TV1Click - TV & Web Convergence Discussion Blog

Is Television Steve Job's Final Frontier? - linked from Daily Finance

By Rick Aristotle Munarriz, The Motley Fool Posted 12:45PM 10/24/11

All of us at TVissimo are curious to see how Steve Jobs is going to change the TV landscape as he moved his company so that now - Apple may be ready to think inside the box -- the television box, that is.

One of the juiciest nuggets in Walter Isaacson's authorized Steve Jobs biography is that the iconic tech visionary was working on an actual Apple-branded television as one of his final projects at the company.

"I'd like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use," Jobs told Isaacson. "It would be seamlessly synced with all of your devices and with iCloud."

"It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it."

A History of Chatter

Professional Apple watchers have been speculating on Apple's evolutionary move into flat-screen televisions for a long time.

"Apple's fantastic ability to create exceptionally user-friendly products could revolutionize TVs just like the iPhone changed the mobile phone market," Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster said more than two years ago.

Ticonderoga Securities analyst Brian White and VentureBeat's Dylan Tweney have continued to add perspective to the speculative fire.

In a note to clients six months ago, White suggested that the Cupertino tech giant may have a Web-tethered television on the market as early as this holiday shopping season. That obviously isn't going to happen, but an analyst doesn't go out on that kind of limb unless he has pretty good sources indicating that a full-blown big-ticket television set is in the works.

Connected bloggers -- including Tweney -- began throwing out a 2012 release date this summer.

However, now that even Jobs is -- or rather sadly was -- publicly discussing an integrated TV that's easy to use, it really becomes a matter of time before Apple makes it official.

There's Nothing Good on TV

Don't confuse this with Apple TV, the small set-top gadget that's been a rare dud in Apple's arsenal. We're talking actual smart televisions.

Google  hasn't had a lot of success with the Google TV platform it introduced last year, but the search engine giant rushed that initiative to the market. Apple will have time to get it right. When Jobs told Isaacson that he finally "cracked" it, he wasn't talking about cracking the screen.

Apple's television should be able to stream your owned content backed up on Apple's new iCloud storage solution. There will naturally be apps and access to the prevailing streaming services. Google TV has apps, but developers will finally get serious about developing for Apple. In other words, even without trying, Apple will raise the bar.

(Spoiler alert: Apple will try.)

Big Boxes: Big Headaches

Apple wouldn't be the first computer company to have dreams of becoming a TV star. Dell and Hewlett-Packard rolled out branded flat screens a couple of years ago. Why not? PC monitors continue to get bigger, and the line is blurred between large flat-screen PC monitors and small flat-screen LCD and plasma TVs.Top of Form

Bottom of Form

Consumers didn't take to Dell and HP as the centerpiece of their home theater systems. HP in particular was just ahead of its time in introducing its Web-surfing MediaSmart line five years ago. However, neither of those two box-smiths have the brand panache of Apple, which can get folks camping outside its stores overnight to become the earliest of the early adopters.

Traditional manufacturers will tell you that making televisions is a cutthroat business with meager margins, but that's obviously not going to dissuade Apple. Its brand alone commands a market premium, giving it a markup advantage that has turned commodity gadgetry -- MP3 players, smartphones, laptops, and tablets -- into juicy profit centers.

Avoiding the Mickey Mouse Mistake

Now that Jobs has gone public with his new vision for television, it will be hard for Apple to resist its introduction. If and when it hits the market, it will be Jobs' baby -- his youngest and final child. And it will be a big hit, at least initially.

A lot can happen between yesterday's dream and tomorrow's reality. Several decades ago, Walt Disney discussed EPCOT on his weekly television show. His Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow was a planned city, with actual residents and self-sustaining operations. The EPCOT amusement park that opened in Florida many years after his passing bears no resemblance to his original vision.

This won't happen here. For starters, the gap between Jobs' words and the actual rollout will be substantially shorter. Apple also has no reason to deviate from the proven formula, and having $81.6 billion in cash and marketable securities gives the company the freedom to once again dream out loud.

The Apple television is coming. Start lining up and thanking Jobs.

See full article from DailyFinance: http://srph.it/rpLCS3

Steve Jobs Bio Alludes to a Fully Integrated Apple TV - linked from SignalNews

In an Oct 24, 2011 post on SignalNews - Chilton Tippin wrote that Steve Jobs completely upended several industries in his lifetime, ranging from personal computing to music.
It’s now surfacing that he paved the way to upend one more industry in his posterity: television.
In the much-talked-about biography written by Walter Isaacson, Jobs was quoted as having said:
“I’d like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use. It would be seamlessly synced with all of your devices and with iCloud. It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it.”
In addition, investment bank analysts for Piper Jaffray released a recent report detailing a number of developments that point to Apple’s creation of a fully integrated television set.

