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".

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).

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).