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".

Renewed Investment in the 2nd Screen Industry

In the last few weeks there has been notable activity in the 2^nd Screen space.  Watchwith raised $5 million and ConnecTV raised $1.4 million.  In the Discovery space, Matcha closed its operations while Squrl and Vidora launched consumer-oriented services.  Yahoo bought Qwiki (for creating user generated 2^nd Screen content) and Samsung acquired Boxee (presumably to attack the digital video end of the living room).  And then over the weekend, billionaire Carlos Slim announced he was investing $40 million into Shazam to accelerate their pivot from a music service to a second screen TV advertising service.  So while we have predicting that the space would consolidate (with some evidence that consolidation is taking place), there is enough market interest in the growth potential of the space to attract new investment and new services.

Special Purpose vs. Multi-screen: the second screen debate continues

We've spent time in blogs (including this one) and on conference panels debating the subject: as the industry evolves, will there be one app "to rule them all" or will the market evolve into a collection of specialty apps for major events or niche interests?

Need a #SecondScreen companion for the Oscars and the Red Carpet preshow?

This is going to be a great test of "special purpose" vs. "multi-function" apps and I would love to get feedback / comments on my blog (below) or on Twitter (@ChuckParkerTech, @S32Day, hashtag #2ndScreenOscars).

My wife is hosting a Red Carpet and Oscars party and I plan to run a few iPads and a Samsung 10.1 Tab 2 on a mixture of different apps to see what the reactions are.

On special purpose, here is what I will review:
- The official Oscars app. Last year it sported 6 camera feeds for the red carpet preshow, but also sported some technical glitches. High expectations this year.
- E! Live from the Red Carpet. Tend to a do a great job at all of these events.
- TOK for Oscars. I love their Football and Baseball app (think of 2nd Screen and Skype voice combined) and am very curious to check out their Oscars version.
- The Oscars Guide and Awards Hero (both have voting and tracking features).
- The Race to the Oscars (from the Hollywood Reporter).

For the multi-function apps, I will be spending time with:
- zeebox. They did a great job on the Grammys and Golden Globes--I am expecting more here.
- ConnecTV. While I am still getting used to the new UI, they have promised a special Oscars experience.
- Shazam. Continue to develop their features and functionality in this space.
- Viggle. Gamification / trivia -- earn rewards while you and millions of others watch.
- IMDB. Also promising a special experience for the Oscars.
- BoxFish. I am interested to see what they do with their live speech to text capabilities.
- GetGlue and IntoNow. Hugh "check-in" numbers--curious to see what they do beyond that.
- Yap.tv. Tend to have a decent social and stimulating experience for most shows.

Share your experiences with me on the blog, on Twitter, or live on Tuesday at the Beverly Hilton (1.30-6pm) at our 2nd Annual 2nd Screen Summit in LA (www.2ndScreenSummit.com)

@ChuckParkerTech

The 2013 Grammys and Second Screen

Last year, the Grammys were the most social single event of 2012 with over 12 million social impressions.  CBS just released their stats confirming that the 55th Grammys were the most viewed Grammy show since 1993, with over 28 million viewers on CBS.

But for second screen, I cannot honestly say we made a huge leap forward in the last 12 months.  Somethings are better, some worse, and some continue to be interesting to watch as consumer engagements around the experiences drive the market forward.

The interesting:  This was the 2nd opportunity we have had recently to really test "special purpose" apps vs. 3rd party "multi-function" apps.  CBS deployed an updated "special purpose" app for the Grammy's a few weeks ago (with updates coming just a few days before the event itself).  zeebox, Viggle, and E! Live from the Red Carpet lead the "multi-function" effort for this type of event.  As a consumer myself, I can't say the special purpose app was significantly better than the 3rd party apps--in fact, because I am now used to the UI of zeebox, Viggle, and E! Live from the Red Carpet, I actually found them easier to use.

The negative:

• It was still time delayed by 3 hours for the west coast.  While some apps (Viggle for example) tried to keep out spoilers, most second screen apps didn't--and even my CNN app kept telling me who the winners were before I turned it on.
• The broadcasting network (CBS) had a very busy UI/UX with too many spoilers (including photos of the winners) that should have been better than third party apps like zeebox or E! Live from the Red Carpet.  They seemed to have attempted to make the web and tablet experience the same (perhaps to save money), but watered down both in the process.
• Most of the focus was around the "social" aspect of second screen, with little attention being paid to the "stimulating" side of the experience (unlike the Golden Globes and People's Choice awards from a few weeks ago, which were great at both).

