Monetizing the 2nd Screen--business models that work

Second screen, social media and companion applications are all high on the agenda of executives in the media and technology industries. As a reflection of all major TV and technology conferences in 2013, CES, NAB, IBC, and MIP had several sessions dedicated to second screen. But second screen, while proven as a reality of consumer behavior, is not yet widely seen as a revenue driver. Indeed the reality of the second screen phenomenon is accepted, as is proven by the continuous flow of statistics showing that viewers use another screen in front of their TV (one of the latest being Nielsen saying that 75% of smartphone and tablet users are engaging with second-screen content more than once a month as they watch TV[1]). Another proof of the generalization of second screen is the multiplication of companion screen applications: over the course of 2013 they have become widespread in new geographies including the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Latin America, where they had little presence only 12 months before. Comparing the space with 2012, it is clear that no TV players can ignore it. Even more striking, the players behind some of the most successful apps are large and well established: Peel now has  40m+ downloads, mostly through a global partnership with Samsung; Apple bought Matcha in August 2012; zeebox grew their partnerships with Sky, Comcast (NBCU) and Foxtel, while DirecTV acquired a share of i.TV (which bought Getglue at the end of 2013); Viggle has a longstanding partnership with DirecTV; Comcast has launched “SEE iT” with Twitter[2] and Xbox SmartGlass app was downloaded more than 17m times.  Despite this popularity and the presence of the largest players, few industry executives dare to speak openly about monetization of second screen applications and only a small percentage of 3^rd party app providers have made their progress public. There may be good reason for the industry stalwarts to keep their progress private with commercial competition so tough, but the sceptics of course believe that is because no one has actually experienced much monetization success.  So while many in the industry are wondering where the money is in second screen, next to nobody is ready to “show [you] the money”.

Looking for Evidence of Monetization and Engagement after the Hype

When I look at the 2^nd Screen industry trends today, I can’t help but think back to what we were focused on only 12 months ago as we prepared to come together at CES in Las Vegas.  We spent a lot of time talking about Social TV, the consolidation of the industry, ACR, and whether or not consumers were actually using their 2^nd Screen devices to engage with there video content—or just to play Angry Birds.

The 2nd Screen: Transforming video consumption - Q3 Update

Third Quarter, 2013: Impacting the 1^st Screen

The first 9 months of 2013 have been explosive for 2^nd Screen, though confidence by the trade press and investors has wavered somewhat during the summer.  Apps have continued to improve, new apps have kept coming, monetization evidence is in plain site through several engagement models, and the convergence of 2^nd Screen companion experiences and 2^nd Screen viewing experiences has continued to gain momentum.  The rise of the 2^nd Screen Ecosystem continues to be a blessing and curse for nearly all of the players in the video ecosystem, especially the content distributors and the brand advertisers.

In this brief summary, I am going to make references to our published research (“2^nd Screen: Transforming Video Consumption”, a 252-page report published during our 2^nd Screen Summit @ CES on January 7^th, and the Q1 and Q2 Updates of the same published on April 7^th and June 27^th ), as well as to blogs and conferences we have hosted and attended during the last 9 months.  However, the information should still be relatively coherent regardless of your attentiveness to those events. I have also included the introductory Executive Summary below for your reading clarity.

2nd Screen By the Numbers - Q3 2013 - an infographic

A review of Hulu Plus on Chromecast

I was probably as eager as everyone else in this business to investigate Hulu Plus on Chromecast yesterday.  As I noted in my previous blog, I think Chromecast is potentially the ultimate incarnation of the promise of second screen, giving the consumer the ability to use a device they are interacting with all of the time (smartphone, tablet) to Discover the program they want to watch, then using it to Control the first screen where by Chromecast takes over the stream management of what is being played and the second screen is then freed up for Enhanced viewing experiences and Social engagement.

Publishers and Advertisers Score with Ad Insertion Technology

Originally posted here (http://bit.ly/19f1iOq) and on the Unicorn Media blog.

Just a few years ago, sports fans had to either rely on their memories or wait for a sports roundup show on TV to review a crucial play or controversial call from a big game. However, now that more than half of Americans own smartphones and hundreds of millions of individuals worldwide use their tablets and mobile phones as portable media players, fans can see clips of amazing touchdown catches, incredible trick plays and game-changing penalty calls on demand.

You’d think these technological advances that expand the viewing audience would be a goldmine for the publishers that own the content. A broadcaster with the rights to footage of a balletic downfield catch, an impossible two-minute drive for the win or a fortunes-reversing penalty flag would have millions of eyeballs on that clip — and an opportunity to cash in with a spike in ad revenue. Advertisers looking to generate brand impressions would have easy access to a wider audience. But, it’s not as simple as that — or, at least, it wasn’t.

One factor that complicates the picture is that mobile devices come in all shapes and sizes and operate on a variety of platforms and networks. In the recent past, publishers who wanted to monetize compelling, time-sensitive content, like the latest sports highlights, had to isolate the relevant clip (which they could do fairly quickly) and then prepare it for viewing across multiple device types, networks and operating systems, which used to take several hours.

It was a labor-intensive, time-consuming process because, to format content to accommodate different devices, networks and operating systems, publishers had to break down the content into thousands of files, which then had to be stored and managed. Additional challenges arose around ad insertion, where lack of universal support technology made monetization even more difficult. By the time publishers dealt with all of these factors and stitched in ads, the clip was often old news, and the potential goldmine had been transformed into a cost center.

New technology now allows content owners to upload a video file one time and get a single URL that delivers content across all smartphones, tablets, connected living room devices, game consoles and operating systems, including iOS and Android. New ad-insertion solutions also make it possible for publishers to dynamically integrate ads into time-sensitive content, enabling real-time analytics and targeting.

With these new technology solutions, publishers can monetize and analyze content across all Internet-connected devices. They can seamlessly integrate content with existing ad-management systems and increase profitability through targeted dynamic ad insertion, providing a personalized viewing experience for sports fans on thousands of connected devices that use native-media players.

To maximize monetization, publishers can place pre-roll, mid-roll and post-roll ads strategically throughout the content and target users to generate additional revenue. By using the sophisticated cloud-based technologies that are now available, publishers can drastically reduce time to market, eliminate the need for client-side code, plugins or SDKs and eliminate ad blockers.

This means they can cash in on time-sensitive events like game highlights, buzz-generating clips of crucial plays and non-sports content, including breaking news, political-debate highlights and much more. These new technologies deliver a win for viewers, who can now get instant access to popular content on their mobile devices, and publishers and advertisers, who can now score big with ad-insertion technology that helps them capitalize on monetization opportunities with incredible speed.

- See more at: http://www.agencypost.com/publishers-and-advertisers-score-with-ad-insertion-technology/#sthash.oi6Ps6kz.dpuf

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.