(Abbreviated here, available in full on the CNN article.)

* Analysts believe Apple has invested in manufacturing facilities in Asia to produce LCD displays ranging in size from 3.5 inches to 50 inches.
* Analysts met with an Asian supplier contact who said Apple had already commissioned the building of TV prototypes.
* The USPTO has published Apple patents for television-related technology, including software for browsing and recording live television.
Apple will not be the first major internet company gunning for the living room. Long-time rivals Microsoft and Google have made aggressive plays, too.
Google, of course, has its not-very-popular Google TV. And Microsoft announced recently that it will begin to roll-out Internet connected televisions via the Xbox 360 in time for the holidays this year. The Xbox 360 will integrate Bing, allowing people to search the web and all of the content on their Xbox’s hard drive. It will also be controlled by the Kinect, so people can voice search and use their bodies as remote controls.
As of yet, little is known about Steve Jobs’s vision for the Apple’s television. But it’s safe to assume a few things. First of all, an easy application would make your iPhone or iPad the remote control. It could integrate with Siri, allowing you to use your voice to control your television. And all content would by fully synced in iCloud.
One of the major sticking points will be negotiations with Hollywood studios and networks, who try hard to keep their content within walled gardens. In that respect, however, Apple may have a bit of an upper hand, as it has had a strong record of protecting content with digital rights management.
Other challenges for Apple will be that it has largely failed to create a social network and it has no search engine. Microsoft has already made inroads in the living room with Xbox, and can bring Bing to bear. While Google has failed so far in producing a viable television product, it owns both a social network and search engine.
Remembering Steve Jobs’s remark, however, Apple will likely have an advantage in that its television will be “completely easy to use.” Apple, after all, built its formidable reputation on intuitive operating systems.
This development by Apple is a huge potential change for the TV industry, as it may change the entire TV landscape, much as other Apple products have changed the industries of music publishing, cellular phones, book publishing and computing, with the only remaining entertainment segment being Television. We at TVissimo are curiosu to see how Apple's revolutionary designs will change how we search for shows we like to watch and how we bring them to our living-room TV screens. As they say at the Olympics - "let the games begin" and we wish Apple much success for their endeavor.

 

Facebook Making Moves to Connect Friends with TV

We have been writing about social media and TV for some time. (see posts: TV Industry Uses Social Media for Oscars and More; Traditional Media is Expanding its Audience Through Social Media; and Centralization of TV Has Opened Doors for Social Media). Now Facebook wants to make TV more social as reported by Emil Protalinski at ZDNet. They intend to do this by improving how you find your favorite TV content and how you connect to your friends around that content.

Emil reports that Andy Mitchell, SVP of Strategic Partner Development at Facebook, told attendees at the last TV marketing conference PromaxBDA that social program guides are the future for television. He said that Facebook could partner with TV providers to help their customers find relevant programming by leveraging their social graph. We are very pleased to hear about this move at TVissimo as we can support these types of content related connections.

As we know well, current options for finding what you want to watch on TV from the hundreds of possibilities can be difficult. This is why we started TVissimo. Now Mitchell is quoted as stating, “But think about a program guide where you see what your friends are watching, that changes the experience. I think the real opportunity is creating a TV experience in which one or two or three of your friends share their viewing experiences which gets people to become recruiters for your show.”

How about sharing likes on Facebook while at the same time letting TVissimo localize the show to everyone so you get your local channel and time?  TVissimo also has a favorite’s list which you could share with your friends.  This could promote more collective viewing and then the sharing of comments and reactions through Facebook.  These conversations can help drive more traffic to TV shows. The Facebook and Twitter “water-cooler effect” could also make big shows even bigger.  For example, The Grammy Awards had its highest rating in a decade this year with a lot of online support. 

People are increasingly using the Web and TV at the same time. A recent study by Deloitte of American consumers ages 14 to 75 found that 42 percent sometimes surfed the Web while watching TV. So there is a natural audience for connecting Facebook and TV. The many Social Media features of TVissimo could help greatly enhance this experience.

 

 

TV Industry Uses Social Media for Oscars and More

Continuing its coverage of social media and TV, Brian Stelter reported in the New York Times on how TV Industry Taps Social Media, in this case for the Oscars.  Recognizing that people multiple task with their computer while watching TV as I wrote about recently, ABC created a companion Web site with behind-the-scenes video streams. Oscar winners will be seen accepting an award on the TV set, then seen celebrating backstage on the Web.

