Once your TV is connected…

I believe the future of video consumption on TV will be driven by 3 things:

1. Watching Live content (mainly sports, news, events, TV series, reality show)

2. Access to On-Demand content through recommendations, social networks,from Internet

3. User Experience -a simple, easy and convergent interface, TV, Web & Mobile – and soon to come is the 3D technology (see finepix real 3D)

Of course the device on which you will watch this content will just depend on “where you are” when you want to watch it.

In this post I will focus more on companies aiming at providing video services directly to end users, mostly without going through a Pay-TV provider.

Sky Player and the apps…now what next?

The company is giving nothing, telling followers @SkyMobile that they should keep an eye on the iTunes store in a coupe of weeks for more details.

Sky already released 3 iPhone apps : Sky News, Sky Sports Live Cricket and a Sky+ PVR remote.

Maybe we will see an app for booking or VOD Catalog app…let’s keep an eye on the app store.

The Sky Player is: “the home of Sky TV – but online. For anyone. Hundreds of Sky Movies plus loads of top TV titles. Available right now. You don’t even need a Sky dish! Want more information?” That is how they advertize it…at least on their website.

Doesn’t this sound like a defensive move to you…

Do you Sling? …I do

An article from the NyTimes talked about the future of Sling Media and its flag-ship product: the Sling Box.

The editor starts by a glimpse on what could be heaven for a TV fan:

Technology evangelists and television aficionados want all their TV on the Web, and they are tired of waiting for Internet companies and content owners to make it happen.

But such an entertainment nirvana already exists — at least for owners of a silver and black gadget called the Slingbox.

Why Sling Box was created? The basic need covered by the SlingBox was the ability to watch your favourite content anywhere i.e watching the NFL/NHL finals when abroad, outside of your home or in another country. And I knew some Americans living in Singapore using Sling Boxes of friends in the US to watch their favorite sports events.

Does Gen X exist only because of Gen Y?

Reading Ryan Healy’s post on ”A Message to Gen X” at Employee Evolution:

“Most of the questions I get from Human Resources and Recruiting professionals about Generation Y are the same. They are all about why this generation expects to get so much so fast, why we feel entitled to flexibility, why we think we deserve high pay immediately, and so forth. The thing that surprises me every time is that it’s not the Baby Boomers who are so upset with Gen Y, it’s the Gen Xers. The more I pay attention, the more obvious it is that it’s the Gen Xers who think we’re just lazy, entitled Millennials.

The problem is that Generation X did not get what they asked for, and Generation Y is seemingly being catered to like we are owed something.”

From Ryan’s article, Gen Y is better positioned to take the reigns from the Boomers than Gen X because of the following factors: 1) better demographics, 2) better use of technology, and 3) better teamwork.

I will add 2 more factors 4) Globalization awareness, 5) Diversity advocates.

New Media In China by Benjamin Joffe

Another interesting presentation by Benjamin Joffe from +8*

Apple 1987 Video: “The Knowledge Navigator”

And this is why Apple is so advanced.

I had the pleasure to discuss with someone working at Apple in the early 80s, and she showed this video. She told me she used to broadcast this video to her clients; showing Apple’s vision!

Back then, we can see the Touch screen, multiple mailbox system (voice, messages…), the climate issue discussed, voice recognition and the integrated approach!

Is this what we call convergence?

Thanks to GigaOM for the picture!

Convergence services and widgets on tv

I do not see any service to send SMS from your TV…

Google in ‘late-stage’ talks to buy Twitter

Google offer should be equal or exceed facebook last autumn offering of 500 Million Dollars. The difference is Google might give a part in cash and shares.

Twitter lets people post short 140-character messages; people often subscribe to follow the stream of these tweets from acquaintances and, increasingly, companies and celebrities

SMEs are also using twitter, it can be a night club in Singapore (The Butter Factory) and even a milk factory in France!

