Are you ready for a Second Screen Super Bowl? (#2ndScreenSB)

The big game is on Sunday and by now everyone has been reading articles about how 36% of viewers plan to use a second screen as a companion to the big game.  With 84% of Americans planning to watch the game from their (or a friend's) house, this is a second screen industry opportunity like no other.  We are even being told that the CBS has sold more than $10-12m of advertising on the second screen alone (forgetting the $3.5m per commercial for the 1st screen).

Connected TV Ad Revenue, Monetizing the Second Screen

When is the last time you saw some really good information about how well advertising is working on digital video through the first screen?  A connected TV is a TV that able to deliver OTT content from the major services (iTunes, Netflix, Hulu, Vudu, Amazon Instant and Prime, YouTube, etc) by either being connected itself (SmartTV) or by being connected to another device (game console, OTT device, Blu-ray player, etc) that can deliver that content service.

The graphic below represents the results of a study commission by YuMe which was presented at the 2nd Screen Summit at CES by Ed Haslam, their VP of marketing.

Netflix's DIAL and the Second Screen Ecosystem Battle

One things is certain about the second screen industry--it is rapidly developing.  As we have discussed at conferences, over cocktails, through dinners, and in this blog (recently including 2013 trends, the coming ecosystem war, and our comprehensive industry report), one of the biggest challenges to deploying a second screen app is to create consumer utility.  That means the consumer needs to find more reasons to pickup that second screen with your app than with other devices (eg Harmony One remote) or app options.  While there are a wide range of apps chasing Social and Stimulating feature sets for  companion second screen experiences, there are an equal number of players trying to solve Discovery and Simple control of the first screen.

The real challenge with this approach is getting the content to launch on the first screen.  If you are the Pay TV operator, controlling the first screen is "easy".  If you are the game console or CE device manufacturer, it's also "easy"--you own the protocols.  But if you are a third party app, trying to create consumer utility (and hence value) by allowing him/her to search across multiple video services and launch their chosen content to that service on the first screen--hard.  Today, most of them are becoming adept at launching the video content onto the second screen itself, deep linking into the Hulu, Netflix, YouTube, or Amazon Instant Video app directly, but only a few third parties have mastered multiple devices for the first screen (eg BuddyTV)--and most of them only work with Live TV.  Imagine the complexity in the living room: you have 5 different devices by now that have Netflix or Hulu installed, so even if you could talk to anyone of them, how do you launch the right device and get the main screen to switch to that device?

Enter Netflix and DIAL.

Taking Social to the next level - TOK Football

We've been gathering together to watch live sports in the living room for many, many years.  As our society has become busier, travelled further apart, and gotten socially reconnected with our geographically diverse friends, we have used Facebook and Twitter to stay in touch, comment on the score of a game, and even talk some trash.  But nothing replaces live conversation as well as the conversation itself.  If you don't believe that, check the monthly minutes plan on your phone or review Skype's usage explosion.

So if you wanted to watch the playoff games last weekend with your good friends who happen to be in different cities, you can use several sports related second screen apps to post comments on plays and scores or you could open a Skype multi-party session to experience the trash talking, but what if you tried to combine the two experiences?

Meet TOK Football.

Speaking a common Second Screen Language - Launching the 2nd Screen Lexicon

When we sat down for our first advisory board meeting last June in NYC, we discussed which topics and challenges to try to tackle as a team, where the issues were on one hand not competitive and on the other hand would genuinely help move the entire second screen ecosystem forward.

Within a few short minutes, we were in a heated debate over what second screen was or wasn't.  It is very tough to work together without a common language or lexicon.

So we worked with more than 40 advisory board members to develop an initial set of 25 terms  that we felt like were the "25 Essential 2nd Screen Terms" to deal with the problems facing all of us now.

Second Screen and the 2013 CES

We kicked off the 2013 International CES show last week on Monday with a 5-hour, program-packed 2nd Screen Summit--working hard to get the "right" people on stage and in the audience.

But was CES the "2nd Screen CES" we predicted it would be in mid-December?

Watching The Golden Globes with Second Screen or The "multi-function" app vs. the "special purpose" app

If you read the news much, you would have seen E! Entertainment pushing their updated second screen app in a big way for Sunday's Golden Globe awards and you would have seen NBC and others pushing zeebox for their second screen experience.

We thought this would be the perfect opportunity to explore the "multi-function" vs. "special purpose" app debate that we (as an industry) debated last Monday during CES at the Second Screen Summit and that we explore in our recently published market report on second screen, "The 2nd Screen: Transforming Video Consumption".