The article quoted Ian Schafer, the chief executive of the digital agency Deep Focus, who said that Twitter and Facebook messages about shows may well be “the most efficient way to drive tune-in.”  I have found this for blogs and it makes sense for TV. To me Twitter is a great traffic driver, more than a direct message deliverer.  Far from competing than TV, the Twitter “water-cooler effect” makes big shows even bigger. The Grammy Awards had its highest rating in a decade this year with a lot of online support.  Again, the same holds for blogs and Twitter, in my view.

The article also quoted Dick Costolo, the chief executive of Twitter, that online conversations about TV shows turn the programs into events, “meaning people watch them as they happen,” blunting the impact of digital video recording. This makes sense, also the Times noted that digital recording remains strong.

The Times reported more data to support this trend. During the Super Bowl this year, Twitter users set a new record by sending 4,064 messages each second, the highest number of messages per second recorded during any sporting event.. In addition, a recent study by Deloitte of American consumers ages 14 to 75 found that 42 percent sometimes surfed the Web while watching TV. I do all the time, especially during onscreen commercials. The eye balls for ads may be drifting online. 

 

Hey Grammys, You Can’t Tape-delay Social Media; Convergence is Here

As I wrote last week, Multi-Tasking Users Already Driving TV Web Convergence. Now could the Grammy people not know that their show would attract a lot of social media people tweeting about the show, the winners, and the losers.  So why did they do a tape delay for the West Coast? As Cory Bergman wrote, “the taped (delayed) broadcast was getting underway, all of the top Twitter trends were related to the Grammys. This is just another confirmation of what I wrote last week.  You cannot separate TV from social media and The Web. The convergence has arrived.

The live blog on Grammys.com was even worse as organizers didn’t even try to cater to the West Coast audience. Just as West Coast users first logged into Grammys.com, they saw the biggest spoilers of the night from the end of the East Coast show. Cory adds that ‘two-screen experiences are now the norm for many TV households.” This is especially among key younger demograpghics that network television desires. Social engagement is at its highest for live events “where the outcome is uncertain,” said Twitter’s Robin Sloan after MTV’s VMA awards, which was broadcast live on both coasts. 

 

Multi-Tasking Users Already Driving TV Web Convergence

I have written a lot about the convergence of television and the Web on this blog.  There are many plans for this to occur in single box, either through a television or a computer. However, people are not waiting according to a Nielsen study that came out in 2010.  It found that “In the last quarter of 2009, simultaneous use of the Internet while watching TV reached three and a half hours a month, up 35% from the previous quarter. Nearly 60% of TV viewers now use the Internet once a month while also watching TV.”

Mac Slocum at O’Reilly notes the “disconnect between television's lean-back experience and the web's lean-forward positioning.” He believes “a big reason why web and TV haven't yet converged in a broadly adopted super device is because it's uncomfortable -- physically and mentally -- to rock between push and pull. It's a heck of a lot easier to prop a notebook on your lap while the TV plays in the background.”

This is spot on. TV and the Web actually complement each other. I confess to be one of these multi-taskers. This is especially true as I watched sports events. I tend to go to my computer for Twitter or other tasks during commercials. When I look at Twitter I see that others are doing the same thing. I do not watch videos on my computer while I do work on it. I watch them on my TV.  I would not want them on the same device unless it had multiple windows but even then I would prefer two devices. I could then use my computer to search for what I want to watch on TV. I often do this now through Google but would prefer a more robust device such as the one we designed for TVissimo. 

Are you doing this multi-tasking with your computer and TV also?  Do you agree that putting them on a single device might be dysfunctional?

 

Internet TV Continues to Move Forward Despite Slowing TV Sales

The New York Times noted recently that the expected n bonanza in TV sales is fading for several reasons. For one most Americans have already upgraded their old boxy televisions in favor of the sleek flat-panel displays. I have some of each. The new 3-D televisions have not yet caught on.

However, one thing continues, the move to integrate TV and the Web. It is working both ways –making the Web accessible through traditional television and putting television content on new computer devices. They report that ‘One way manufacturers are trying to make these features friendlier is by using Apple’s iPhone model, allowing outside companies like Netflix to develop applications that work on their displays.” Panasonic and LG recently announced new Internet TV platforms that will open up the interfaces of their sets to outside developers.

However, the Times also noted that there is no standard way for the Web TV convergence and this may be a problem.  They write, “But recent missteps by technology companies like Google with its Google TV service, as well as the often confusing mosaic of streaming and download providers, has left the market looking a little muddled.”

We hope that standards will be implemented to further open up this great opportunity for creative applications. TVissimo was designed for this integrated market. 

