After Web 2.0 the Web² {square}

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.

April Video Web Site ranking is out…Hulu up 7.1%

Not surprisingly Youtube has difficulties to increase its base due to a  lack of official and good quality content…

On Hulu moving to Cellphones, Driving mobile video usage

Hulu has done well as a browser-based video destination. In march 2009, it reached he third position in video internet website with 2.6% market share. (which is good but still really far behind Youtube, 40% market share). With Newscorp and NBC Universal as shareholders, Hulu is a promising start-up. Hulu aims to provide free and legal content sponsored by advertising to users. More recently, Disney just joined the investors enabling TV series like “Lost” or “Desperate Housewives” from ABC available on the network.

So, it’s not surprising to hear that Hulu is headed to cell phones. An anonymous mobile industry executive says the video service will soon appear on Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch, according to Business Insider.

New Media In China by Benjamin Joffe

Another interesting presentation by Benjamin Joffe from +8*

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 World Congress 2009

My feedback of the show:

1. Openness: a lot of companies opened their platform and now provides API for developers to work on it. (myGamma…)
2. Applications stores: Nokia, Samsung, Orange, SFR…all of them are opening app stores! Guess it will be harder for the users to understand what will happen!
3. Mobile Widget or mobile connected applications: Qualcomm through Plaza are strongly ahead. Operators are also interested Orange. In their recent announcement it was said by the end of 2009 80% of their mobile “signature range” will be sold with new widgets. Also worth to mention are companies like Goojet (financed by american and french VC), webwag…
4. Green: The universal charger initiative (without Apple…though it is predictible) – the Solar Energy phone designed by Samsung and LG. Nokia got an award for an Outstanding Environnmental Contribution (more info here)
5. Mobile Advertising: admob! admob! admob! and a mobile company that does affiliation for mobile web site! texomobile already more than 130 000 affiliates! Sybase released a mobile advertising platform that allows content providers, publishers, and enterprise to insert text ad into a SMS
6. Mobile Payment: Mobile payment englobes 3 different notions nowadays: mBanking, mCommerce and mRemittance. Tranfer money to your friends or relatives in your home country, several experiences launched with the Philippines operators, namely Globe. A leader in that space is a German company called Paybox (recently acquired by Sybase 365). Maxis have a great mRemittance system with Transfer To Explanation of the service: “Hotlink i-Share is a first-in-Malaysia service by Maxis that was launched in April this year and enables its prepaid subscribers to share airtime credit with their friends and family to several countries, including Indonesia and the Philippines through an easy-to-use “shared top-up” application…”
7. New mobile phones: I will only mention one: The G2 which apparently is close to perfection…what a plan!

And to finish the list of the awards and their winners! One remark in the Champion for Global Award Mobile Innovation we find a chinese company which is great as more and more I think that innovation in the mobile space will come from Asia!

Best Mobile Game: Winner: Gameloft – Real Football 2009

Best Mobile Music or Video Service: Winner: BBC iPlayer on Mobile

Best Mobile Advertising Service: Winner: Turkcell – Tonla Kazan

Best Mobile TV Service: Winner: MobiTV – MobiTV

Best Mobile Enterprise Product or Service Winner: Vodafone – Vodafone Global Enterprise Limited

Best Mobile Internet Service: Nokia – Nokia Sports Tracker

Best Mobile Money Service: Safaricom and Vodafone – M-PESA

Best Mobile Handset or Device:
INQ – INQ1
Highly Commended: Nokia – Nokia E71
Highly Commended: T-Mobile – T-Mobile G1

Best Use of Mobile for Social and Economic Development: Nuance Communications – Airtel-T9 India Consumer Vernacular Messaging Campaigns

Best Service Delivery Platform: NewBay Software – LifeCache Social Networking Solution 2.0

The Green Mobile Award: Smart Communications – Alternative Power for Cell Sites program

GSMA’s CEO Award for Outstanding Environmental Contribution: Nokia

Government Leadership Award: The Government of France

THE 2009 MOBILE INNOVATION GLOBAL AWARD CHAMPION: Cootek, China (Most Innovative Wireless Dev)

Views of Meetic’s CEO on Meetic, Entrepreneurship…

Marc Simoncini - CEO of Meetic.com

I attended yesteday a conference from the Mardis de l’ESSEC à Paris. It was an hour questions/answers to Marc Simoncini, Meetic CEO.

Here is a little summary on what he said:

On Meetic Strategy:

• Meetic 1’s strategy aimed to be the number 1 dating sites in Europe and in every European countries. He achieved it in 2007
• Meetic 2’s strategy is to embrace different segments: the match making for 35-45 users, the dating sites 25 to 35 years old and the flirting 18 to 25 years old users. Meetic 2 aims to be the number 1 in each of this segment in Europe and in every european countries.
• Meetic will soon introduce a new website only through mobile for its youth targets named pixme = myspace +facebook
• Meetic have today around 130 000 monthly users of its Mobile service. The subscription fee is 3 to 5 Euros monthly
• Meetic spends 80 Millions Eur of advertising per year

On entrepreneurship

• One of the Key success factors in any start ups is people, people and people!
• Develop your website internally, have your own technical team!

On the crisis

• The crisis is not yet in Europe and in France in particular – apart from UK and Spain.

Information on meetic.fr