23.28% from Q1 2014.   International streaming revenues for the quarter were $415 million, up 6.9% from Q4 2014 and up 55.43% from Q1 2014.     

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Profitability and Cash Flow Are Down

Netflix's operating income for the quarter was $97 million, up 49.23% from Q4 2014 and slightly down 1% from Q1 2014.  Net income for the quarter was $24 million, down 71.1% from Q4 2014 and down 54.7% from Q1 2014.  

Netflix's reported a free cash flow deficit of $163 million for the quarter, this was up 114.86% from the free cash flow deficit of $74 million reported in Q4 2014.  

Both profitability and free cash flow have been negatively impacted by higher content and marketing costs incurred to improve its film entertainment offerings and higher marketing and promotions costs in order to increase subscriptions and streamings, particularly as it expands into new markets like Australia, New Zealand and Japan.

Netflix Plans To Enter China

According to Bloomberg, Netflix is in talks with Wasu Media Holding Co (000156.SZ), a Chinese media company backed by Jack Ma and other possible partners as it seeks entry into the country’s $5.9 billion online video market, according to people familiar with the matter.

Netflix has held discussions with companies including Wasu Media Holding about forming a partnership, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the talks are private. Netflix plans “to be nearly global by the end of 2016,” a spokeswoman, Anne Marie Squeo, said in response to questions about a possible China partnership.

Entering China would allow Netflix to take advantage of what’s forecast to be explosive growth in online television in the nation of 1.4 billion people. The market is expected to almost triple to 90 billion yuan by 2018, according to Shanghai- based Internet consultant IResearch.

A local partnership would be essential given the Chinese government’s strict controls over licensing for online content. Netflix wants a partner that has licenses for content on all devices — including mobile phones, computers and set-top boxes, according to the people. China’s State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television has given Internet TV licenses to seven companies, including Wasu.

Wasu didn’t immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment. Two phone calls to Wasu’s general line weren’t answered.

Courtesy of an article dated May 19, 2015 appearing in Wired, the letter dated April 15, 2015 to Netflix Shareholders, an article dated April 15, 2015 appearing in Business Insider, and an article dated April 16, 2015 appearing in Informitv, and an article dated May 24, 2015 appearing in The Day

THE NEW REALITY OF WATCHIG TELEVISION WITH DEVICES VIEWERS USE TO WATCH VIDEO PROGRAMMING WHILE WATCHING TV

Our viewing patterns are shifting and can now watch where we want, when we want. The explosion of devices has given us more access to content and brands than ever before. While the television is still the screen of choice for viewing video content, device proliferation and social-media interaction is shifting the power from the provider to the people.

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HOW WE WATCH: SCREEN SIZE MATTERS

Two-in-five New Zealanders (40%) say video programmes are an important part of their lives, but when it comes to the way we like to watch video programming, size does matter. Over half of respondents (51%) think bigger is better when it comes to screen size, but they also appreciate the convenience and portability of mobile devices. Nearly four-in-10 respondents (37%) think watching video programming on their mobile device is convenient. In addition, the same number (37%) say a tablet is just as good as a PC or laptop computer for watching programming. 

WHY WE WATCH LIVE: PUSH HAS NOW BECOME THE PULL

Real-time conversations on social media are replacing physical gatherings around the water cooler to talk about our favourite TV show. Live TV has become a social event that goes way beyond the confines of our living rooms. Nearly a third of Kiwis (30%) said they like to keep up with shows so they can join the conversation on social media, and a fifth (21%) say they watch live video programming more if it has a social media tie in. Thirty percent of respondents say they engage with social media while watching video programming. And nearly half of respondents (47%) say they browse the Internet while watching video programming.

Social media can increase programme awareness, make the experience more enjoyable and keep viewers engaged. Second-screen strategies should include an interactive component that allows users to take part – making them feel involved and deepening their connection to the programme. But the content needs to be fresh to maximise time spent and to drive repeat visitation. Designers can not focus on one screen, they need to ensure accessibility wherever users are and that the user experience is enjoyable across all devices.

WHAT WE WATCH: DEVICES PROLIFERATE BUT THE TELEVISION DOMINATES

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Whether it is watching a sporting event, news show, documentary or movie, TV remains at the centre of video consumption. It is the most frequently cited device for watching nearly all types of programming genres included in the survey—by a wide margin. The exception: short-form video (typically less than 10 minutes long), which is cited as more commonly viewed on computers, mobile phones and tablets. A computer is the second-most commonly mentioned viewing device for nearly all genres, and it tops the list of devices used to watch short-form content. A smaller, but notable, proportion of consumers watch video content on a mobile phone or tablet, while viewing on e-readers and/or gaming consoles has not yet gained traction.

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ABOUT THE NIELSEN GLOBAL DIGITAL SURVEY

The Nielsen Global Digital Landscape Survey polled 30,000 online respondents in 60 countries, including 500 New Zealanders, to understand how the changing digital landscape is affecting how, where and why we watch video programming. Video programming was defined as any type of content, such as TV, professional video or user-generated content that is watched on a TV, PC, mobile device such as a phone, tablet or e-reader. The study also examines consumption preferences for video programming, including the devices most commonly used for selected genres and the devices used to view video at home and on the go. While an online survey methodology allows for tremendous scale and global reach, it provides a perspective only on the habits of existing Internet users, not total populations. In developing markets where online penetration is still growing, audiences may be younger and more affluent than the general population of that country. In addition, survey responses are based on claimed behaviour rather than actual metered data.

COMMENTARY:  The Nielsen survey of devices being used by viewers when they watch television should give marketers food for thought and insights as to how they should target mobile device consumers.  Not only should their marketing message be targeted to these viewers according to their video content preferences, but how they consume that content on their mobile devices.  TV programming content should make references to social networks and mobile apps where they can discuss the specific TV programming.  In short, marketers should provide a tie-in or connection between the TV programming and the mobile device preferences of their target customers.  This provides a means for marketers to harvest valuable marketing informaton about what they thought about the TV programming and how it could be improved.  Furthermore, you can now provide a way for these consumer/viewers to provide feedback through rewards and contests geared to create brand ambassadors.

Courtesy of an article dated April 19, 2015 appearing in Nielsen Insights 

TWITTER AND STARCOM MEDIA VEST GROUP RESEARCH SHOWS THAT TWITTER IS HELPNG TV AD CAMPAIGNS

Twitter wants to be the first choice for your second-screen. And today, it released research that backs up its aspirations.

