Earlier this summer, I wrote a brief blog on 10 second screen apps to watch discussing which apps I thought had a compelling enough user experience to propel them forward. Since then, we have gotten together as an industry for debate in NYC (twice--once for Advertising Week, once for CEA), in Amsterdam @ IBC, and on the West Coast at the MultiScreen, NextTV and TV|Next summits. In the meantime, NextGuide and zeebox launched their apps in the US--a lot of changes have taken place.
As we are now a few weeks into the Fall TV season, I thought I would update my views on which apps seem to be furthest along the path to develop the features that will drive serious consumer adoption.
I continue to believe there are really 5 major features sets that drive consumers to pick up a device as their second screen in an attempt to add value to their first screen experience: Finding something to watch (Discovery), determining where to watch it (Seamless content sourcing, often combined with Discovery), launching that content to your first screen (Simple), getting more information about the program, whether sport stats, actor bios, games, or commerce opportunities (Stimulating), and then sharing all of that and more with your friends (Social).
where digital video meets the 2nd Screen
Showing posts with label M-GO. Show all posts
Showing posts with label M-GO. Show all posts
Monday, October 29, 2012
Thursday, August 30, 2012
The "Seamless" sourcing of video content from multiple aggregation services
10 years ago, life was simple in your living room. You really had 3 libraries of content to worry about:
- the 500 channels of content you were receiving from your Cable, Telco, or Satellite provider,
- the collection of DVD's on your shelf, and
- the available plethora of DVDs to rent at your local Blockbuster.
- Movies came out at the theater first, and then a few months later were available to rent (eg Blockbuster) or purchase (many locations) on the same day.
- A few months after this, they started appearing in your premium TV networks (eg HBO, Showtime).
- A few months after this, they came out on the standard, non-premium broadcast networks.
Video entertainment was easy, despite the poor available search methods of channel surfing your EPG and browsing your shelf or local store's shelves.
In 2012, you are perplexed by a long list of growing of (sometimes exclusive) digital sources of content with different restrictions and availability dates. Some titles are available for sale but not for rent (eg iTunes, Vudu, Amazon). Some titles are available for rent, but not in your subscription service (eg Netflix Streaming, Amazon Prime). Sometimes the digital version is available the same day as the DVD/Blu-ray is available in stores for sale, but even the physical DVD rental has different availability dates in the few remaining Blockbuster stores and the Netflix mail service than it does at the RedBox kiosks in your local grocery store. Throw in TV catch-up services where the DVD is often available after it is available for free or subscription online and you are thoroughly confused. Or at least should be.
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
10 Second Screen Apps to Watch in 2012
The last time we published an app summary was just before the CES show this year in early January and then again leading up to our 2nd Screen Summit in LA in mid-Febraury. While the nascent 2nd screen app market segment has been exploding with new apps for shows, network channels, movies, major events, and sports all over the place, 3rd party apps have been quietly improving themselves and trying to find their way into more consumer living rooms. As we prepare for another Second Screen Summit on June 27th in NYC, we should pause and review the progress those 3rd party apps have been making.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
What is holding back sell-thru in digital?
A friend and industry expert made a great point about my last blog entry relative to the choices consumers have beyond ownership in terms of managing their digital collection of movies and TV shows.
It used to be that we all had the "Discovery" experience in Blockbuster (going to rent a video, expecting a 15-minute trip and spending an hour combing the walls of the store looking for something to watch). Then, DVD sell-thru became VERY affordable. So affordable that not only were the big releases being sold by Wal-mart, Target and Bestbuy below their wholesale pricing (losing money to drive traffic to their stores), but as the DVD industry matured, cheaper back-catalog titles became available in the check-out aisles of grocery stores. Spending $5, $7 or even $10 for a title to have forever seemed like a bargain compared to the time suck of the trip to Blockbuster combined with its late fees. More importantly, buying a cheap title to watch when it was a slow night in the near future was a perhaps a better alternative then cable TV. For years HBO filled this need--a subscription movie service that allowed you to essentially turn on the TV and watch something "good" when you had time on your hands for entertainment.
Next physical Netflix started to make a serious dent in all of this--but it only worked for those people who had patience and essentially replaced the new release for those willing to wait and the back catalog for those who planned ahead and always had a title around to watch. I think this is the first time consumers had an alternative to the timesuck/late fee experience to watch new movies and to the "what's on HBO?" experience (despite all of us having DVR's, but not having the foresight to use them to solve this problem).