The positive improvements:

• For consumers looking for an enhanced viewing experience, zeebox did a great job during the event, though it could not stifle the time delay of tweets.  They were not in the US last year. 
• Viggle did a decent job of managing the time shift and offering consumers a quiz-based experiences throughout the show that was decently compelling--this didn't exist a year ago.
• The E! Live from the Red Carpet app gave great pre-show experiences, mostly improved from 2012's efforts in many ways.
• The program itself paid more attention in on-screen graphics and commentation to Social TV (mostly Twitter) and Second Screen, which I think is great for the industry in total.
• There were decent showings from Shazam and GetGlue (neither of which did much last year), though some good app experiences from last year seemed to have waned in their efforts.

What are your thoughts about "special purpose" vs. "multi-function" apps?

Feel free to comment here on this blog or on LinkedIn in our 2nd Screen Society forum.  Or just reach out to us on Twitter @S32Day or @ChuckParkerTech using the hashtag #SecondScreen.

Want to continue this discussion live?   Come see us on February 26th at the Beverly Hilton for our 2nd Annual 2nd Screen Summit in LA 1.30-6pm, with cocktails to follow.

How was your Second Screen Super Bowl 47?

On Thursday, we suggested a few apps you might want to try out during the Super Bowl to see what kind of enhanced and stimulating experiences the market has dream-up for such an event.  How did they stack up?

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).

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".

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 Coming Battle for Second Screen

In the last few weeks, a key number of market events have taken place that give an indication of what lies ahead for Second Screen.


- Game Consoles. While all of us know have known for some time that Microsoft's announcement in the spring about SmartGlass was an important sign to their commitment to the space, most of us (including me) were surprised they delivered a revision-1 level experience relatively quickly and have a serious vision about what this change in consumer behavior can mean to their platform in terms of changing hard core gamer experience AND changing video entertaiment on the platform. But what I think is passing over the heads of most of the industry is what impact the Wii U will have on gaming and the second screen space.

An Updated View of which Second Screen Apps to Watch in 2012

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).

Second Screen and College Football

As an experiment, I thought I would test drive a number of popular apps over the weekend while watching a popular football game.  The Notre Dame / Miami match-up was perfect for the trial.

Since the game was being shown on NBCU, I gave their NBC Sports LIVE EXTRA app a try.  While it is a pretty decent app, even allowing you to stream the game on a 30-second delay, there was no real second screen experience--more of a first screen on your tablet if you are no where near a TV.

A wrap-up of the 2nd Screen Summit in Amsterdam (#S3AMS)

If you weren’t fortunate enough to attend our 2^nd Screen Summit at IBC on Saturday, you really missed a special gathering (see the Twitter feed).  The afternoon was punctuated by some great presentations (“The Future of TV” by Alan Wolk of Kit Digital, “Synchronisation and Media Interaction with Your Consumer” by Alex Terpstra of Civolution), a strong review of the current 2^nd screen market data by Renaud Fuchs of Ericsson, and two great panels on monetization (featuring Joe Inzerillo of MLB) and consumer engagement (highlighted by Anthony Rose of zeebox).  We even hosted cocktails during the event and a sizable dinner after the event to take advantage of everyone’s creative juices.  For those of you that were registered attendants or are 2^nd Screen Society members or advisors, you can find the presentations and audio downloads here.  For everyone else, here were the key take-aways for me from the summit and for second screen at IBC:

Second Screen by the Numbers for Summer, 2012

Second screen continues to explode as a segment of the digital living room.  While the 2012 Summer Olympics certainly stole the show by becoming the "first Social Olympics" in every aspect, there has been much progress across the board to keep everyone's enthusiasm in the space buoyant:

The Olympics and Second Screen - not so great

While the 2012 Summer Olympics has certainly been appropriately dubbed the first "Social Olympics" (Twitter and Facebook comparisons discussed daily on the broadcast discussions by commentators) and even NBCU has come out and described it as a TV Everywhere success (streaming every event live for authenticated Pay TV subscribers in the US), it has be abysmal for Second Screen enthusiasts.

Don't get me wrong--I think the streaming capabilities to watch the events live were usually well delivered, and I have nothing against the massive Twitter and Facebook discussions.  I guess my point of view stems from the belief that until now, it has been live sports that has really driven the most valuable use cases for a second screen or companion app while watching the first screen, usually resulting in a more engaged consumer.  Knowing the stats of the football, baseball or basketball game of key players, updated in real time, is a big plus for the sports enthusiasts (of any sport).  But somehow, the Olympic implementations fell well short.