The study, a product of Twitter’s Social TV Lab partnership with media buying agency Starcom MediaVest Group, presents evidence that combining Twitter and TV results in strong gains in brand awareness, TV ad recall, engagement with television shows and sales lift.

Twitter and SMG wrote in a release.

“Results confirm that social TV is here and the opportunity to use it to enhance and amplify brand experiences is only getting bigger.  Thus far, lab results demonstrate that Twitter’s ability to amplify significant cultural moments, far beyond original broadcast audiences.”

The Social TV Lab findings, compiled from various sources, including Nielsen’s Brand Effect for Twitter, Datalogix’s matched household modeling, Twitter’s in-tweet surveys, looked at results for campaigns from 15 U.S.-based SMG clients as well as general social TV engagement.

The results present a counterpoint to skeptics such as the NBCUniversal executive who earlier this year said social media doesn’t drive TV ratings.

Although the issue of TV ratings wasn’t addressed explicitly, the study found that people who use Twitter while watching TV are more engaged with shows and advertising, and therefore more valuable to marketers, than people who watch without Twitter.

Here are the main findings and an infographic by Twitter and SMG:

1. Twitter + TV = Increased Brand Awareness vs TV Alone. For brands that used Twitter alongside their TV advertising, the study found on average a 6.9% increase in awareness for exposed audiences and significant increases for exposed and engaged audiences across awareness, intent and favorability measures.
2. Twitter Amplification = Sales Lift. For the brands that measured sales impact, we saw sales increases of 4% on average in households exposed to ads on Twitter and TV vs just TV ads alone.
3. The Twitter / TV Multitasker is Here – and TV Ad Recall is High for them. Only one quarter of tweeting occurs during the ad break, and it was highest during reality shows (27%). This supports existing Twitter research that found viewers who are actively engaging in social media while viewing TV are genuinely paying attention to both screens as TV show tune away is less and ad recall was higher for TV Twitter multitaskers. Our results found that television ad recall was also 13% higher among Twitter users versus non-multitaskers.
4. Real-Time TV Content Engagement is on Twitter. Tweeting about events/shows is higher (20%) than “general browsing” about a specific event/show (15%.) In addition, most tweeting happens when something in show/game/ad is worthy of a tweet (70%).

SMG CEO Laura Desmond said in a statement announcing the findings.

“Twitter, in a very short period of time, has gone from experimental to essential and there's no better place for marketers who want to reach both influencers and their followers during the biggest live, public and conversational moments.”

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Courtesy of an article dated June 17, 2014 appearing in Marketing Land 

TV'S 'SHARK TANK': VENTURE CAPITAL'S AMERICAN IDOL, INVESTED $28 MILLION IN 116 DEALS SINCE 2009, BUT NO HUGE ROI'S

ABC's series "Shark Tank" cast for the 2013 season includes successful entrepreneurs Mark Cuban, Barbara Corcoran, Kevin O'Leary, Lori Grelner, Daymond John and Robert Herjavec (Click Image To Enlarge)

WITH ITS HOPEFUL ENTREPRENEURS, REAL INVESTORS, AND SERIOUS CASH, ABC'SSHARK TANK IS BRINGING STARTUP CULTURE TO PRIME TIME. IS IT TEACHING VIEWERS GOOD BUSINESS HABITS?

Mike Hartwick and Sarah Ponn were getting worried. Their company, Surfset--which makes training surfboards that mimic the movement of the ocean--was starting to take off, and they had more orders than they could handle. They tried to get a bank loan, but that didn't work out. So Hartwick and Ponn decided to audition for ABC's Shark Tank, where entrepreneurs pitch their businesses to a panel of mega-successful "sharks," hoping one or more will invest their (real) money in exchange for a stake in contestants' companies. They came in offering 10% of Surfset for $150,000.

 

Hartwick and Ponn joined thousands of other entrepreneurs hoping to jumpstart their companies through prime time's first-ever venture-capital reality show. For its first season, Shark Tank received 2,000 online applicants. Its fifth, which premiered on September 20, attracted 30,000 hopefuls. Of the 262 contestants who had gone in front of the sharks by the time season 5 kicked off, 116 walked away with deals--a total investment of about $28 million of the sharks' own cash.

The show has launched other highly successful products:

Drop Stop, a device that prevents objects from falling between a car's seat and center console ($3.5 million in sales since it debuted on the show, on March 29).  

Drop Stop on Shark Tank from Greg Johnson on Vimeo.

Scrub Daddy, a sponge that changes texture based on water temperature (more than $13 million since its Shark Tank appearance).

  

And it isn't just aspiring moguls who love the program. After Shark Tank premiered in August of 2009, it was first a cult favorite, then a popular one. Audiences came for the inventions, the "how did I not think of that?" head slap. They stayed for the deal-point negotiations and tense talk of valuation and equity. By last season, an average 7 million viewers were tuning in during its humble time slot of Fridays at 9 p.m., making the show--essentially an on-screen business meeting--an unlikely hit.

The people behind Shark Tank are convinced that they're helping reinvigorate innovation and entrepreneurship by bringing startup culture to mainstream America in an unprecedented way. Shark Mark Cuban, the billionaire owner of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks, says.

"It used to be you learned about how business works through a lemonade stand.  Now you watch Shark Tank."

As the show has grown into a phenomenon among audiences and entrepreneurs alike, it has begun to waken long-dormant dreams as it whispers into the ear of its audience: Why not you?

Shark Daymond John, founder of clothing label Fubu, says. 

"This is some ugly stuff."

It's a Sunday afternoon on Shark Tank's Culver City, California, set, and John is talking to a pair of nervous-looking young men in bow ties who are pitching a clothing line, called Fraternity Collection.  The sharks are not impressed by the shirts.  Shark Kevin O'Leary, a venture capitalist, says. 

"I saw one of these on a scarecrow." 

Sweating noticeably, the guys start to defend the duds, but John reassures them that ugly is fine with him.   It's not beauty or genius that sharks are looking for in an investment, but rather a proven sales history and the potential for huge profits.  Over the course of about an hour of taping, an interesting thing happens.