Then we had a step change improvement -- rental went digital thru iTunes, Vudu, Amazon, and Xbox. Now, the "Discovery" process happened in your living room. There was some initial disappointment with titles only available on certain services and sometimes later than the physical DVD rental and sell-thru date. The fact that the studios made more money per rental (improving their share from 25-65% on average) hastened the demise of Blockbuster nearly overnight and brought digital rental day and date with physical rental and often sell-thru.
Then Netflix dropped the boom and started a digital subscription (SVOD) service. In theory, this was no different than HBO--you had a bouquet of content that you didn't really understand and had no guarantees on what would be in there tomorrow, but instead of setting your DVR or waiting until the next movie started, you could now actually search/discover and watch "something" instantly. And cheaply. Cheaper in fact than HBO.
Consumers voted with their feet/pocket books and Netflix grew their subscribers at an alarming rate, threatening even the mighty HBO.
Not surprisingly, the physical sell-thru rate started dropping quickly. Consumers now had a better rental experience either in Netflix or digitally and had a digital subscription video service that replaced the "what do I watch when I am bored" scenario.
Studios wanted and needed sell-thru, digital or physical, to regain its previous levels (while their share is similar with digital rental, the gross sales on sell-thru 3-5x higher). But how? Digital purchasing meant you acquired a title on a single device (your Vudu box, your PC) and at the time the concept of cloud ownership was non-existant (even with the mighty Apple).
What consumers needed was confidence that they could buy something digitally and have it on any of their devices when and where they wanted it.
The industry launched the concept of an industry-supported digital locker service in 2008 (then called DECE), but like all industry initiatives, it languished under the weight of its own support. The 75 initial members pulled it in many directions and then suddenly with Microsoft and Sony clearly at the helm, Apple refused to join. The battle lines had been drawn and the law abiding consumer suffered (and digital pirates continued to flourish).
Now as scant 4 years later, Ultra Violet has launched (the industry's answer to a consumer digital locker). But there are serious challenges to drive consumer adoption:
1. The experience isn't consumer-centric. You don't have the same experience movie to movie (same offer) or retailer to retailer (different sign-up processes, different viewing process).
2. In four years, Apple has launched and owns the tablet segment, probably where most digital movies and TV that are owned are viewed BY FAR.
3. Netflix has used the 4 years to cement a 20m strong subscriber base, offering unlimited movies for less than the purchase of a single new release.
4. The "connected TV" promise has become a confusing wasteland of technical solutions that make Apple all that more appealing.
And now, Wal-mart / Vudu wants to help you convert your physical library to digital with a hefty fee--and most of the physical titles you own you probably also have access to on Netflix. What to do?
While in my previous blog, I described the time vs. money trade-off of the legal conversion option, the other challenge is the easy access to a large library in which content is likely but not guaranteed to be there tomorrow vs. the cost (and hassle) of converting those titles to UltraViolet and Vudu.
My guess is that of the 400+ titles I have at home, probably 3/4 of them are available on Netflix. The other 25% are going to have issues with availability (Disney, other smaller studios) or won't pass the rental option test (ie if I am truly only going to watch that title once in a long while, is a $4 rental a better option at the point of viewing vs. a $2-5 investment for a title I may not watch for some time).
If consumers think all this thru while thinking about what the Wal-mart experience may be like (and that they likely can't view these titles on their iPad while traveling), my guess is that this will not take off very quickly.
I will try it myself on April 16th and let you know how it goes.
As for the other burning question, "How can the studios improve digital sell-thru"? That's an easy list to create but hard for them to accomplish:
1. Make the UltraViolet offer consistent on every title (streaming, download, HD for the right price, viewable on an iPad).
2. Make it easier to register the UltraViolet copy (should be as seamless as my Blu-ray player detecting it and marking my digital locker appropriately).
3. Make the iTunes digital copy work with Ultraviolet (for a small fee).
4. Like iTunes, let me purchase UltraViolet digital only titles (Paramount started this late last year).
5. Provide an incentive for me to convert my physical library that counters that hassle and the Netflix inertia.
If the studios can't do these things in the near term, I predict that a "Seamless" 2nd screen app (Fanhattan, M-GO, BuddyTV) will come along shortly that will "catalog" my digital collection and combine that with the sources of subscription and rental services, and further combine that with my Cable/Telco/Satellite provider program line-up and a slick recommendation / Discovery engine (DigitalSmiths) that includes my social network "likes', and consumers will have the tools to reduce their "purchase" of physical and digital content to only what they need, when they need it...this is a race that Discovery, Social networks, and 2nd Screen might just win.
