Here is the slide deck I used for my Keynote at the « Connected TV & Digital Media » forum where I was invited by Connectica Lab in Moscow on March 5th, 2014.
Due to current SlideShare limitations it is impossible to directly import slides in the latest Apple Keynote format, hence the need to manually publish here the keynote verbatim to complement the slides.
Slide 1 : Beyond Screens
Bonjour. Good Morning. привет.
I do thank Yevgueni and Serge for inviting me to speak in front of such an impressive audience. My last time in Moscow was 31 years ago and I’m therefore delighted to be back.
The Russian tech scene is certainly impressive, with internet companies such as mail.ru, investment firms such as Digital Sky Technology, and long term high tech players like Kaspersky. In the video space the best known russian contribution is probably the ‘Matroska’ (.mkv) video file format. All of this emerges on top of a very strong historical background in sciences (with more Nobel Prizes in Physics than the US)…
As I’m neither a media nor TV expert, my talk will try avoiding pretending I am, and will focus on a few personal thoughts that lined up when I prepared this talk, built from my experience in the areas of internet services, consumer devices, mobile, software, imaging and startups, with a focus on user experience.
« Television – that’s where movies go when they die » Bob Hope, 1953
Bob Hope, (May 29, 1903 – July 27, 2003), was an English-born American comedian, vaudevillian, actor, singer, dancer, author, and athlete who appeared on Broadway, in vaudeville, movies, television, and on the radio.
Paul Graham (YCombinator – Silicon Valley’s GodFather) – « Let’s kill Hollywood » blog post
Slide 2 : What was TV ?
TV was the screen in the home where content was delivered from TV channels, in a timely manner with a certain choice, and around which people gathered across several generations as anybody knew of to operate it.
TV was indeed simple to operate, provided with an expanding choice of programs, as was capable of gathering millions of people at the same time around the same topic / story / event / moment.
Slide 3 : What is TV now ?
TV has evolved significantly. First came color. Then came choice. Then came the VCR that allowed recording, deferred viewing, and introduced external content (either purchased, rented, or handed out by friends and family) into the TV set.
Then came digital content and digital broadcast, followed by HD.
And only very recently came competition from other screens to consume video content: not only were they personal, they follow the viewer…
How many of you have a smartphone? A tablet?
We now spend a full five hours and 16 minutes a day in front of a screen, and that’s without even turning on a television (4,5 hours a day for US adults).
- What even does TV watching now mean?
- is TV video delivered in real time ?
- is Connected TV is just TV with Ethernet and firmware updates?
Cartoon image from Wall Street Journal
Slide 4 : Multiples Screens & Audience Fragmentation
Facebook captures 20% of online spent time: it is estimated that Americans spend 100.000 years on the social network every month…
Mobile screen consumption has also considerably impacted our average attention span, most viewed videos on YouTube being in the 3 min range.
Even when sitting in front of a TV screen, a growing majority of users are now multitasking as shown in the previous cartoon from WSJ. The figures should be updated and would reveal a much bigger share for mobile and tablets. (Video consumption in bed)
Lower attention span also means lesser tolerance to execution failure especially in terms of user experience.
Slide 5 : From Towers to Routers
Broadcast is no longer the only way to bring content to your TV. Cisco was right when they predicted that 90% of Internet traffic would be video. This conference is a good example as it is followed by hundreds of remote participants thanks to CDNs… Hello to all the remote viewers !
- YouTube = 1 Bn unique visitors per months and this is the beginning
- YouTube is where 1 south Korean singer can be seen 1.6 Bn times in 12 months. Billie Jean sold 80 M units
Yet Psy earned « only » $10 M, way less than Michael Jackson…
This raises many issues on Internet neutrality, telecom infrastructure, and business models.
Consumption of online video actually declined in the U.S. by 3% year over year, according to analysts Arvind Bhatia and Brett Strauser of Sterne Agee — but not at Facebook. Users of the social network watched a total of 118 million hours of video in January, according to comScore— a huge, sudden leap.
Facebook is preparing a new, yet-to-be-launched video ad product. before that happens, though, the company has been seeding the news feed with viral video, most recently its « Look Back » feature in which a custom video is created from your best-liked posts of the last few years.
P2P Filesharing now accounts for less than 10% of total daily traffic in North America. Five years ago it accounted for over 31%.
Slide 6 : Market Shift
Millennials watch more video content than any previous generation. They love movies, TV shows, and short-form video. And while this sounds like great news for advertisers, the trouble is, millennials aren’t watching video content on their living room TVs anymore.
- Daddy, the TV is broken
- A magazine is an iPad that does not work by @jlconstanza (4+ million views)
- Consequently, a TV set would just be a crippled, giant iMac ?
YuMe conducted a study that tracked how millennials consume media, finding that 13% watch video content on their smartphones while they work, while another 13% watch while they shop. In total, 94% of millennials are multitasking (and likely distracted) while viewing content.