 

Will 99¢ Change TV Like it Changed Music?

This is a question Stewart Mader asks in his blog Future Changes. He writes that Apple’s announcement of a new Apple TV device with 99¢ TV episode rentals could have the same impact on the cable TV industry as the impact that 99¢ songs had on the music industry. “When Apple introduced the iTunes store with songs priced at 99¢, it changed the “single” part of the music landscape, by allowing consumers to buy only the songs they wanted.” I do it all the time. This changed the buying paradigm.

Many people also want to get a single cable show or channel rather than the entire package they are forced to select by the cable industry.  With the right rental charges these offerings could be cheaper than the DVDs covering the series.  This becomes even more attractive if it spreads to the iPad and iPhone.  What do think will occur? What will you do? 

 

Google TV Gets Poor Reviews and Faces Delays

As reported in the New York Times, Google TV Faces Delays Amid Poor Reviews. The story noted these issues illustrate the “struggles Google faces as it tries to expand into the tricky, unfamiliar realm of consumer electronics, and drum up broad interest in a Web-based TV product that consumers want.”

According to the story, Google has a long history of putting out new products and revising them as they go forward. However, this doe splay as well in the consumer electronics market where companies place big, well-timed bets to attract seasonal shoppers such as holiday buyers or the back-to-school crowd.

“Google as a company is not a particularly partner-friendly or partner-focused company,” said James L. McQuivey, an analyst at Forrester, who added that because of the delay, it might take another year before Google TV has a chance to make an impact in the market.

Google has promised to apply its main expertise — search — to the TV. Instead of the “byzantine cable and DVR programming menus that viewers navigate today, with Google TV, they can search for the name of a show and see when it’s being broadcast and where it’s available online, in addition to viewing links to Web sites about the show and its actors.” However, this is still a work in progress.

But, the NYT concludes, so far, “Google TV is not ready for prime time, according to consumer technology reviewers and some early customers.” We think that they could benefit from the search approach we designed into TVissimo.

 

 

NBC Partners with DC Comics for iPad App

Here is a really cool integration of computers and TV. There is a promotion going on for NBC’s new series The Cape. NBC has partnered with DC Comics to make the full pilot episode available through DC’s free comic book iPad application. This is a free way for fans to check out the pilot before it airs and is a very interesting way of making the show available for fans to see outside their traditional television set.

This is the first time DC Comics has offered long form video through their iPad application (which is also available for the iPhone). Web and TV conversion continues to be innovative and interesting.  Here is a link to download the DC Comics iPad application. 

 

More on KETC TV 'Homeland' Immigration Project

I recently ran a three part series on the KETC TV social media projects. Rob Paterson has posted details of the components of the third project on immigration.  Rob quotes Amy Shaw, KETC's vice president of education and community engagement “Homeland aims to "apply public media sensibilities, expertise and capacity to address a complicated and polarizing issue.” Amy said the project is "rooted in needs of the community.” Homeland is teaming up with KETC's NineAcademy, a free community media program that trains local people in shooting, editing, and storytelling. The best productions will be featured on the Homeland site and on KETC.

There are five sections to the Homeland site. Here is what Rob reported:

360 Degree Perspectives is a blog that explores multiple perspectives on immigration issues, based on KETC's meetings with community members from all spots on the political spectrum.

Fact vs. Myth takes a nuanced look at some of the common information and misinformation surrounding the immigration debate.

Your Voice is a discussion forum for community members. Right now, the conversation is heavily populated by KETC staff, but Shaw is confident that the balance will shift over time to allow for more user-directed conversation.

Homeland Series is a behind-the-scene look at the making of the four-hour series that will air in 2011. The broadcast element of this project is, as Shaw explained, "a piece of puzzle," not the be-all end-all culmination of the project. Community meetings have shaped the entire direction of the project, including the decision to create the four-hour broadcast piece.

Finally, From the Beacon showcases related work from KETC's newspaper partner, the St. Louis Beacon providing cross-platform news coverage to the benefit of both organizations.

This social media effort is very new for the station and as they experiment with community-based public affairs coverage, the team is constantly evaluating what works and what does not. The lessons learned could very well inform a powerful community engagement model for other stations around the country. 

 

Top 10 Made for TV Movies of All Time

Here is an interesting collection of great movies made for TV that we wanted to share.  It was posted on the Satellite Dish blog. “Category 7” about the end of the world was ranked first. As they said “This was an edge-of-your-seat thriller that keeps you wondering whether the next pound of thunder is going to take you out of your seat literally.’  There are nine others including Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Brian’s Song. What are your favorites?