Chuck
www.chuckparker.tv
It used to be that we all had the "Discovery" experience in Blockbuster (going to rent a video, expecting a 15-minute trip and spending an hour combing the walls of the store looking for something to watch). Then, DVD sell-thru became VERY affordable. So affordable that not only were the big releases being sold by Wal-mart, Target and Bestbuy below their wholesale pricing (losing money to drive traffic to their stores), but as the DVD industry matured, cheaper back-catalog titles became available in the check-out aisles of grocery stores. Spending $5, $7 or even $10 for a title to have forever seemed like a bargain compared to the time suck of the trip to Blockbuster combined with its late fees. More importantly, buying a cheap title to watch when it was a slow night in the near future was a perhaps a better alternative then cable TV. For years HBO filled this need--a subscription movie service that allowed you to essentially turn on the TV and watch something "good" when you had time on your hands for entertainment.
Next physical Netflix started to make a serious dent in all of this--but it only worked for those people who had patience and essentially replaced the new release for those willing to wait and the back catalog for those who planned ahead and always had a title around to watch. I think this is the first time consumers had an alternative to the timesuck/late fee experience to watch new movies and to the "what's on HBO?" experience (despite all of us having DVR's, but not having the foresight to use them to solve this problem).
Then we had a step change improvement -- rental went digital thru iTunes, Vudu, Amazon, and Xbox. Now, the "Discovery" process happened in your living room. There was some initial disappointment with titles only available on certain services and sometimes later than the physical DVD rental and sell-thru date. The fact that the studios made more money per rental (improving their share from 25-65% on average) hastened the demise of Blockbuster nearly overnight and brought digital rental day and date with physical rental and often sell-thru.
Then Netflix dropped the boom and started a digital subscription (SVOD) service. In theory, this was no different than HBO--you had a bouquet of content that you didn't really understand and had no guarantees on what would be in there tomorrow, but instead of setting your DVR or waiting until the next movie started, you could now actually search/discover and watch "something" instantly. And cheaply. Cheaper in fact than HBO.
Consumers voted with their feet/pocket books and Netflix grew their subscribers at an alarming rate, threatening even the mighty HBO.
Not surprisingly, the physical sell-thru rate started dropping quickly. Consumers now had a better rental experience either in Netflix or digitally and had a digital subscription video service that replaced the "what do I watch when I am bored" scenario.
Studios wanted and needed sell-thru, digital or physical, to regain its previous levels (while their share is similar with digital rental, the gross sales on sell-thru 3-5x higher). But how? Digital purchasing meant you acquired a title on a single device (your Vudu box, your PC) and at the time the concept of cloud ownership was non-existant (even with the mighty Apple).
What consumers needed was confidence that they could buy something digitally and have it on any of their devices when and where they wanted it.
The industry launched the concept of an industry-supported digital locker service in 2008 (then called DECE), but like all industry initiatives, it languished under the weight of its own support. The 75 initial members pulled it in many directions and then suddenly with Microsoft and Sony clearly at the helm, Apple refused to join. The battle lines had been drawn and the law abiding consumer suffered (and digital pirates continued to flourish).
Now as scant 4 years later, Ultra Violet has launched (the industry's answer to a consumer digital locker). But there are serious challenges to drive consumer adoption:
1. The experience isn't consumer-centric. You don't have the same experience movie to movie (same offer) or retailer to retailer (different sign-up processes, different viewing process).
2. In four years, Apple has launched and owns the tablet segment, probably where most digital movies and TV that are owned are viewed BY FAR.
3. Netflix has used the 4 years to cement a 20m strong subscriber base, offering unlimited movies for less than the purchase of a single new release.
4. The "connected TV" promise has become a confusing wasteland of technical solutions that make Apple all that more appealing.
And now, Wal-mart / Vudu wants to help you convert your physical library to digital with a hefty fee--and most of the physical titles you own you probably also have access to on Netflix. What to do?
While in my previous blog, I described the time vs. money trade-off of the legal conversion option, the other challenge is the easy access to a large library in which content is likely but not guaranteed to be there tomorrow vs. the cost (and hassle) of converting those titles to UltraViolet and Vudu.
My guess is that of the 400+ titles I have at home, probably 3/4 of them are available on Netflix. The other 25% are going to have issues with availability (Disney, other smaller studios) or won't pass the rental option test (ie if I am truly only going to watch that title once in a long while, is a $4 rental a better option at the point of viewing vs. a $2-5 investment for a title I may not watch for some time).