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.

Thoughts on Using Audio Sync for Automated Content Recognition in Second Screen Apps

(this originally appeared in Civolution's Vision Newsletter at NAB 2012)

There has been a lot of a debate in the blogosphere and trade journals about the value of automated content recognition (ACR) to the user experience and the best way to provide that capability.  Let’s start by exploring the value of the feature first.  Most apps are using the concept of ACR to provide ease of use for the consumer by identifying the show they are watching and “checking them in” to the show (IntoNow is probably the most well-known for this, but many others like ConnecTV and Viggle use it as well).  Shazam uses it to provide a launch point to additional information about a product you are watching in a commercial.  TVplus uses it to provide a synchronized content experience.  There have been discussions about holding the microphone open (or checking occasionally) and when the consumer is determined to be watching something else, to prompt them to change channels (whether for rewards or otherwise). 

Second Screening with the Oscars after the Red Carpet

I had hoped the day after the Oscars, like with the Super Bowl and the Grammys, would be characterized by record breaking statistics.  I even checked the data several times through out the day to see if any data was forthcoming.  It seems neither Trendrr nor BlueFin labs reported anything on big ground breaking stats today.

I thought Lost Remote did a great job summarizing their experience yesterday.  Not surprisingly, mine was very similar.  After finishing my mini-focus group with the neighbors, I headed to a quiet living room where I could test Umami's new features, give Viggle and ConnecTV another go, test the (now) classics of BuddyTV, Yap.TV and TVplus, and see if the much marketed change in IntoNow would stack up.  I have to admit, similar to my red carpet experience and despite the apps continuously crashing, I kept coming back to the official ABC Oscar app because it had unique content (the multiple and selectable camera angles).

First things first, like I said in my previous blog, I liked the concepts in the ABC official Oscars app, I just hated the poor app quality.  I voted 3 different times before the votes actually 'saved' in the app.  It crashed continually.  It had poor Social features.  But the exclusive and selectable camera angles made me keep coming back.




Umami had some interesting new features to crow about.  The trending Twitter indication was interesting (but for consumers, probably less so).  The Freeze Frame app was a cool way to share content (though I suspect as yet unapproved by content creators).  Essentially, you hit a button and the magic server in the cloud snaps a picture (I am assuming this only works for live TV and not even time shifted east coast / west coast TV).  If you could get the photo right, it was pretty cool.

I still love TVplus's implementation of synchronized content events.  They have the right mix of timing and variety.  I just wish they made more effective use of the middle third of the screen (from a UI perspective, not so great).  The sync-ing worked great every time I tried it and I enjoyed seeing what they had to say.

I still don't get Viggle.  I know they are well-funded, but as a consumer, I am still struggling.  The app let you play along with a trivia question every 45 seconds, and you earned points for playing.  Why?  If the advertiser needs to know I am connected, aren't their more passive ways to do that?  Seems like a waste of consumer engagement (not to be taken lightly).  While it was cool seeing what others picked and if I was right or wrong, I still ask, WHY?

ConnecTV?  It did better.  The room was VERY quiet and the audio sync'd successfully 3 of 4 attempts.  It was the first time the "synchronized" content did not appear random (though based on some DVR pauses, I don't think it was synchronized but just tied to the current real-time moment).  I still don't like the advertising engagement (not in synch with the TV) or the use of real state from a UI perspective.



IntoNow surprised me by having a relatively cool feature.  They showed recent photos of the red carpet and the Oscars and asked for a like or no-like, and then shared the rating of other users with you.  Very much the "Social Networking Hot or Not" example from the movie.  I actually think their Twitter feed implementation is better, though still needs curation and time-syncing.  The massive real-estate to display who else is using the app seems odd at best.

 Yap.tv hasn't changed much.  Very much the social-only app, but I have to say that having the Twitter feed literally fly by is not a great experience.







Miso?  No comment.

My conclusion: 1st party apps (ABC Oscars) are falling prey to the standard development pitfalls.  I think there is a better strategy here for content creators/distributors to give the Stimulating content to a few trusted (and well implemented) consumer apps that can aggregate traffic to support their brand rather than botching up the experience themselves.