Another category that is not quite movies for TV is the minis-series. This is more native to TV. You get the sequels all at once.  I would put Treme as number one and The Wire as number two. Both are by David Simon. I am biased as Treme is about my hometown, New Orleans.  These run about ten episodes a season which some might say is long for a mini-series but then most series run for much longer.  What your favorite mini-series? 

 

Google TV Could Use Help with Search

Jason Hiner recenlty wrote about the five most overhyped tech products of 2010 and Goolge TV made the list. He wrote that there is great potential here and if Google had “focused on bringing Android apps to the flatscreen instead of trying to webify the television experience, this product could have been a huge success.” He feels that if Goolge had done the former it could transform entertainment. We would agree.

To realize the potential Google will have to change its strategy. Jason wrote that what the “company has attempted to do with Google TV is marry Web video with traditional cable/satellite all controlled by one box that you can use to search for the content you want. Unfortunately, the user experience is confusing and cumbersome.”

This is why we created Tvissimo, to give you an easy to use and comprehenisive TV search experience. Now with devices such as Google TV this search capability with Tvissimo can be more easily integrated into the television experience.

The KETC Social Media and TV Experience Part Three: Tackling Immigration Issues

This is the third in a three part series covering the efforts of the PBS affiliate in St. Louis, KETC, to align social media and traditional television.  I am interviewing Rob Paterson who is part of the team supporting the KETC efforts. 

Bill: So now you have tackled a relatively easy problem with war memories and one that is a little more complex with the mortgage crisis.  Now you are going after a very controversial issue.

Rob: Yes. Immigration is an issue that divides the nation. Part of our motive is that many of the important issues in America are like this one such as the war, the economy, healthcare, and education. There is a whole range of issues that are vital to the success of the nation that are locked in ideological dogmatic dog fights that are intensely polarizing. The current media, in the so-called search for balance, enables the extremes to pull the gap even wider. There is no room for a civic discourse that was the American way. There is no room for the community to talk with each other and work out a solution.

This polarization was the context for the third project. It could have been the war or healthcare or similar tough topics. Immigration is an issue that is bubbling up in the St. Louis area so we picked it. The task before us is that we were dealing with a topic where the media often uses fear and gets away from conservation. Can we do better? My own view is that if there is not a defined way to have these conversations what is the future of the country? We will never solve anything.

Bill: I think that you have very accurately portrayed regular commercial television news and how it serves as a vehicle for further polarization in the nation. I recently viewed again the movie Invictus about Nelson Mandela as I am getting ready to go to South Africa. I am a big fan of him. Instead of a vehicle for further polarization what you want to be is a vehicle for reconciliation just as Mandela did through example.

Rob: Yes. I love it. Reconciliation is a wonderful word.

Bill: Invictus is a great movie about engaging both sides. Just like South Africa, America needs the engagement of both sides.

Rob: This is what we are after here. This is the Holy Grail. So how do we do this? We are going to try to put the control in the hands of the public. We are going to try to put the public into the center of public television. This will be a revolution. Currently it is called public television but it is made in the old way using the concept the station is very clever and it is going to give the public what the station thinks the public wants. In this project we want to be led and influenced all along by the public.

We are going to make a four-part TV documentary. We have a very active Web space and an exceptionally active community outreach program. And we have set up a school to teach people how to tell stories using video. This is the new literacy.  Any one can pick up an iPhone or a Flip camera and press the red button but it takes some skill to make a story.

Now I will weave this together.  The outreach people have been talking to thousands of people in St. Louis about their experience with immigration. We have sent out a survey to all of our members and we are getting some responses back. My job is to use Darwin to see what everyone else outside St. Louis is doing.  From this we have been designing the four part television series. In the past the TV producer comes up with a story and films it. We have done the interaction part in steroids. We are making the film as a result of the understanding and knowledge we have gained from the local community and beyond.

There has been nine months of active interaction with the community and the world beyond. We created a Web site that enables us to go out on a daily basis and ask people questions about what is going on and have the answer up on the Web site the next day.  We never used to be an instant anything but on we have learned to do online video.

What this means is that there will be a news item that I might pick up or we learn through other means. Then we will go out and have people react to this item and put up their answers within a day. So the whole thing feeds on itself. We have taken people who have never done anything like this in their life. They have now learned how to produce content on a twelve-hour cycle. 

Bill: So they produce this content but how is it turned around?

Rob: We shoot it with a Flip camera. We edit it with iMovie. Then we upload it to YouTube and it goes on our site. Nothing could be farther from a heavily produced segment.  We do not take a camera crew out. The people on the street do not even see the camera even though we tell them it is there. They sign a release form but there is no big camera presence or crew.