If consumers think all this thru while thinking about what the Wal-mart experience may be like (and that they likely can't view these titles on their iPad while traveling), my guess is that this will not take off very quickly.
I will try it myself on April 16th and let you know how it goes.
As for the other burning question, "How can the studios improve digital sell-thru"? That's an easy list to create but hard for them to accomplish:
1. Make the UltraViolet offer consistent on every title (streaming, download, HD for the right price, viewable on an iPad).
2. Make it easier to register the UltraViolet copy (should be as seamless as my Blu-ray player detecting it and marking my digital locker appropriately).
3. Make the iTunes digital copy work with Ultraviolet (for a small fee).
4. Like iTunes, let me purchase UltraViolet digital only titles (Paramount started this late last year).
5. Provide an incentive for me to convert my physical library that counters that hassle and the Netflix inertia.
If the studios can't do these things in the near term, I predict that a "Seamless" 2nd screen app (Fanhattan, M-GO, BuddyTV) will come along shortly that will "catalog" my digital collection and combine that with the sources of subscription and rental services, and further combine that with my Cable/Telco/Satellite provider program line-up and a slick recommendation / Discovery engine (DigitalSmiths) that includes my social network "likes', and consumers will have the tools to reduce their "purchase" of physical and digital content to only what they need, when they need it...this is a race that Discovery, Social networks, and 2nd Screen might just win.
Chuck
www.chuckparker.tv
Saturday, February 25, 2012
A Quick Re-Cap of the 2nd Screen Summit
If you didn't get a chance to join us in Santa Monica on Wednesday, you missed a great program of 300+ industry players interacting in panels throughout the day.
The keynote was presented by Bill Baxter, CTO of BuddyTV. The topic of his presentation was when Second Screen would second screen be a mass market experience. His conclusion was that is was already; however, during the discussion, he gave some great insight to BuddyTV's experience around social engagement (about 0.5% of users actually comment in the app via chat or Twitter, but 50% of them read the comments and Tweets). Additionally, he postulated that when consumers used his app to control the 1st device (Simple), they were twice as likely to engage in other parts of the app (Social, Stimulating, etc).
The initial panel consisted of 45 minutes of passionate discussions around what creates an engaging consumer experience with input from BuddyTV, M-GO, Fanhattan, 1K and TVplus (moderated by myself). There was an excellent debate around the concept of a "killer feature" that would propel second screen forward across the chasm to mass adoption.
It was followed by a 40-minute panel on metadata, with participation from Automated Insights, Digital Smiths, RCDb, Rovi and TVplus (moderated by myself again). Ajay Shah from TVplus started the conversation off by explaining how his team currently builds their synchronized experiences and the metadata experts discussed the potential evolution of metadata services to support the developing second screen market--including the concept of metadata becoming "sexy".
We had a very interesting "app shoot-out" just before lunch. The concept was for each app to have 3 minutes to show off their capabilities in Simple, Social, Seamless, Stimulating and Discovery across a Modern Family episode and the recent airing of The Voice. The audience then voted on Twitter and on write-in ballots for the best app in each category and best overall. The winners which were presented at the end of the day were awarded as follows: Simple - BuddyTV, Social - Yap.tv, Seamless - Fanhattan, Stimulating - TVplus, Discovery - BuddyTV, and Best Overall to Fanhattan. Congratulations all.
In the afternoon, we had some great data insight presented by NPD on how the CE device market was shaping up to support second screen, followed by a great panel on the subject with Verizon, LG, Samsung and Testronics (moderated by Tom Engdahl).
That was followed by a great panel discussion from Fox, Disney, Technicolor, Civolution, Blu-Focus and Jargon around collaboration in building great second screen applications, with a very lively debate around the requirement to "templatize" / build a platform vs. the need to support creativity and a great UX.
Renaud Fuchs from Technicolor then delivered a very interesting data set on the second screen app market to date, with views on what market phase we were in (multiplication or consolidation) and presented some compelling data on Get Glue usage.
Finally, the day was capped off with a panel on Monetizing the Second Screen with inputs from Second Screen Networks, GetThis, MediaLink and McCann Worldgroup (moderated by Seth Shapiro). While not conclusive, there was a good debate that continued from previous panels about commerce and advertising (and loyalty programs) balanced with a great user experience.
A great inaugural event for this fast-paced market segment with the most asked question during the cocktail reception being "When and where should the industry gather next?"