The guys impress the pants off John, O'Leary, Cuban, and the rest of the panel--inventor and QVC host Lori Greiner and software magnate Robert Herjavec. (Real estate mogul Barbara Corcoran also often serves as a shark.)  They have an answer for every question, have valued the company accurately, and had $1.8 million in sales for the prior year.  The sharks are shocked. Herjavec says. 

"You're one of the best presentations we've ever seen." 

Which is not to say they necessarily walked away with an investment (to find out, you'll have to watch the episode). But that's what makes Shark Tankcompelling TV: You never know who is going to kill it.  British-born executive producer Mark Burnett (Survivor), who adapted the show from the Japanese program Dragon's Den, says. 

"Everybody's got an idea and certainly this nation is a country of small businesses.  I just knew it would spark America."

Shark Tank lets its audience eavesdrop on a process one normally doesn't get to see. And it doesn't hurt that it features a panel of wealthy investors who seem unexpectedly relatable. Why not you? indeed. Herjavec says later in his dressing room.  

"With our show, you get five friends--the sharks--who come to your living room, who are successful, who really aren't that special, don't have a special education, don't come from wealth.  And if we can do it, absolutely anybody in this country can. Trust me. Look at us."

Yet the show may, at its core, obscure how hard it really is to succeed. None of the sharks have seen a life-altering payback from their deals--some even pity-laugh at me when I ask if any of the returns constituted a significant contribution to their wealth. While appearing on the program has made a huge difference for quite a few of the contestants, it could be that exposure is the crucial payoff.   O'Leary says. 

"Shark Tank is a platform.  You can launch a product or service where tens of millions of people see it, and sales quadruple in a matter of hours."

Could the show's success catapulting businesses owe more to its role as a massive advertising platform than to anything offered by the sharks? Maybe the millions of attentive eyeballs are the real prize.

Consider an investment O'Leary made in Wicked Good Cupcakes, which sells treats in a jar. He says.  

"They [had been] doing $16,000 a week.  Within seven days of appearing on Shark Tank, their sales grew to $280,000. There's no venture-capital firm that can do that for you. We are the American Idol of venture capital."

 

---

Before pitching themselves in the Tank, Surfset's Hartwick and Ponn (along with cofounder Bill Ninteau) wooed some potential investors in case the show didn't pan out. They knew that no matter what happened, hawking their product on TV would create big interest. They needn't have worried. All five sharks made bids--a rare occurrence--and Cuban won, buying 30% for $300,000. Corcoran, who had tried to partner with Cuban on the deal, told Hartwick and Ponn,

"You just made yourselves millionaires."

She might just be right. Hartwick, the company's CEO, says they had 250,000 visits to their website the night their episode aired on September 20, 2012, along with thousands of emails. Orders have been coming in steadily ever since. Hartwick says they're on track to do $5 million in sales this year. A few months after the Surfset episode aired, Shark Tank did a segment on the company's progress. In it, Hartwick and Ponn talk about what a windfall Shark Tank was. Ponn sits next to her business partner, her voice softening.  She says, smiling.  

"It sounds corny.  But it is the American dream, and we honestly feel like we're living it."

THE PERFECT PITCH

if you're going on the show, Be passionate. Or maybe don't be passionate? Hmm.

"We had a guy come out yesterday and he was very even-keeled. Everyone was making fun of him: 'Oh, you're not excited.' I said, 'What did you do before this?' He said, 'I was a corporate lawyer. I left a $175,000-a-year job to start this business.' For me, he's all-in. I'd rather have commitment than passion."
-Robert Herjavec

"Charisma is big. I don't invest anymore in entrepreneurs who don't have charisma."
-Barbara Corcoran

"How you impress somebody is confidence. That's what the sharks are looking for." 
-Clay Newbill, Executive Producer

"I'm passionate about basketball, but that doesn't make me a good basketball player. That's typically the biggest mistake, because they get so excited about what they're doing that they think they're just going to overwhelm us with their passion and energy. That doesn't work. Lots of people are passionate, but it doesn't mean they put the determination and effort into it."
-Mark Cuban

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SHARK TANK SUCCESSES

 

• The Product -Talbott flavored teas
  • The People - Oprah's hair colorist Shane Talbott and his business partner, Steven Nakisher
  • The Payoff - Jamba Juice acquired Talbott Teas for an undisclosed amount not long after the episode aired 

• The Product - Lip balm KissTixx. Smooching creates a new taste
  • The People - Dallas Robinson and Mike Buonomo, who hoped to improve their game with the ladies
  • The Payoff - Former fashion designer Fleetwood Hicks

• The Product - Villy Customs, a bicycle business that allows customers to design their own beach cruisers
  • The People - More than 5,000 sold when the episode ran. You can buy them in stores across the country
  • The Payoff - After appearing on the show, Villy started selling more than 100 bikes a week

Courtesy of an article dated October 14, 2013 appearing in Fast Company 

WHY TV EXECS ARE STILL SKEPTICAL OF TWITTER'S POWER TO ATTRACT EYEBALLS

AS NIELSEN BEGINS TO TRACK HOW SHOWS GET TWEETED, NETWORKS SEE TWITTER'S REACH CONFINED TO SMALL GROUPS OF FANS. "I THINK IT MAYBE ADDS A TENTH OF A RATING POINT. I DON'T THINK IT'S SIGNIFICANT," SAYS FORMER FOX SCHEDULING CHIEF PRESTON BECKMAN.

On Monday, Nielsen unveiled its much-anticipated Twitter TV ratings, showing which television shows had the greatest reach on the social networking platform. The report heightened the already deafening buzz surrounding Twitter, which, as it nears an IPO, has been stressing its cozy relationship with TV and the ad revenue that it generates from that relationship.

Nielsen Twitter TV Ratings Weekly Top Ten list is ranked by Unique Audience and include four metrics for each of the top episodes.

• Tweets - Tweets ascribed to a linear TV episode.
• Unique Authors – Unique Twitter accounts that have sent at least one Tweet ascribed to a specific TV episode.
• Impressions - The number of times any Tweets ascribed to a TV episode were seen.
• Unique Audience – The total number of distinct Twitter accounts accruing at least one impression of one or more different Tweets ascribed to a TV episode.