I also think the existence of so many attempts is indicative of one more thing: whether mass market yet or not, the networks and advertisers THINK the market is ready for them.

Second Screen App "Shoot-out"

As many of you already know, we are holding a 1-day conference next week at the Loews in Santa Monica (Feb 22) with two parallel tracks: one on Second Screen and one on Social TV.

We are planning to run a 2nd screen app "shoot-out" around lunch time.  Essentially, we are going to take the audience through a three-minute tour of each of 10 Second Screen TV apps where in the 1st minute we walk through a series of use cases for the consumer on a scripted TV show, in the 2nd minute we perform similar tasks on a live / reality TV show, and then give the app developers a chance to show off the features they believe differentiate themselves in the 3rd minute.

Then we'll let the conference audience vote using Twitter hash tags and combine that feedback with the views of a small panel of "expert" judges (50/50).

Finally, we'll award the winners in 6 categories at the end of the conference day (just before cocktails):

1. Best in Simple (ability to control the first screen)
2. Best in Social (ability to interact with others via Twitter, Facebook, live chat, etc)
3. Best in Seamless (ability to provide multiple sources for viewing content)
4. Best in Stimulating (ability to provide the consumer with interesting and relevant content during their viewing experience)
5. Best in Discovery (ability to provide the consumer with recommendations on other content he/she may be interested in)
6. Best Overall 2nd Screen Experience

Here are the list of apps we plan to review next Wednesday:

1. BuddyTV
2. TVplus
3. Fanhattan
4. ConnecTV
5. Dijit
6. Viggle
7. Umami
8. Miso
9. yap.TV
10. IntoNow

Visit www.2ndscreensummit.com to reserve your place in the conference and get a chance to vote on your favorite apps.  See you on Wednesday in Santa Monica.

Watching the Grammys with a SecondScreen

There were several advertised/marketed apps for tonight's Grammy's flying around the internet and on Twitter.  I thought, similar to the Super Bowl, I will do an app sampling to see how the consumer experience is improving across the board.

E! Live from the Red Carpet was an interesting app to watch the pre-Grammy show with.  For someone like myself who is not really paying attention to the red carpet, it had all of the "money shot" photos of the stars arriving in an easy to flick thru UI.  However, it behaved more like an app the assumed I was not watching TV than one that did.

The official Grammy/CBS app was surprisingly (for me at least) good.  You had decent Stimulating and Social options from nominees and winners to Twitter/chat feeds, to backstage live streaming interviews after the stars won their awards (something a real music fan would appreciate when the network is not carrying their star's post award comments).  The also packed the Social feed with "Insiders" including stars present at the award, the standard official feeds, and a wider fan feed.  They even had some decent trivia and decent polls.  As I said, a surprisingly decent UX for the consumer.

I switch over to see what Viggle and Bing's partnership was all about.  I still think their business model is interesting, but other than the Twitter feed (pretty standard in most apps today), there was not much else exciting happening in the app tonight.

I did try Miso, but could not get any Sideshows to come up and other than checking in, did not experience anything in the Social or Stimulating feature set.

So I broke ranks a little bit and gave Yap.tv a test drive since they have been improving in their UX lately.  For Social (Twitter feed, polls created by consumers, Live Chat), it does an outstanding job.

For me, the pleasant surprise of the night was TVplus.  Their show was well-curated tonight, with very relevant synchronized Stimulating events firing every 45 seconds or so.  I was actually quite captivated and hung out for awhile to see what they would choose next to try to gain my interest.

ConnecTV wasn't so hot.  Did a great job recognizing the show, but still doesn't know who my friends are and after a few minutes, SNAFU'd and showed me an ad for the upcoming Super Bowl.  A bit odd.

BuddyTV did a great job of helping me change channels but I was not looking much for their prowess in Simple and Discovery at the time (very little Social and Stimulating).

While Dijit's stimulaling features tonight continue to improve, it was Into from Yahoo that impressed me the most in terms of improving their experience from simple check-in to a more Social and Stimulating experience.

If I had to give a conclusion on the experience, I would still say there is much room for improvement. Clearly, the official Grammy app had the most relevant "official" content (to the point where I could not find Tweets slamming Rhianna's performance where I could find them in most of the 3rd party apps.  If you appreciate synchronized, relevant Stimulating content, than I think TVplus is the right answer for you.  If you like the social side, I thought ironically Yap.TV and the official Grammy app were neck and neck, thought the Yap.tv UI seemed more compelling.