The keynote was presented by Bill Baxter, CTO of BuddyTV. The topic of his presentation was when Second Screen would second screen be a mass market experience. His conclusion was that is was already; however, during the discussion, he gave some great insight to BuddyTV's experience around social engagement (about 0.5% of users actually comment in the app via chat or Twitter, but 50% of them read the comments and Tweets). Additionally, he postulated that when consumers used his app to control the 1st device (Simple), they were twice as likely to engage in other parts of the app (Social, Stimulating, etc).
The initial panel consisted of 45 minutes of passionate discussions around what creates an engaging consumer experience with input from BuddyTV, M-GO, Fanhattan, 1K and TVplus (moderated by myself). There was an excellent debate around the concept of a "killer feature" that would propel second screen forward across the chasm to mass adoption.
It was followed by a 40-minute panel on metadata, with participation from Automated Insights, Digital Smiths, RCDb, Rovi and TVplus (moderated by myself again). Ajay Shah from TVplus started the conversation off by explaining how his team currently builds their synchronized experiences and the metadata experts discussed the potential evolution of metadata services to support the developing second screen market--including the concept of metadata becoming "sexy".
We had a very interesting "app shoot-out" just before lunch. The concept was for each app to have 3 minutes to show off their capabilities in Simple, Social, Seamless, Stimulating and Discovery across a Modern Family episode and the recent airing of The Voice. The audience then voted on Twitter and on write-in ballots for the best app in each category and best overall. The winners which were presented at the end of the day were awarded as follows: Simple - BuddyTV, Social - Yap.tv, Seamless - Fanhattan, Stimulating - TVplus, Discovery - BuddyTV, and Best Overall to Fanhattan. Congratulations all.
In the afternoon, we had some great data insight presented by NPD on how the CE device market was shaping up to support second screen, followed by a great panel on the subject with Verizon, LG, Samsung and Testronics (moderated by Tom Engdahl).
That was followed by a great panel discussion from Fox, Disney, Technicolor, Civolution, Blu-Focus and Jargon around collaboration in building great second screen applications, with a very lively debate around the requirement to "templatize" / build a platform vs. the need to support creativity and a great UX.
Renaud Fuchs from Technicolor then delivered a very interesting data set on the second screen app market to date, with views on what market phase we were in (multiplication or consolidation) and presented some compelling data on Get Glue usage.
Finally, the day was capped off with a panel on Monetizing the Second Screen with inputs from Second Screen Networks, GetThis, MediaLink and McCann Worldgroup (moderated by Seth Shapiro). While not conclusive, there was a good debate that continued from previous panels about commerce and advertising (and loyalty programs) balanced with a great user experience.
A great inaugural event for this fast-paced market segment with the most asked question during the cocktail reception being "When and where should the industry gather next?"
Sunday, January 29, 2012
A follow-on summary of the Second Screen apps reviewed so far
As expected, CES did turn out a few new apps and a few apps updated themselves, providing their consumers a better user experience (and rating in the process).
The summary conclusion is that Fanhattan and BuddyTV are now joined by M-Go and Dijit in the front running pack. MediaEcho, Zeebox, IntoNow, GetGlue and TVplus create a second pack. SOA Gear, Clicker, Rovi, Umami, Viggle, TV Dinner, Yap.TV, BravoNow and USAAnywhere make up a 3rd pack.
So, enjoy the current score card and check out the list below the graphic to see which apps are still to come, and plan on joining us in Santa Monica at the Second Screen Summit on February 22nd to discuss the business models, consumer experiences, and metadata that surrounds this exploding segment of the media industry.
A quick reminder about the methodology behind the ratings below:
- Because I still haven't reviewed all of the apps yet or even all of the apps in a particular category (network operators, sports, blu-ray title specific, network specific, Discovery, Social, Simple, etc), I thought it best just to show the scores as they have been published so far, ranking them by the total score of the five categories.
- I left the sports apps out since they all performed a very specific niche function in the Stimulating category but did little else.
- Keep in mind that some of these apps are in beta or are otherwise not yet fully available to the public, so are subject to change (and improvement). See the individual blog entries for more details.
- In the chart, black represents "none", red represents "low", yellow represents "medium" and green represents "high".