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But the findings ultimately confirmed what many in Hollywood have long suspected: Twitter's reach is limited to a relatively small pool of fans when it comes to overall television viewership. For example, some of the most-watched shows in TV, such as The Big Bang Theory and NCIS,  each of which regularly draws 20 million viewers, are small-fry when it comes to Twitter. Neither made the top 10 list of most-tweeted shows, which for the week of Sept. 30-Oct. 6, was dominated by reality TV shows such as The X Factor (7 million viewers) and shows that skewed toward young females (Twitter's biggest demo), such as The Vampire Diaries (2.6 million viewers) and Glee (4.5 million viewers).

A few shows, such as Breaking Bad, are popular both in the ratings and on Twitter.

None of this is news to broadcast network executives. As Dave Poltrack, chief research officer at CBS, told Fast Company:

"The fact is that it's a very small percentage of the people in the country who participate in the Twitter phenomenon. The total amount of discussion about TV programming on a daily basis, most of that takes place by word of mouth--face-to-face conversations and typical conversations. Even if you look at online social communication, Facebook accounts for far more activity than Twitter does.   From what we glean from our own numbers, the online conversations on Facebook are much more highly correlated with ratings than the Twitter conversations are."

According to Poltrack, just 10% of the TV-viewing population tweets while watching, as opposed to the 35% to 50% that boosters want to claim.

This, he says, accounts for why a movie like Sharknado managed to become a Twitter phenomenon last summer, yet failed to score high ratings.

Preston Beckman, Fox's longtime scheduling chief who is now a consultant for the network, voiced similar skepticism toward the causal relationship between tweeting and ratings.

"I think it maybe adds a tenth of a rating point. I don't think it's significant."

Beckman did allow, though, that "live events like awards shows--the Emmys, Oscars, and Grammys--is an area were Twitter is a way to build a large community that discusses the event while it's happening.

"It's a way to really connect to the fans of the shows and to hear what they think of shows. So that's a value. But I think we build it up--like writing an article about it makes it seem like it's probably more important than it is.  It sounds good. It's cool. It's social media. It's what we're supposed to be talking about."

Still, even Twitter's biggest skeptics in Hollywood are not totally dismissing it.  Poltrack, who described Twitter's largest demo as  "younger females who tend to watch reality shows  It's a phenomenon, a growing phenomenon," said. 

"And these are younger viewers that you want to capture, so we are very much focussed on this. Among the people who participate in (Twitter), it is enhancing the viewing experience and creating more of an appointment kind of experience. It's getting them to watch live more than on the DVR, which is something we want."

Ultimately, people like Poltrack want more. Of the new Nielsen numbers, he said,

"That's fine, because it tells you something about what 10% of the population is doing. But it's not enough. We want to know what the other 90% is doing."

COMMENTARY:   The investigation by Nielsen, the name most clearly associated with TV ratings in the U.S., suggests that Twitter really can drive ratings up.  The New York Times calls this a "first-of-its-kind" study of how Twitter causes people to actually engage in watching particular TV shows, but the results are being taken with a grain of salt.

Nielsen looked at Twitter's timeline and tried to correlate it on a minute-by-minute basis with Nielsen's own prime time ratings for 221 episodes of mainstream shows.  Apparently Nielsen's data showed that Twitter caused a "significant increase" in ratings 29% of the time.

A 30% influence on ratings is nothing to scoff at, and suggests Twitter exerts dramatic power over what people watch. But the New York Times is skeptical, and for good reason. Twitter and Nielsen are partners trying to promote a new ratings scale called the Nielsen Twitter TV Rating. Analysts would want to compare a 30% influence with other forms of TV ratings influencers like newspaper review columns or big-spend PR campaigns. Also, Nielsen's study is blind to the influence Twitter has on TV show watching that isn't captured by Nielsen's ratings. But we can probably say Twitter is more influential on how we watch TV than even the TV ratings makers are prepared to admit--something industry executives like the producer of Wife Swap, Stephen Lambert, already know.

The study backs up an earlier one, which was another Nielsen product.

Courtesy of an article dated October 15, 2013 appearing in Fast Company and an article dated August 6, 2013 appearing in Fast Company

 

ANALYST BLASTS FACEBOOK OVER 'TV REACH' CLAIMS, $2.5 MILLION VIDEO AD RATES AND IMPLIES IT'S IN CAHOOTS WITH NIELSEN

An influential Wall Street analyst blasted coverage of two developments during the week suggesting that Facebook’s new video advertising offering rivals the reach and market value of network TV.

In a report sent to investors late Thursday, Pivotal Research Group analyst Brian Wieser said.

“It overstates the opportunity on hand for Facebook.”

Wieser wrote in response to coverage of the study, including stories published by MediaPost.

“Headlines this week trumpeted a new study produced by Nielsen and commissioned by Facebook, which indicates they are ‘capable of delivering site reach levels comparable to major TV networks.” 

While the report -- a custom Nielsen study paid for by Facebook -- found the social network reaches more people during the day than certain TV networks, Wieser described it as a “selective way of looking at the industry,” and implied it had little practical application in terms of the way that advertisers and agencies buy media.

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Wieser asserted, suggesting: 

“Highlighting Facebook's dominant reach vs. individual networks during daytime wrongly implies that time-of-day is a first cut against which budgets are set.  Perhaps they should be, but workflows associated with media buying (not to mention the distinct ways in which different media may influence consumers) dictate that the first cut of planning for large marketers is by medium. Digital media is separate from TV in this regard for many reasons: workflows are different, and lean-forward vs. lean-back environments mean they are generally viewed as different environments (not better or worse, just different); the means of assessment (how a budget is justified and how impressions are measured at the present time) are generally different, too.”

Click Image To Enlarge

Wieser concluded that the basis of comparisons in the report were “mostly irrelevant,” although it did elicit a significant amount of coverage in trade and consumer press and among bloggers, and social media outlets, including Facebook.  Most of the reports also failed to note that Nielsen and Facebook are in cahoots, and that Facebook has licensed a panel of online users to Nielsen that is a major component of its online audience measurement services, and a key component of the cross-media measurement services it is developing that will be used by advertisers and agencies to compare TV and online advertising buys.

Click Image To Enlarge

But it was the simultaneous news cycle surrounding reports by various publications citing anonymous sources that Facebook is pricing its new video ad units at network TV-like rates -- $1 million to $2.5 million per day -- that seemed to spark real skepticism from Wieser, who implied the circulation of both pieces of news might have been part of a strategic plan designed to influence ad industry perceptions about Facebook’s video advertising reach, impact and marketplace value.