Bill: Once it goes on YouTube and on the site what happens?

Rob: We are building a mosaic of responses. The question is how do you have balance? The answer is that you do not try to balance everything off in one show each time.  The typical TV thing is one side says black and the other says white. You put them together and you have a dead program or just ranting.

Bill: So you achieve balance over time.

Rob: We are achieving balance over time through a mosaic.  In a mosaic the pattern emerges.  We are neutral in that we not offer judgments on what any one individual says. But the pattern over time comes out.

We spent the last two months on the site learning how to do all this. This interview is timely because we about to promote the site. It has been public for a while but we have not promoted it.  We had to learn to do many things and we were not ready for show time. Now we have enough material on the site that the mosaic is starting to appear.  This will feed into the documentary that will be filmed by the professionals. We are also sharing ideas about what will be in the documentary in the hope that people will add to or adjust what we do.

We are going to do something that is extremely difficult. We are going to film the documentary as an interactive process with the community. We will use professional filmmakers but with community involvement.  We will be finishing the documentary over the next four months and interacting with the community over this time about what we are doing.

Bill: So the documentary draws on the mosaic as raw material.

Rob: Yes and also parts of the documentary will be revealed while we are still in the editing phase and see what kind of response we get. So this will be as interactive as you can get. It has never been done before so we are a bit nervous about how it will come out.

Even though the final documentary will be filmed by professionals, much of the content comes from the community. To this end we have children of Bosnian refuges learning how to use Flip cameras to record stories and this is great fun.

Bill: What are the immigrant groups that you are looking at?

Rob: We had to learned how to best categorize them. When we started there were so many groups we were not sure what to do. Now three groups have emerged. There is the group most Americans are worried about, the very large numbers who are coming in from Mexico and other Latin American countries in the last twenty years. The majority of these immigrants have come in the last ten years. The large group of Latin American immigrants mainly work in food related jobs such as picking crops, serving food, performing lower level aspects of meat packing, etc. These are the types of jobs that many Americans will no longer take.

At the other end are what we might label as the best and the brightest. These are very clever people who come from many countries around the globe to get a better life.  At least a quarter of the best startup companies in the US have been founded by these people. This is a reliable source of new jobs. Most of the job loses have come from traditional companies and twenty five percent of the new jobs have been in companies that were founded by immigrants or children of immigrants. These immigrants are not limited to a few countries and come from all over.

The third group of immigrants are refuges. They come in completely different circumstances. There was the civil war in Bosnia and America made room for a large number of Muslim Bosnians who, if they had not come here, might have died or fared poorly. The same goes for a large group of Liberians. These two groups come from very different parts of the world but they share common experiences and have seen terrible things we would never want to see. 

The refuges have a particular process. It used to be that you would arrive from Sarajevo and you would get three months support from the Feds and that would be it. Now it is eight months. In that period you have to assimilate, get a job, and get started.  This is very difficult.

The common thing that all immigrants share is that getting legal is all but impossible.  Many people might say that I have no problems with immigrants as along as they are legal. One problem that is not understood is that getting legal status is all but impossible. Even if you have family it will take between ten and twenty five years.

 

 

 

KETC Social Media and TV Project Part Two: Supporting Those Affected by the Mortgage Crisis

This is the second in a three part series covering the efforts of the PBS affiliate in St. Louis, KETC, to align social media and traditional television.  I am interviewing Rob Paterson who is part of the team supporting the KETC efforts.

Bill: Tell me about the second phase of the social media project.

Rob: The second phase of this experiment came as the financial situation in the US started to get bad. The idea was to connect people in St. Louis to resources, both online and physical, that they could trust to help them with mortgage problems.  We started this on our own and then we discovered something about the community. There are all sorts of organizations that work on issues like the mortgage crisis but most of them never talk to each other. Many of them are quite suspicious of each other as they compete for funding. We acted as a resource to help bring these groups together. We found a means through the United Way where people could phone in and get help from any resource. 

We used the Web site to support his. We decided from a tool point of view that we were not going to use tools on the site that anyone else could not use. So we used the free and easy ones.  We used YouTube and this was a big deal for us at the time. It is taken for granted now but using a tool that everyone can access on the Web-based was new.

Bill: The concern with YouTube was losing control over the content?

Rob: Yes. But after we used it successfully we thought of other uses. The station has a wonderful series titled, Living St. Louis, that has many episodes on the community that you could no longer see after each was shown. As a result of this project, the station converted the entire series to YouTube and made it available through the Web site and a YouTube channel in a searchable archive. It gets a lot of traffic now. So as a byproduct of doing this effort we found a way to make some of our quality content more accessible and drive up traffic.

