GigaOm's NewTeeVee Live conference presents IP-centric vision of TV everywhere
Dec 1, 2009 11:07 AM, By Carolyn Schuk
A few weeks ago, I checked in at NewTeeVee Live, an event produced by the GigaOm Network. NewTeeVee (NTV) clearly favors the IP video side, not the TV side. The conference title was "TV Everywhere," and by that, the NTV crew meant IPTV everywhere.
One speaker asked the question, "How many people are based in Silicon Valley?" and two-thirds of the audience raised their hands. When he asked, "How many people are from Hollywood?" two hands went up. I rest my case.
Auto-Tune the News' Michael Gregory was on hand for comic relief, and Electric Farm Entertainment's Brent Freidman delivered a Krakatoa-size buzzword eruption scaling the heights of new media rhapsody — fully immersive, interweb, multi-trans-crossplatform, serial entertainment with interactivity, story-verse and stand-alone microchannels. I needed a cold compress for my head by the time he was done.
But baptism-by-immersion in the story-verse wasn't the only thing at NewTeeVee.
Nielsen senior VP and media program leader Brian Fuhrer offered an overview of the media information company's new Anytime, Anywhere Media Measurement (A2/M2) crossplatform measurement program. "The business overall of media is great," Fuhrer said. "We see continued growth in consumption. There are more TVs in the U.S. than there are people. I don't think I've ever seen anything hit as fast as 'TV everywhere.' It's the year of TV everywhere."
Nielsen calls this the “extended screen,” measuring the combined audience for TV programs viewed online and on TV. The program adds Internet meters to collect Internet usage data, including TV viewing. The result is a "single currency" (C3) rating that includes both traditional and online TV viewing.
"There are 20,000 homes in the U.S. [Nielsen is] measuring for TV," Fuhrer said. "Next month, we start rolling out Internet measurement in those homes — a robust, single-source sample, the framework to provide currency information related to extended screen. [And] this isn't the only thing we're solving. This will enable all kinds of studies — cause and effect analysis, frequency analysis."
Angela Wilson Gyetvan of 3-D video company 3ality didn't just talk the new media talk. She walked the walk, demonstrating 3ality's technology for the NewTeeVee audience. "Our goal is making 3-D commonplace everywhere," Wilson Gyetvan said. "Internet-connected game consoles, PCs equipped to render 3-D, Princess Leia on the holodeck."
Although 3-D glasses are still required, 3ality's technology is truly like nothing you've ever seen before. It's more 3-D than reality — hyper-real, so to speak. The 3ality spoiled me for mere special effects. When I saw “2012” last week, I wondered what California's slide into the ocean would have been like in 3-D. The company currently is working on a full-resolution autostereoscopic flat-panel display.
Last on the program was a panel of venture capitalists, under the apt title, “Money Talks.” "Why is this space interesting to venture capitalists?" asked Benchmark Capital's Bill Gurley. "The good news is that it's highly disruptive. The challenge now is that when Hulu and Boxee got together, they woke up the big boys. It's very different from the music world. The giants are alive and awake and stomping around with billions of dollars."
But lest the folks in Silicon Valley think YouTube and Hulu are going to eat Big Media's lunch, Gurley was quick to disappoint them.
"Silicon Valley doesn't have an understanding of the video business. The notion that you're going to go direct and disrupt those affiliate fees, $80 billion … It's a big deal. And if you don't understand that, you're going to get in trouble," Gurley said.
"Most people in this room might think that the free stuff out there is going to lead to more," he continued. "But there might be strategic move in the other direction. What's the title of this panel? ‘Money Talks.’"
The conversation turned to mobile TV, and, here, it was manifestly clear that the last time this panel heard anything on the subject was in 1999. "Presuming that you want to watch a movie on a little screen," was how one panelist put it, before asking rhetorically, "when are we going to get to the place where everything you get on the two screens, you get on mobile?" I thought that was one of the questions we were there to answer, not to pose.
Benchmark Capital's Gurley, however, doesn't think much of the future of mobile TV. "The architecture of the cellular network can't take it. There are physical limitations unless you get some kind of broadcast like MediaFLO, which was a really cool idea."
If you're familiar with the corollary to the "money talks" truism, it seems that it, too, talks.
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