What happened to Second Screen this week?

What a crazy week.  As if it wasn't enough for NATPE to be taking place in Miami (with some great research and stats published about second screen), there was a ton of consolidation activity in our industry (Dijit/Viggle, IntoNow from Yahoo, Digitalsmiths/Tivo) and some rebranding by GetGlue.  At the same time the 2nd Screen Society (S3) published a teaser on its new research about monetizing the second screen, and then Gigaom and TechCrunch wrote some pretty disparaging views, with Gigaom reverting to the salacious headline of "Social TV is Dead".

A Review of Google's Chromecast - Leveraging the Discovery and Control Powers of Second Screen

We have often discussed in this blog the 4 major features sets of second screen (To Control, To Discover, to Enhance, to Share - relevant research linked here and here).  We have also reviewed what Netflix was experimenting with for leveraging the 2nd Screen as a discovery and control device via DIAL (try opening Netflix on your iPhone while it is also running on your PS3, find the blog here).  Finally, we have predicted what a DIAL-enabled world might look like with its major backers (Netflix and YouTube) driving the protocol acceptance into every new device launch since early 2013 (DIAL blog here, 10 predictions here).

Well ChromeCast is the incarnate of all those opportunities and at the same time evidence of where the industry will head with rapid adoption.  While we have tried to tell the SmartTV industry that the best implementation for their platform is to be the launch pad for the stream, Chromecast demonstrates that use case out right.

Looking for evidence of the “Digital Living Room” of the future

When I attend industry conferences, I often spend time asking myself if I am generating enough value by attending to justify the travel cost, the time away from family, and the pain of the accompanying late nights and early morning meetings.  After arriving in Boston for NCTA’s 2012 CableShow, I noticed the relatively light attendance when compared to previous CableShows or other industry events.  Now I am not complaining that the cab lines are short or that I could get a sandwich at lunch time (vs. a few hours before or after) without a problem, and I am certainly not complaining about the host city—Boston is fabulous town.  But when I looked around the show and asked others what were the big “a-ha’s”, there wasn’t an immediate reply.  Everyone quickly said they caught up with tons of industry contacts, colleagues, and of course customers, but we don’t need the show floor expense with demos and meeting rooms to accomplish that.  What were we hoping to see at a show anchored by giant media conglomerates like Comcast (with 22m Xfinity subscribers and NBCUniversal networks) and TimeWarner Cable?  I think everyone was hoping to see some progress against the promise of a better digital future for the consumer—and despite how much attention the press gives all of the great digital living room start-ups and OTT video service providers, the vast majority of consumers still get their media from a Pay TV operator.  I guess my long-winded point is that if those new user experiences aren’t reaching the consumer thru cable operators, they aren’t really reaching the masses.

Why is Discovery so hard to implement for video services?

Last week, Google said it was trying to tackle one of the hardest problems on the internet -- video Discovery.

Looking at consumer video services (Netflix, Hulu, Amazon and even GoogleTV) and their second screen counterparts (Matcha, Fanhattan, BuddyTV, etc), the admission of the challenge is painfully evident in the user interface the consumer faces and the result of the Discovery process.

But let's back up a bit first. What is Discovery? How does it relate to Search and Recommendation? I think we will find wide agreement that the concept of Search is one where you know what you are looking for and are trying to find it. Now this can be more complex than "Where can I find a legal version of Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol that I can watch in my living room right now?" (which itself can be challenging in today's service offerings).  It is not usually as complex as the problem Shazam solves in the music industry ("what is the name of that song that sounds like..."), but can be difficult (I know the actor who was in the movie or what it was about). Search is decidedly a "lean forward" experience, and as most of us have found out over the last 5 years, it incredibly difficult to implement on a 10-foot remote experience, with various virtual keyboards or fancy remotes trying to help us solve this problem.

Exploring the UX of Discovery in SecondScreen

We keep discussing the lack of Discovery features in most of the Second Screen applications out, but what should we be comparing them to?  Recently, I reviewed using Fanhattan as a Discovery experience, which was a decent experience with the various levels of filters being applied.  But what "could" a great Discovery UX be like?  Let's start with a few of the important elements:

1. You need to have multiple approaches to getting at new content.  The most common method used in all of the Second Screen apps reviewed so far is "Popular", "Hot" or "Trending Now", where you are shown content that many others are watching.  Fanhattan goes further by showing you a number of categories including what your friends are watching recently and over time, what is hot, new, featured (presumably paid placement, etc).
2. You have to keep track of what I have already seen (so you don't recommend it to me again).  This implies at least 2 functions: a) the ability to know I am "me", watching by myself vs. me watching with my wife or family; b) the ability for me to tell the app when you do recommend me something I have seen that I have already seen it (and ask for a rating of at least thumbs up or down).
3. You need to have multiple ways to filter the content.  For example, the idea that I don't want you to recommend content I have already seen is a given these days.  What about asking me I am in the mood for (a comedy, a western, a war movie, a drama).  What about filters for what my friends like and don't like, how consumers rated the TV shows/films, where it is available, etc.
4. Finally, you need to pull all this together in a seamless and intuitive UI--obviously not easy.  I am not a UI or UX expert, but give this idea a try: the consumer opens that app to find something like a 9-box grid offering the most popular TV series (that I haven't yet seen) in each of the genre or mood categories.  This let's me quickly gauge my current tastes between Dexter and Glee for example.  Then, when I click on that category, the 9-box grid updates again with an approach for a suggestion for that category (1 for Hottest, 1 for what my friends are watching, 1 for featured, 1 for new TV series, 1 for Emmy award winning, etc).  The whole time you could keep a further filter on the left so I can eliminate from user rating levels or how old it is, etc.  Then, the third click would give you a recommendation of 9 shows that are in the mood/genre/category I started with an from the approach I prefer (right now).
   Something like:

I am sure the real UX experts can do much better...but it's a start.

Using Fanhattan for new TV series Discovery

The other night, sitting in a hotel over the holidays, my wife asked me if I had any recommendations for a new TV series to start watching on her iPad.  I thought this was an excellent chance to try out the Discovery powers of the SecondScreen apps we have reviewed here so far.  While GetGlue, BuddyTV and Fanhattan all had "medium" levels of Discovery capabilities, I thought Fanhattan hadthe best UX (user experience) and the most sophisticated way for the user to slice and dice the options for Discovering content.

I sat with my very suspicious wife and opened the app on my iPad.  I gave her a quick introduction to the different ways to view recommended TV Series (Hottest, Newest, Hot Fall TV (probably paid placement), Emmy Winners and Top Rated).  She saw the opportunity to see a similar view from Friends, and while set for my Facebook friends (we share many of them anyway), it still offered many new content ideas for her.

Of course, she immediately chose something that we couldn't download to the iPad while travelling in London and gave me the "I told you so" look of disappointment in my wasting of her time.  I showed her how to use Smart Browse to quickly filter the results so she would only return items she could watch on her iPad (while traveling).  She was then able to flip back over to the Hottest or Top Rated shows and choose a new series.

Now while this is really a sophisticated version of Search vs. true Discovery, it is still light years ahead of the current method of combing thru Facebook recommendations or calling your friends (esp. when you are on the wrong timezone).

There are some profound possibilities coming...stay tuned to this space.