Mobile 2.0 Paris March 10th

From an overall perspective today was very intense and the speakers were interesting and some of the panelists were extremely sharp and pinpointing the right issues (Jerome Bouteiller, Frederic Dumeny). One of the major challenge I found is to take out from our minds that Mobile users are not always PC users and that services need to be conceived only for a mobile usage! I think that in some cases comparison with the web makes no sense… Take the e-commerce, it’s been years users are downloading ringtones with premium SMS, or are using paid adult services and this is truly a mobile service.

I am going to give some remarks on the different panel I attended:

1. Widgets Panel

Duality between Applications (connected apps reachable in 1 click and widgets in container what webwag or goojet is doing reachable in more than 2 clicks) and Widgets Containers. What I understood at the end, by discussing with WebWag is Widgets in a container is targetting Joe “The Plumber” and Maggie “the Hockey Mum” i.e low-end mobile phone users.

Container of usual services (weather, news, mails, social networks, local information, traffic) target low-end phones and provide a very easy and intuitive way of consuming information. How do they make money by providing White Label widgets to companies, Revenue Sharing on advertising, or Value added services.

I, now, understand why VCs are so attracted by these companies.

2. Mobile Advertising Panel

Nothing really new. There is a strong shift towards the mobile internet from the brands. Applications are a hot topic.

Nevertheless the environment is still very complex, no tracking system (though marvellous, nokia interactive, microsoft, sofialys, phonevalley are implementing solutions). Cellfish summed up very well: bottom line what still work pretty well today is Push SMS.

All the panelists saw a strong demand in Geolocalization.

3. Mobile Social Network

I was very disappointed by this Panel, as the panelists did not speak too much of Social Network…Gemalto released their new Multimedia SIM Card, project name UPteq.

I am suprized by Orange, they are very proactive in different mobile services areas with my Social Place, Jingo and of course Studio 34 their content arm.

4. 2 Platforms, 2 Strategies: Iphone vs Android

The best Panel by far.

Visuamobile created 18 apps, have more than 1 Million download, 14 persons, 9 developers, 11 servers and 200 mb of bandwidth.

There is a problem of Search Engine Optimization on the app store – not a new topic but so true… Visuamobile manged to drive traffic through PR with bloggers, newspapers online and offline…

I discussed also with Mr Silberzahn from Digital Airways. It was a pleasure talking to him, as I guessed this company is healthy, well managed and have good on-going projects. For him Android is the way to go, it is a fact most of their new projects are on Android. DA specializes on developing UI on any devices, Mobile, Netbooks, Set Top Boxes and PND. Historicly their competitors are Purple Labs vs Streamezzo or Bluestreak (client lead solution)

5. mCommerce

Same comment as for the Mobile Social Network…it was very bad we did not talk about true transaction based model implemented in Europe whether in NFC or through Mobile Operators. I am thinking of Austria, Germany….or even the best example which is M-Pesa in Kenya where fishermen sold their fish before coming back to the harbour…

Mobile Monday March 9th Paris

This mobile monday was sponsored by Device Anywhere.

Voxmobili, Device Anywhere, Orange Partner, Xelasys were presenting their different solutions.

I found this Parisian MoMo interesting however a bit disapointing in its form, sound was not very good especially for the Orange part…and I fell there was a lack of substance in the companies’ speech.

Nevertheless, I was impressed by the solution offered by Device Anywhere that literraly let you test your application/service on hardware mobile phones (2500 in total) connected to servers. So at the end it is not an emulator it is a mobile phone that you use to test your services! So it looks like a very good solution never tried it though.Device Anyzhere recently made a partnerships with Zed,  one of the largest mobile content supplier.

Vox made a good impression to me too. I was following their different solution especially their phonebook 2.0 integrating social network in your “event historic” (SMS, email, Facebook Status…). They mention the service from Device Anywhere is good and compliant to their requirements of testing their apps on different mobile phones.

Xelasys specializes in the application of multilingual databases (dictionaries, translators, lexicons, glossaries…) from the PC to mobile (Iphone, Smartphone, Pocket PC, etc.).As said by the head of Xelasys there are a bunch of techies looking for a good marketer to help them and I think they are right! They also need someone to help them financially and markertingly.

This week I am attending Le Mobile 2.0 a forward looking event, the cream of the mobile in France…