The Second Screen Hype Cycle

I was reading an article recently from an industry “evangelist” describing the second screen phenomena as very “nascent technology”, that the odds of you discovering that something is on television that you didn’t pre-record or already know about is low, that the majority of consumers will continue to want to channel surf to watch the lion’s share of their content and that the “remote is not going anywhere anytime soon”.

Not a middle of the road stance.

I thought long and hard about that article.  Part of the problem being described is a classic market adoption challenge known as “crossing the chasm”.  Fair enough--people’s behaviors take time to change as we are all creatures of habit.  But as I read and re-read the article, I started looking at the individual feature comments and thought in terms of the feature sets we have used to describe second screen (Simple, Social, Seamless, Stimulating, Discovery).

And then I re-read the most recent Gartner report called the “Hype Cycle for Broadcast and Entertainment - 2012.”

Preparing for Second Screen at IBC

Second Screen doesn't appear to have taken much of a summer break since our 2nd Screen Society conference in NY on June 26th.  Discovery just recently announced a new Social TV app, Yahoo and Twitter announced support for the Olympics, and two official Apps have been launched for the Olympics (London 2012: Join In and London 2012: Results). While I am disappointed that I didn't see a synchronized app come out of the official Olympic camp, I would expect 3rd party apps to be all over the games when they kick-off tomorrow on the 27th of July (you see can these headline articles here). If you are in the UK, I would highly recommend trying Zeebox for the experience. If you are based in the US, TVplus runs a great synchronized experience as well (see our app review from a few weeks ago).

Something else new and interesting happened this week in Europe: Grolsch decided to sponsor a movie experience app for Alliance Films (built by Mobovivo). I can't help but think of the monetization panel we had back in NY where a debate about how and when "real" monetization might reveal itself, but this might be as classic as it gets in terms of brand sponsorship: a major brand from the Netherlands in Europe sponsoring a 2nd Screen app built around perhaps one of the hottest movie franchise creators this summer (Alliance distributes the Hunger Games).

Catching up with Mobovivo and Adrian Grenier

Thursday afternoon, Digital Hollywood in NYC wrapped up with an app launch from Adrian Grenier (Entourage, producer/founder of Indie film company Reckless Films, etc) and Trevor Doerksen (founder and CEO of Mobovivo).

The app (due to launch any day) isn't necessarily a second screen app, but is an interesting foray into how engagement is changing between celebrities and fans.  Mobovivo put the app together for Adrian and has a few other apps in the works on a major sports team and a TV network that look like it will raise the bar even higher for the rest of the market on building a great consumer User eXperience (UX) for second screen apps.

As Adrian discussed his app (Reckless Adrian Grenier), it was clear that he has bigger plans for the app in the near and mid-term future. He sees this as a way to have fans share photos of themselves with him and other celebrities in his projects, a way to get an autograph from Adrian even if they don't physically meet, and a way to further engage fans beyond a webpage, Facebook or Twitter.  It was refreshing to hear someone take this change in behavior as an opportunity to improve the way he engages his fans, rather than a threat.

Trevor clearly sees how rapidly this market is unfolding. He is rapidly expanding his operation to cover LA and is partnering to give his team scale and creative skill sets on the projects they are delivering on. He's got a very clear vision on the feature sets of a second screen engagement, with a big focus on Stimulating and Social, and is working hard to evangelize a strong UX for the consumers with his clients.

While I won't review the other apps he plans to release here (until they are ready for review), I will say that he is someone is this space that should be watched closely.

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