Weiser wrote.  

“The news-flow has served to conflate a number of factors.  While our model has long-assumed that Facebook will generate incremental revenue from online video, it will most likely be more modest than optimists might expect, and what they generate will not likely come from television budgets. Instead, we expect re-allocations of existing Facebook budgets or shifts of spending that would otherwise have gone to other media owners with online video inventory.”

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Ironically, Wieser concluded.

“If Facebook’s... er, Nielsen’s implications were correct, advertisers would be more likely to shift their spending from TV to other publishers with online video inventory than Facebook.”

This is especially true of Google’s YouTube unit, which Wieser noted does not currently support Nielsen’s online measurement service.

He concluded.  

“Or video ad networks, or homepage takeovers involving video on virtually any portal. There are many ways to reach large audiences instantly on the Web with video.”

Despite the heavy spin factor surrounding this week’s news, Wieser noted that the pricing of Facebook’s new video ad units is, “in a word, significant,” because much the way Apple did with the initial pricing of the debut of its mobile iAds, it creates a sense of TV-like scale and premium market value that most digital inventory has so far failed to conjure.

Wieser pointed out.  

“Most digital budgets, when discretely negotiated, amount to tens of thousands, and occasionally hundreds of thousands of dollars.  While a single large advertiser's annual commitment to Facebook may amount into the millions for annual campaign spending, the absolute commitment which Facebook is asking for is well-beyond the scope of what advertisers will pay in a single one-off buy.”

Ultimately, Wieser suggests the units will be sold to boost the value of broader “packages” of inventory bought by advertisers and agencies, much the way TV networks allocate their most prized ad units as part of broader buys.

He explained, adding.  

“This is not a negative, per se.  New product iteration is generally a positive thing, as it helps sales justify higher pricing for media. But even then, if it were capturing share it would come from budgets intended for Google's YouTube or online video networks rather than television.”

COMMENTARY:    When Facebook-owned Instagram revealed its Video platform in June, a subject I wrote about in a blog post dated June 22, 2013, some sharp observers instantly noted how convenient it was that the clip length was set at 15 seconds – an established ad-length in the TV world.

On August 7, 2013, Facebook made a major move to attract Madison Avenue advertisers by announcing that Instagram was introducing the option to upload videos rather than force users to create them from scratch.  The Gap was one of the brands that expressed excitement about the new feature, using it that same day.

Rachel Tipograph, director of global digital and social media for Gap, told Mashable. 

"Creating compelling video is a skill, often requires editing and sound mixing, and the import feature will change the game regarding the types of creative all users publish going forward. Brands can now be more planful by producing Instagram video content designed for the network, but also in service of business needs." 

For better or worse, the option to record videos elsewhere and upload them to Instagram likely means that casual users will start to notice overly polished clips in their feed, as well more clips that may have aired elsewhere first. That said, brands we spoke with recognize that they can't just repurpose old videos for Instagram.

Sarah Hearn, social-media manager at Lululemon, which uploaded its first Instagram video this week, said. 

"We're excited to create content specifically geared for Instagram, and also share those must-see moments from our product-education videos and coverage of community events.  Instagram is where our community stories come to life, and just like we consider a beautiful photo for Pinterest, now we have the space to think about video on a more consistent basis."

Rumours have been flying around since December that Facebook is planning to launch in-feed video ads, so when Bloomberg reported last week that Facebook is set to sell them at $2.5 million a pop, it caused a stir within the industry to say the least.   According to Bloomberg, two people “familiar with the matter” said that Facebook was planning to take on television’s dominance over advertising budgets.

Short form video itself has been of the most talked about areas of social media in recent months, not least because it’s developing so quickly on an increasingly visual social web. Until recently, Twitter’s Vine was really the only key contender in the short form video war.

However, it was Instagram Video that really made people sit up and pay attention to the commercial potential of short form video. Instagram has over 130m active users, offering a huge engagement potential.  Combine this with Facebook’s active users, over 1.11 billion as of May this year - 61% of whom use the site on a daily basis – it’s an exciting proposition for advertisers.

Facebook’s current strategy of focusing on hashtags(#), a subject which I covered in a blog post dated March 21, 2013, and which has the potential to provide the platform with a much stronger connection to TV shows, as well as pushing Graph Search as a way to discover new film and TV content, means we’re seeing much more synergy with broadcast from the platform.

Twitter pioneered the use of hashtags, and most truly active Twitter users use them regularly to bring attention to their tweets (e.g. #SuperBowl, #Bachelorette, #AmericanIdol, #BarackObama, #FathersDay, etc.) during Twitter searches, usually accompanied with links to drive traffic to a blog, the originator's Twitter account, another Twitter tweet, or online article.  However, it will take a while for most Facebook users to become familiar with hashtags, and use them like users on Twitter.

However, integrating TV ads into Facebook is not without potential issues. While brands have certainly become more clued up in recent years about making sure they use content relevant to the platform they’re using it on, simply replicating a 15 second TV spot on Facebook isn’t necessarily going to give the results they’re looking for.

Consumers expect to see advertising on their TV that may not be relevant to their personal interests and needs, because they accept that television is a mass-market, ‘lean-back’ medium. However, the average consumer is much more protective about their personal Facebook newsfeed, and could object to irrelevant, untargeted video ads appearing in place of updates from their friends. A focus on quality is going to be absolutely essential.

If this strategy is to be successful for Facebook, the platform must maintain the right balance between brand posts and content people see from their friends. Mark Zuckerberg recently said that he plans to limit the number of ads in the newsfeed to about one for every 20 post updates. The balance between the need to monetise the platform and to keep users happy has never been more delicate.  I could not agree more.

Facebook has just reported bumper profits in the three months to June 30, with net profit rising to £217m. This time last year, it was making a significant loss. Zuckerberg and team are clearly on the right track, and the introduction of TV ads to the platform, if managed well by both Facebook and advertisers, will be another significant string to its bow.

This is not the first time that Facebook has hired an outside marketing firm to measure its reach and advertising effectiveness.  In June 12, 2013, Facebook hired comScore to conduct a private study on its advertising effectiveness.   This came about right after its terrible IPO (Good for Facebook, but bad for investors) during a period of heated debate about its effectiveness as an advertising platform.   This all started when General Motors, on the eve of Facebook's IPO, cancelled its $10 million ad buy on Facebook, and claiming that Facebook ads, "Do not work."  