2nd Screen Society announces definitive Second Screen market research study

"The 2nd Screen: Transforming Video Consumption" written and produced by The Intersection LAS VEGAS   — At the 2nd Screen Summit at International CES today, 2nd Screen Society Chairman Chuck Parker introduced data and details from his new research study: "The 2nd Screen: Transforming Video Consumption."  The 250-page document details the current state and five-year projections for this emerging marketplace, which the researchers estimate as a $490 million market today and expect to reach $5.9 billion by 2017.

Created by The Intersection, a research company owned by Parker and TV technology executive Renaud Fuchs, and published by the 2^nd Screen Society, the report presents both the global market size and segmentation of the hundreds of consumer facing apps in the market place, the build-up of the market sizing, a deep-dive on the technology driving this space, the latest trends and case studies on the leading apps in the market. Additionally, the report will cover how consumers are using their 2nd screens as 1st screens both in and out of the living room, as TV Everywhere strategies come into full effect in the consumer market place. "With 35 million tablets sold during the holiday season in 2012 and an estimated 40% of all television viewers now enhancing the experience with a 2nd screen, this is clearly the trend to watch for 2013," Parker explains.  "What can you expect to see in 2nd screen developments in 2013 and who are the current leaders?  How will the giants of today’s video industry respond to this challenge?  We answer these questions and more in this report."

The in-depth study covers everything you need to know about 2nd screen: 

• The technology status and future developments: how ACR and the “system level” 2^nd screen platform from Xbox SmartGlass will have significant impact on the marketplace
• A segmentation of the market and a scoring of hundreds of companion apps: that are used to control, discover, enhance, share and multi-task.
• An analysis of the players in the ecosystem: why studios and TV shows focus on enhancement and pay TV operators focus on control.
• A full-blown usage analysis, business models and market sizing with detailed data to 2017.
• A detailed review of the Top 50 apps:  what works and what doesn’t and identifying key feature sets
• A detailed look at trends and future state of the 2^nd screen market
• An 18-month detailed forecast:  describing trends we believe will have a short-term impact on this emerging marketplace for applications and 2^nd-screen technologies.
• A deep review of second screen as a viewing device

For more information about the research study visit: www.2ndscreensociety.com/research.

The 2^nd Screen Society represents over 40 technology leaders who are committed to collectively advancing the creation, production and adoption of content applications, devices and distribution systems within the new 2^nd Screen Engagement Ecosystem.  The Society is managed on behalf of its members by MESA, the Media & Entertainment Services Alliance.

To find out more about the Report and the Society contact Chuck Parker at: Chuck@MESAlliance.org

Digital Video By The Numbers, Q4 and 2012 Infographic

It's getting harder and harder to pull apart "Second Screen as a Companion Experience" and "Second Screen as the First Screen Viewing Experience".  The living room and the tablet are converging so quickly.

• UltraViolet has 7m subscribers, but only carries 59% of the Top 100 titles and 50% of currently popular video titles
• Best Buy / CinemaNow launched a Disc-to-Digital beta last week
• Flixster's iPad experience now has download capability--giving UV consumers the opportunity to travel (without a laptop)
• While HBO Go, Hulu, and Amazon Prime are garnering press, the traffic shows that Netflix out streams them nearly 30 to 1
• Netflix has now tied HBO in total subscribers (albeit with some international ones)
• Xbox is the underestimated player in the digital living room with 30m subscribers and a recent commitment to launch 40 new content channels
• The Wii U deployed multi-screen services for its platform and promises to combine it with its second screen controller and then "TV will never be the same"

While everyone know Netflix, Hulu, HBO Go, and Amazon Instant Video (as an app), have you tried Matcha, NextGuide, Flixster, or Plizy?  Interested in case studies on great apps that help consumers discover and watch content on their tablet?    Click here

Join us at the www.2ndscreensummit.com today at the Wynn (1-6pm, cocktails to follow).

Second Screen by the Numbers Q4 and 2012 Infographic

As we head into CES Monday, I thought I would post a teaser of some of the data we will present at the 2nd Screen Summit (held at the Wynn, 1-6pm, cocktails to follow).  2012 was certainly one helluva year for second screen, finishing with a "tablet Christmas" which delivers us into a "second screen CES".

See you Monday.

The Future of ACR: A Major Weapon in the Digital Video Ecosystem Arms Race

We’ve been talking about ACR (automatic content recognition) in blogs and at conferences for quite some time now (most recently, the 10th prediction for second screen trends in 2013).  For many players in the ecosystem (including consumers), the ability to trigger an event on the second screen based on what is happening on the first screen is somewhat of a holy grail of enabling technology capabilities.  But as we discussed at NAB in April and at IBC in September, this has so far remained elusive in terms of real scale for consumers reached because of the challenges inherent in each of the various approaches.