The 50+ apps yet to be reviewed:
Bambi, Bones, Channer, DirecTV, Discovery, DStv Guide, Fanvibe, FIOS on Demand, Flingo, Grey's Anatomy, HashTV, HBO Go, HotPotato, i.TV, IMDB, KickFour, King's Speech, Leanin, Lion King, MyVideoSync, NBC Live, Numote, NyooTV, Pirates of Carribean, Playup, Pocket BigBrother, Screach, ScreenTribe, Shazam, Showtime Social, Smurf-o-vision, SocialGuide, Starling, Tapcast.TV, TV Chatter, TV Foundry, TV Tune-In, TV.com, TVChaser, TVCube, TVFriend, TVmoment, TvTak, VideoLive, Vloop, WatchParty, Wizzchat, XFINITY TV, Youtoo, Zap2It
Sunday, January 22, 2012
My review of M-Go as a SecondScreen experience
Technicolor's MediaNavi division launched it's M-Go platform at CES, announcing it will be available on Samsung TV's, tablets and phones, Vizio TVs, and Intel powered Ultrabooks by the end of the first quarter. While they don't pitch this as a Second Screen app per se, I thought we should review it on this blog because of the surprisingly strong feature set as a second screen application. It's pitched on YouTube as an app to that combines all of your media including live TV into a single interface, yet letting you view it on the first screen. The start of the demonstration I saw at CES yielded a clean interface with a "card" system showing the options of Live TV, TV Shows, Movies, Collections (your personal photos, music, etc) and OutMyWindow (a secure photo sharing service).
A few disclosure points: 1) this was a demo at CES for a product that launches in the Spring--I have not seen this in the wild yet. 2) I previously worked for the company that developed this product, but purposely waited until I no longer did to provide this review in an outwardly unbiased manner.
Drilling into the TV Shows card yielded an opportunity to browse shows that would be personalized for you based on your preferences and history. The Live TV card had a "channel" that was personalized for you based on the time of day and your preferences, and similar to Buddy TV and Zeebox, promises to allow you to easily click record or to "throw" the show to your 1st screen. The recommendations were personalized to any member of the household or the entire family, in theory solving the problem I currently have on my Netflix queue where a large number of my son's favorite Dinosaurs keep getting recommended to me.
When you finally selected a show or movie to watch, M-Go showed you where you could source the show from (ie Netflix, Amazon, etc), including their own directly licensed library. They even promised to integrate with cable and telco operators in the future, truly providing a Seamless experience to browse or discover content and then launch your first screen directly to that location (Live TV, an OTT provider, or your DVR for example).
When you are researching a title, there is a deep selection of meta data available about the title, the cast, other movies, they were in, etc, etc. They have even included some of the web-based experiences from the movie launch sites themselves, but as of this demo had no synchronized content available for the viewing experience.
Finally, their Discovery engine, powered by DigitalSmiths, was a breath of fresh air compared to many fo the apps out there. In theory, the app took into account your social networks and your history for your individual profile and then used an algorithm to determine what movies, TV shows and even live TV you would find relevant and interesting. So far, this approach has been the best I have seen working (of course, in a demo).
Summary: so while not being promoted as a Second Screen app, it has a pretty strong showing in 4 of the 5 feature categories we have been tracking. I will definitely want to follow-up when this app launches.
When you are researching a title, there is a deep selection of meta data available about the title, the cast, other movies, they were in, etc, etc. They have even included some of the web-based experiences from the movie launch sites themselves, but as of this demo had no synchronized content available for the viewing experience.Finally, their Discovery engine, powered by DigitalSmiths, was a breath of fresh air compared to many fo the apps out there. In theory, the app took into account your social networks and your history for your individual profile and then used an algorithm to determine what movies, TV shows and even live TV you would find relevant and interesting. So far, this approach has been the best I have seen working (of course, in a demo).
Summary: so while not being promoted as a Second Screen app, it has a pretty strong showing in 4 of the 5 feature categories we have been tracking. I will definitely want to follow-up when this app launches.
Simple. Promises great first screen integration for Samsung and Vizio and integration into major operator network set top boxes. High.
Social. Allows for liking and commenting, but does not have the level of social integration we have seen in other apps to date (yap.TV and Zeebox for example). Low.
Seamless. Best integration of other sources of content I have seen yet. Includes your operator VOD (in theory), your live channel line-up, your DVR, to local network, the M-Go licensed library, and Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, etc. Each time, it launches you directly to your feature. High.
Stimulating. It has a decent Fanhattan-like metadata experience, but no synchronized content experiences. Medium.
Discovery. Best I have seen so far. I am reluctant to give it a very high score until this is live in the wild and I can test drive the recommendations myself, but the approach to the experience and the UI were strong. This was Discovery, not Search or "your friends like this so you might, too". Medium to High.
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