Courtesy of an article dated August 2, 2013 appearing in MediaPost Publications MediaDailyNews, an article dated August 6, 2013 appearing in The Wall, an article dated August 10, 2013 appearing in Mashable and an article dated June 12, 2012 appearing in Business Insider

THE DEVICE AND MEDIA VIEWING HABITS OF TEENS, THE ADOLESCENTS OF TODAY, AND ADULTS OF TOMORROW

According to the PEW Internet Survey, teens would rather giveup their TV's than their mobile devices (Click Image To Enlarge) 

Young adults are a crucial segment for businesses and advertisers. As the 18-24-year-old demographic expands faster than any other young age group, so does its viewing and purchasing power. Today’s 17-year-olds will play a significant role in the young adult segment of the future, which is why it’s crucial to get to know them now in order to better understand who they’ll be tomorrow.

WHO ARE TODAY’S TEENS?

Today’s teens and young adults are quite the multicultural bunch—with purchasing power to boot. In fact, the 12-17, 18-24 and 25-34 groups are almost identically multicultural, as 42 percent of each comprises Hispanics, African-Americans and Asian-Americans. This is only the tip of the iceberg—U.S. Census data shows that African-Americans, Asian-Americans and Hispanics will generate the vast majority of the U.S. population growth over the next few decades.

Teens have serious purchase potential. In 2012, 29 percent of U.S. teens lived in high-income homes ($100k+), while only 25 percent of young adults lived in households within this same income bracket. There were also more teen households with middle incomes ($30k-$100k) than those of young adults. Finally, fewer teens lived in lower-income homes ($30k) than their slightly older counterparts.

DEVICE OWNERSHIP DETERMINES VIEWING

Within teen households, smartphones and tablets are growing faster than any other device. From Q4 2011 to Q4 2012, smartphone penetration increased by 45 percent among teens, 32 percent among adults 18-24 and 22 percent among adults 25-34.

Laptop penetration increases as teens age into young adulthood, but begins to decline when young adults enter their late 20s. Laptop penetration is highest among young adults, but all three age groups (12-17, 18-24, 25-34) have increased their laptop ownership over the past year.

Consumer Electronic Device Penetration - Teens, Millennials and Gen-Y's - Q4 2012 - Nielsen (Click Image To Enlarge)

Though young adults view most content on television, they are increasing their video watching on other devices. According to Nielsen’s Fourth-Quarter 2012 Cross-Platform Report, all consumers under the age of 34 increased their video consumption via mobile and the Internet from Q4 2011 to Q4 2012.

How We Are Watching Video - Hours and Minutes Spent Per Month - TV, Internet and Mobile Devices - By Age Group - Teens, Millennials and Gen-Ys - Q4 2012 - Nielsen (Click Image To Enlarge)

While everyone under 34 is spending less time in front of the TV, viewing preferences aren’t consistent across the 12-17, 18-24 and 25-34 year old groups. For example, teens like to watch on mobile more than anyone else. In fact, they watched 18 percent more video on their mobile phones than persons 18-24 and 46 percent more than persons 25-34, in Q4 2012. While teens are watching more content on mobile devices, they watch less video online than young adults. In fact, persons 18-24 spent almost 3 times more time watching video on the Internet than teens 12-17 in Q4 2012.

So, do young consumers change their viewing habits as they age? While consumers may watch less mobile video after the age of 17, young adults 18-24 and 25-34 have increased their mobile video consumption over the course of the past year. The same can be said for internet video viewership among young adults past the age of 24.

Notably, adults 25-34 spent the most total combined time watching content on TV, online, and mobile in Q4 2012, viewing 19 hours and 30 minutes more content per month than ages 18-24 and 40 hours and 54 minutes more than ages 12-17 across all three devices. These combined trends suggest that teens will continue to view content on mobile and the internet as they age.

Peter Katsingris, Vice President Industry Insights says.

“Given their changing lifestyles, the resulting dynamic nature of teens affects their device ownership and usage.  As teens’ situations change and they leave the home or become more independent adults, they’ll likely go from using shared family devices to carrying personal devices with them, such as smartphones or laptops. As platforms become more pervasive, increased access and connectivity will surely affect the consumption behaviors of both teens and young adults in years to come.”

COMMENTARY:    The folks of the PEW Internet Survey prepared this very interesting infographic describing the online video consumption habits of teenagers.  I hope you find it interesting.

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Courtesy of an article dated April 16, 2013 appearing in Nielsen Blog

FACEBOOK UNVEILS "HOME," A SKIN APP WHICH LOADS WHEN YOU START YOUR PHONE, A BOLD NEW VISION FOR SOCIAL PHONES

The Facebook Home skin for your Android will be available for dwnloading on April 12, 2013 or you can buy the HTC First smartphone and get it now (Click Image To View The Facebook Home page)

The Facebook Phone is finally here.  It’s not a phone at all, but a free, downloadable skin called "Home" that gives existing Android phones a total Facebook makeover, transforming both lock and home screens into immersive, edge-to-edge slideshows of photos and status updates.

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's co-founder and chief executive speaks at the launch of Facebook Home at the unveiling at Facebook's HQ in Menlo Park, California on April 4, 2013 (Click Image To Enlarge)

Home will also come pre-loaded on the HTC First, which will be $99 from AT&T.  It is, of course, a huge power play by Facebook. But it’s also a genuinely exciting new vision for mobile design. Here are three places where it’s charting new territory.

CONNECTING, ABOVE ALL ELSE

Home isn’t about apps. It’s about people. That was the refrain for the day, and it’s something that’s very much evident in its design. The most immediate transformation comes in the form of a new lock and home screen that continually rotate through Facebook updates, presenting them as flashy, full-screen slides. Weather forecast? Stock quotes? Those old stand-bys are nowhere to be found, getting the boot in favor of one thing: your friends.

 

The other big feature is a new messaging system called Chat Heads, which keeps conversations on top of your screen, no matter what app you’re using, in the form of small circular avatars. It’s a new way of thinking about messaging--not as an app but as a layer on top of everything you do.