Bill: I can really see the benefit here. One of our local Boston stations has a similar series and I am always disappointed if I miss a good episode, as there is no way to see it after its scheduled showing. I would be very excited to have the ability to search an archive to see if there is an episode that covers a place where I am planning to go or to help me determine where to go.

Rob: It sounds like an obvious move but it is new for broadcast TV. By doing these new projects we can break through what is considered normal and the old culture of control. We were so successful with the mortgage project that we got funding to bring this to over 30 markets around the US. This was the first time we had a national project. There were actually over 60 stations as we did radio and TV.

As a result of this many of these stations who had never done this type of project or run this type of Web site or used YouTube, Facebook or Twitter, now did new things. In many cases the radio and TV people in same area did not talk to each other, as there was a sense of rivalry and distrust. Now they communicated on a common project.

This effort helped stations go beyond simply being a public media and better become a public service media. In other words, they could help their community deal with an important issue.

Bill: Isn’t being a public service vehicle part of their charter. Perhaps they may pay lip service to it in most cases.

Rob: Public service is specifically part of their charter. However, many forgot this and thought they were a television station. It’s like the credit unions that tried to be banks. Now the new social media is allowing public television stations to fulfill this responsibility. But the barrier is culture and mindset.

In the sixty TV and radio stations that participated in the mortgage program you could divide them into three groups. First, there were those who got it and fully participated, pushing through the cultural barriers.  Then there were the stations that understood it intellectually and partially participated but need another project like this to go further. Finally, there were those that just went through the motions because funding was attached.

Bill: Was the goal of this program to provide better coordination of mortgage relief services to the people?

Rob: Yes, and just as important it was to enable the people in the community to find a safe and trusted channel to these resources. Here is the interesting part. The TV viewership for public television tends to be age 55 or older, well educated and of European descent. Because the issue of mortgage foreclosure affected so many people outside this demographic, we started to attract people outside this core demographic who had never been part of the public television audience. We were now reaching people online who did not watch the station’s Newhour and who might not ever watch it. However, we really helped them and they got engaged with the station through the Web and remain attached to it.

Bill: So you were reaching out to people online that you were not reaching through the traditional channels.

Rob: Yes. The Holy Grail in public television is to expand the audience. With social media we can enjoy the support of a much wider audience without compromising the quality of the broadcast television.  These people become attached to the station because it helps them.

Bill: What you also do is become a role model for traditional commercial television that, I believe, has the same charter to provide a public service to the community.

Rob: Yes and the commercial stations generally pay even less attention to this responsibility.  This is a good time to transition to the third phase, the coverage of the immigration debate.

Bill: We will begin to cover this in the next post as the third part of our series.

 

 

 

The KETC Social Media and TV Project Part One: Documenting World War Two Memories

The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) St. Louis station has been conducting a series of projects integrating social media with traditional broadcast television. This integration of old and new media is a topic we have frequently covered here and KETC is doing some of the most innovative work in this space. They began with a project on preserving World War Two stories from local vets. A second effort supported those caught in the mortgage crisis. In the third initiative they are using social media to help facilitate more rational conversations on immigration issues. In this post I discuss the first effort and the other follow.

Bill: Rob can you provide some background on the KETC social media project? What are its objectives? What has resulted so far?

Rob: KETC is the public television station in St. Louis. Since Jack Galmiche took over as President four years ago, his mission is to find a new model for a public television station in America. Like others, he understands that the old financial model for public television cannot continue to be successful. The old model worked on the premise that that public TV has quality content that you cannot get elsewhere. You have to adhere to our broadcast schedule and if you like what we bring you will support us financially with donations.

This old model will not work going forward as you can get great content for free anytime you want from many sources. While there is still a legacy group of supporters, this dwindling group will not take any TV or radio station securely forward into the future.

So the question becomes if we cannot rely on the old base of support, what will become the new base? Over the past four years Jack and his team have been working on a hypothesis that social media can help reach and sustain a new base of support to augment the old one. The current project on immigration is the end result of a series of experiments using social media to expand the base of support. The hypothesis goes on to say that public television should be in a great position to become the safe place where the community can interact with itself on issues that it cares about since public television is so trusted.

The first time we did this we used a very safe topic around the Ken Burns series on World War Two. As this series was being aired we went out to the local community through social media and other means, We said that there are many veterans in our community and you may or may not have shared your personal stories with your family.  Ken Burns is providing the stories of some vets. We are going to provide an easy means for you to share your own stories of the war that can be recorded forever. We will provide a way for these stories to be shared. 