What does this mean for brands? Smartphones and tablets, not televisions, are the gateway to a millennial audience. Millennials recall brands at a much better rate when they’re on mobile devices, and they think of the TV as old-fashioned. In fact, only 3.1% of millennials consider brands that advertise on TV as being « modern. » More than twice that number think of smartphone advertisers as having « modern » brands.
Slide 7 : Content Experience is broken
So what is broken? What needs fixing? First, look at two viewing experiences of digital content in the TV screen (and I am not talking from the legal point of view – piracy is bad and illegal – but from the experience itself)
Streaming is making offline video consumption obsolete.
BlockBuster is gone and the BluRay® might be the last video disc standard / physical format
Slide 8 : 10 Feet Experience is broken
In Europe and especially in France, TV is now delivered increasingly over Broadband, meaning
- a box : power supply, connectivity, remote control, interface
- questionable quality in the video stream
Last September I watched the Americas Cup on TV. It was captured and edited for a TV experience except that it was not broadcasted on DTB, nor on IPTV, but from YouTube. Image Quality was great (1080p on a FTTH broadband connection), but navigation was extremely poor (finding content, pausing/resuming) due to limitations in my TV’s YouTube implementation…
Slide 9 : Device Experience is broken
The TV experience was meant to be a 10 feet experience, focused on entertainment, not struggle.
Slide 10 : Product Life Cycles
- Over the past 20 years I have had 2 TV sets (and I must admit 2 video projectors – I am a geek)
- Across the same time I have had : 4 desktop computers, 7 laptops
- Not counting : 7 cell phones, 4 PalmOS devices, 6 iPhones, 2 iPad
TV does not evolve quick enough. While software is eating the world, it seems it has not hit the TV set yet. Firmware upgrades happen, but do not deliver any visible experience upgrades. Meanwhile, since 2007 and the first iPhone, we have been used to smartphones and tablets that can handle at least two major OS upgrades over their life cycle, not even mentioning the App Stores that provide further UX extensions
+ The Camera question : every laptop, every smartphone, every tablet now has a built-in front camera. Why is it still missing on TVs ?
Slide 11 : Laws At Work
Technology Accelerates. Software eats the world. Platforms rule. Our user experience will be recoded. And TV experience might be driven by software vendors.
Third to a billion – Horace Dediu on Sept 6th 2013
Android is the third platform to reach a billion users. The first was Windows and the second was Facebook. Apple sold around 650 to 700 million iOS and is expected to be the fourth to a billion sometime next year.
If we define the Race To a Billion to be bounded by a time limit of 10 years, then Windows does not qualify and Android is actually second. The race is shown in the following graphs (the one on the left is logarithmic scaled, the one to the right includes only a few contenders for illustrative reasons).
Slide 12 : Software is Eating the World
Sales of the Apple TV are estimated to have grown by 80 percent in 2013, reaching around 10 million units for the calendar year, or some $1 billion worth of set-top boxes sold to end users.
In Q4 2013 estimates show Chromecast selling as many units as Roku, around 2 M units
Context will be key
Slide 13 : Looking into TV Future
- 4K : direct experience from smartphone to TV as networks are not ready
- Younicast : « machine learning »will enable viewing contex, allow zapping within a channel, and let viewers set their « surprise / discovery » level on the fly
- Automated translation and refined search will make 10 million hours of World TV content available
Dagestan has 40 languages and dialects so I expect Minister Aznaur Adjiev will appreciate.
Slide 14 : TV waiting for its « iPhone moment » ?
Hardware design is less and less differenciated. Smartphone/tablet/TV screen look just alike with just a scale effect.
We need to refocus on the experience and it’s simplicity.
Maybe my Sony business friend Renaud will have an answer?
Slide 15 : La French Tech
La French Tech is the movement triggered by the french government on November 2013, following the Report submitted to France’s Prime minister (downloaded more than 10.000 times) by Caisse des Dépôts on June 28th, 2013.
La French Tech encompasses a generation of forward-looking entrepreneurs who think globally but who are attached to their roots. It is a way of life, a way of doing business. La French Tech is about French savoir-faire.
La French Tech is the standard-bearer for French digital stakeholders and communities abroad. Grouped beneath the French Tech umbrella, they can achieve enough critical mass to be seen as a global force to be reckoned with. It will then be up to each player to convert strengths into market share.
Here are a few examples of companies that can illustrate La French Tech at its best in the Connected TV space and in Moscow:
- Ayotle revolutionizes how to implement efficient Minority Report like interactions between viewers and content
- Kwarter focuses on the second screen to refocus / entertain audiences through gamification and deliver engagement metrics not yet in the TV set
- AwoX is a leader in streaming devices and services for the multimedia home
- FairPlay interactive is reshaping our 10 feet experience and eanabling in channel zapping
- SigFox is deploying a network dedicated to m2m, and is already powering the network that connects 15.000 public parking spots in Mosow, allowing drivers to immediately spot available places. 30% of traffic in cities is due to cars looking for parking.
Slide 16 : Questions ?
Большое спасибо !