The Home lock screen shows incoming messages and e-mails against a backdrop of full-screen status updates. On the right is the built-in app launcher. (Click Image To Enlarge)

Connecting, be it passively through the new lock screen or actively through the new messaging system, is what Home is about. Connecting with your friends--and with Facebook. The new experience reduces the friction involved in using Facebook to a fantastic degree. What’s easier than tapping an app icon to open Facebook? Not having to tap anything at all. With Home, you no longer have to make the decision to use Facebook. You’re already using it.

A new messaging system puts texts and FB messages as a layer on top of everything you do.  Chat Head avatar (left) hangs out on top of Instagram.  The UI (right) for quickly managing conversation threads.  Avatars can be rearranged or hidden with a swipe. (Click Image To Enlarge)

IT’S NOT "FACEBOOK"

But it might not feel like you’re using it, and that’s key. One noteworthy thing about Home is the name. When Zuckerberg talked about it today, he didn’t call it Facebook Home. It was just "Home." And that signals something that’s evident throughout the design: Facebook, as a platform, taking a backseat to the content it carries. As another presenter today boasted, there’s "no chrome, no logo." The home screen doesn’t show your Facebook feed, as some predicted. That’s too Facebook-y. It blows status updates up and shows them one at a time. It looks nothing like any other version of Facebook we’ve ever seen. The words "Facebook" are nowhere in sight.

Friends fill the screen.  As soon as you turn on your phone or press the home button, you see a stream of posts from News Feed.  Cover feed puts the spotlight on whatever your friends are sharing now -- photos, status updates, links and more. (Click Image To Enlarge)

And that’s smart.

Facebook’s certainly facing some challenges--for older users, it’s becoming a guilty pleasure; for teens, it’s quickly becoming passé--and that’s got to be worrisome to the company. Facebook isn’t cool. Tumblr’s cool. Snapchat’s cool. But with Home, instead of trying to rebrand itself, Facebook wisely let the platform step into the background and pushed the content to center stage. It doesn’t need to be loved; just to be used. And even if people don’t want to use Facebook, they’ll always be game for flipping through pictures of their friends.

Get notifications where you need them.  Notifications about calls, events, Facebook updates and other apps appear on your home screen and stick around until you need them.¹ Profile pictures and app icons make it easy to see what’s what. Tap the stuff you’re into, swipe away the stuff you’re not.  (Click Image To Enlarge)

THINKING BEYOND THE APP

But from a user experience standpoint, perhaps the most significant thing about Home is simply the way it thinks beyond the "app" in a broader sense. It’s something Zuckerberg harped on continually: moving beyond apps. And that’s a big departure.

Keep chatting, even when you’re using other apps.   All your conversations from one spot.  Chat from anywhere on your phone. (Click Image To Enlarge)

With Home, you can still get to all your old apps through a built-in launcher, sure, but they’re put in a little drawer like so many toys. Apps made smartphones like Swiss army knives. The whole idea of Home is to remake the smartphone user experience around its most important function: connecting us with other people. As Zuckerberg said, Home turns your smartphone into a "a great, simple social device."

The App Launcher accesses your Facebook account, Instagram and other apps and other essentials from one place. Choose what goes where.  Drag your picture wherever you want to go. (Click Image To Enlarge)

The idea of mobile apps as discrete, cordoned-off experiences is something Apple entrenched with the iPhone very early on. Build whatever you want on your own rectangular plots, Apple told developers, but this phone is ours, and we’re the ones responsible for how it looks, feels, and functions.

Google never put those restrictions on Android, and now Facebook is moving in to exploit that in a big way. The result is something entirely different from the apps we’ve come to know--something that reaches far wider and is integrated far deeper. We don’t even really have a word for it. It’s not an OS. It’s not an app. For most users, it will just become what their phone is. And while that is in many ways a scary prospect, it does offer some interesting possibilities.

When you move beyond the app, you can do things apps can’t do. Home shows us messaging and communicating in ways we haven’t seen before--and, frankly, in ways that are much more relevant. Mobile messaging is no longer an asynchronous thing, as it was back in the days of 160-character texting. It’s more like chat, and Chat Heads, which doesn’t get knocked to the background when you’re using another app, reflects that reality. And it works in a way a simple text message appnever could.

During the event, Zuckerberg mentioned Android’s wide reach and how, for many people around the world, the smartphone represented their first real computing experience. And in a sense, Home is a bid to transform that experience--to move it away from the app paradigm that Google and Apple have put forward in recent years to something based on connecting and communicating, with Facebook conveniently facilitating it all.

But from one perspective, today’s event not only offered a peek beyond apps, but beyond smartphones too. It showed how the app model might not make sense on devices like Google Glass, where we won’t have the luxury of screens to tap at.

To succeed, that next generation of devices will have to be far more fluid and flexible, in terms of bringing in data and content from a variety of sources and giving us simple tools for digesting and sharing it. That may very well require a more holistic approach to design--a single driving vision that assimilates functions and features into one cohesive experience. Facebook Home is a glimpse of what that next step might look like.

COMMENTARY:   In 2012, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg eliminated any rumors that the social network would introduce its own smartphone.  This is obviously a smart and bold move, because if enough phone set manufacturer's sign-on to permit preloading of the Home skin app, this essentially gives Facebook a form of "ownership" of that phone. Apps are all fighting for the attention of the consumer, and having an app that loads up first, before any other app, is a distinct advantage.   So what does Facebook Home offer brand marketer's?    

1. More Time On Facebook - Facebook introduced the "home" concept to its desktop version in 2006 with News Feed, a way to make the home page "feel like home." Rather than clicking to see updates and photos, it came to us. According to Zuckerberg, frequency and time spent skyrocketed. Fans started consuming almost twice as much content overnight.  If Facebook Home has a similar impact then marketers will have more ways to get the attention of their target market. Cover feed will eventually allow ads but for now the focus will be on building the audience.
2. Tap Users In Developing Countries - Facebook has one billion users today. The next billion will come from developing countries, but they aren't spending $500 on a new smartphone. Facebook's free download and introductory $99 handset (through its partnership with HTC) opens this market up. For marketers this means access to more people in more countries.
3. More Personal Data Captured - With this move, Facebook aims to join the data capture ranks of Apple and Google with their iPhone and Android devices. With more data flowing through Facebook's app -- including SMS texts, GPS-tracked location, and possibly even phone usage -- marketers will be able to target mobile users with greater precision and accuracy. A featured item may be displayed as a user walks through a given store, for example.
4. Privacy and Permission Marketing - Facebook will never sell personally identifiable information. If they did, users would leave and marketers would follow. But Facebook Home does open up the opportunity for brands to reach anonymous fans in their target market with greater accuracy. And in all forms of marketing, on all platforms, that means the global creepy trigger gets more sensitive.  To hedge against this, marketers are increasingly moving toward permission marketing. Asking fans for permission to access their data and using it in transparent ways to serve personalized, relevant, anticipated messages -- as opposed to paid ads -- is a clear path toward increased sales, loyalty and retention. For more on Facebook Home and permission marketing, see this television interview with the author by the Business News Network (BNN), filmed hours after the Facebook Home launch.
   

Many phone carriers are pre-rolling ads before the home screen displays.  I can clearly see a similar opportunity for pre-rolled ads appearing before Home loads up.  Users are normally paying attention to their phone screen to make sure that apps load.  A pre-rolled ad could easily become part of the loading process and accepted as normal.  The number of daily ad impressions just from booting up your phone will be at least 1 billion. 

Courtesy of an artile dated April 4, 2013 appearing in Fast Company Design and an article dated April 5, 2013 appearing in The Huffington Post   

MICROSOFT'S ENVISIONING CENTER PROVIDES A VISION OF THE FUTURE USING A GIANT 80-INCH TABLET DISPLAY

This is Microsoft’s vision of the next 10 years of interface. It’s a giant iPad next to a giant Surface (Click Image To Enlarge)

UNLESS YOU WANT TO LIVE YOUR LIFE IN A SPORTS BAR, IT’S TIME THAT OUR BEST TECHNOLOGY COMPANIES BEGIN TO THINK BEYOND THE SCREEN.

There are shots of this film that reek of parody. But it’s all completely real. This is Microsoft’s earnest vision of the next decade. Sadly, it’s at least a decade dated.

 

You can’t miss the single motif of innovation: touch screens!!!!!! They’re televisions, projectors, and picture frames. Microsoft proposes a giant, glowing rectangle for every room, surrounded by an army of more glowing rectangles. They pull tiny rectangles from their pockets to interact with the big rectangles. And then they pass information from the big rectangles back to the small rectangles. In Microsoft’s future, there’s a rectangle for every job. If you were to put all these rectangles on a giant keyring, you’d have Microsoft’s vision of a Swiss Army Knife.

I mean, just look at this giant touch screen. Who can even touch the buttons at the top? (Click Image To Enlarge)

What Microsoft imagines as a naturalistic action is banging one screen against another screen (Click Imge To Enlarge)

It would be funny if it weren’t so gut-wrenchingly sad to watch. You can almost feel some suit at Microsoft reasoning that if a nine-inch iPad sells 100 million units, then a 90-inch iPad will sell a billion. So they just lean a giant iPad against the wall, right next to some giant Surface table. After all, consumers fell in love with touch-screen tablets after touch-screen phones. It’s time for some supersizing! But just making something bigger isn’t innovation.

And then they put the exact same interface that was on a Windows phone onto a giant display. The content isn’t richer or more meaningful. You just won’t need glasses. (Click Image To Enlarge)

One legitimately wonderful moment in the video is when a cook holds a pepper up in the air, and asks the computer to figure out how to cook with it (from sight alone)

Here’s Microsoft’s problem in a nutshell: There’s a scene in this video where a little girl is looking at a lion on a screen in her bedroom. Beside her, ever so subtly, you see that a real, stuffed lion is lying beside her.

One lion is soft, touchable, and has the distinction of being just hers. The other is flat, pixelated, and generic, thanks to algorithms. Which lion evokes an emotional response? Which lion will that little girl want to snuggle up with tonight? Better still, which lion was she touching in the first place?

But then Microsoft visionaries have to complete the interaction, so they have him smear his capsaicin-coated hands all over the kitchen display. Who thinks touch screens are a good idea for anywhere as messy as kitchens? (Click Image To Enlarge)

And here we see the saddest moment. A little girl supposedly ignores her adorable, plush lion for a poor facsimile on a gigantic TV, surrounded by a dozen digital picture frames. Digital picture frames?? Is anyone still making those? (Click Image To Enlarge)

Microsoft, this video is not the future, and if anyone outside your marketing department thinks it is, I hope they’re at least smart enough to short sell their own stock options. Even Apple, the company that owes most of its success to these magic, touchable rectangles, is already moving on from the paradigm, easing the consumer into a world where hardware enables naturalistic gestures that keep us in tune with our surroundings.

Look at what Disney Research--doing what’s essentially theme-park R&D--is creating with tangible interface. They’ve built a universal system that allows you to touch any object, even living plants, with multitouch sensitivity. You know what one of their head researchers, Ivan Poupyrev, told me this week?

“If a remote control can grow, and in nature it can become responsive, that’s interesting to us. Plus, plants are everywhere. Instead of trying to build and replace existing infrastructure, can we use what we have already intelligently? Maybe remote controls are more efficient, but in living spaces, it’s about more than efficiency. It’s about quality of life.”

Microsoft, very little you’ve shown here isn’t technically possible today. So what you’ve really tried to sell us on here was the future of interaction. But design is, at its core, about crafting things for human use. That’s why the future of interface isn’t about digitizing the analog world, it’s about analoging the digital world. We don’t need 80-inch big screens filled with 2-D interfaces around every corner. In fact, that’s a sickening proposition. We need the world we’ve already got, full of all the wonderful things we’ve already built, to understand and respond to our touch with all of the knowledge of the Internet.

Break free from Windows, Microsoft. There’s a whole world waiting for you through the glass.

See the film here.

COMMENTARY:   I totally agree.  There isn't an ounce f innovation in an 80-in digital screen that acts like an iPad.  First, it's not practical for most consumer households.  Just too big, and it is going to set you back $30 to $40,000 at least.   I see more innovation and more potential in an invention like Google's Project Glass, the augmented reality glasses that combines social networks with real-time, real world images.  

I do have to admit that if you could afford an 80-inch iPad, it would be very, very cool.  With an 80-in Retina display, of course.  Otherwise, you can forget about it.  Think the 49ers in the next Super Bowl.   Now that would be so very cool.   Envision that if you can.  LOL

Courtesy of an article dated March 4, 2013 appearing in Fast Company Design