This effort around World War Two stories went really well. We found a way to enable people to use the Web to share their memories. We discovered a way to engage a community around a topic. In this case, an important one, but also a safe one. No one was going to object to us having grandpa tell his war stories. One of the great examples occurred when one vet came to the station and asked to see Jack. He gave Jack his war medals. He said that he had never told his war stories before and for the first time he felt safe enough to do it. He wanted to tell then before he died. We were all moved by this experience and felt we had learned something.

Bill: This is a topic that is very near to me as my father was a World War Two vet who as a commando, often operated behind the Japanese lines. He was reluctant to tell more that general overviews of much of what he experienced but I know that it had a profound effect on him. He gave his medals, not of disrespect, but more out of modesty, to me incorporate into my childhood reenactments of World War Two. This was a favorite play topic for us in the 50s.

Rob: We are the same age and we did this also.

Bill: This occurred in the raised cemeteries of New Orleans that we pretended were urban battlefields.  There are many friends my age who also report their father’s reluctance to take about the war.  So what do you see that occurred that enabled these men in your community to share their experiences? How did social media play into this?

Rob: There was definitely a social media component. We had a dedicated Web site. We had a way of getting content to us and then we would put it up. We ran something like an antiques road show where people came in and told their stores and we recorded them. We found that the grandchildren started to ask their grandparents to tell these stories. For many men and, in some cases, women, once they saw others telling their stories and it was safe, they felt comfortable doing it themselves. They also realized that this might be their last chance. We have now set up a permanent memorial of all these stories so they will live on through the Web.

Bill: So, if I am hearing your correctly social media was used in two ways. First, to make people more aware of what you were doing. Second, to share the content once it was collected.

Rob: Yes and we had never done anything like this before. The Web had simply been the place to find out the schedule for TV shows or asking for donations. This was the first time we had a two-way interaction with the community through the Web. We asked for stuff and we got stuff back.

Bill: So what did you learn from this first step that you applied to the next step?

Rob: We learned how to start to work together. The tools are free and easy to use. The underlying story was a breakdown of the silos. To work well on the Web you have to have all the parts of the organization working well together. So we had cross department meetings to get the work done.  We had producers, marketing, outreach people, and our one person Web department. These cross department meetings had not occurred. As we moved forward this integration was a big deal and key enabler.

 

 

Traditional Media is Expanding its Audience Through Social Media

While this is about radio, the same principles apply to television as we saw in the last three posts on KETC TV. Rob Paterson recently wrote about: It's not the content but the connection that counts - NPR Rocks. He posted that NPR is trying to attract an younger audience and has succeeded “not because of a content shift but because they made it easier for a younger audience to connect to content on their terms! The secret was in the flexibility of the new connection NOT the content.” They used social media and mobile apps to achieve this connection.

Rob points to Jolie O’Dell’s post on Mashable, How NPR Is Leveraging the Twitter Generation. She made this statement that I totally agree with.  “…the future of news media lies in successful integration of social media to get the attention (and click-throughs) of a younger generation — a generation whose news needs are vastly different than those of the generations that preceded it.” 

NPR is becoming a poster child for this social media effort. They found In a recent survey of more than 10,000 respondents, that its Twitter followers are younger, more connected to the social web, and more likely to access content through digital platforms such as NPR’s website, podcasts, mobile apps and Facebook. The survey found that, 59% of respondents said they use NPR.org, 39% listen to NPR’s podcasts, around half use an NPR mobile app and 28% access NPR via Facebook. The survey also found that, 77% of NPR’s Twitter followers said they get all or most of their news online. These Twitter followers are more likely to expect breaking news, likely because of Twitter’s real-time nature.

I am sure that more television stations will follow this movement. 

 

 

 

Google Tv Adds Twitter

Google has announced some of its partners and Twitter is on the list. According to the Twitter blog, Twitter on Google TV has most of the features and functionality in regaular Twitter. You can look through Tweets, @mentions, and favorites. When you click on a Tweet, you can reply, retweet, favorite, or share it. You see additional options depending on the content of the Tweet. For example, you can visit a URL or click a hashtag to search for it on Twitter.

If a user is mentioned, you can visit that user’s profile to see their Tweets or follow them. If there is a link to a photo or video, you can see a thumbnail version. Clicking the link will take you to the site so you can see a larger version of the photo or watch the video.

The search box provides access to trending topics and recent searches, so you can see popular topics and revisit past searches. Twitter for Google TV is preinstalled lets you share videos, web pages, pictures, and other content on the Web Twitter. You do this through the “Share” option and select Twitter. I think this is an essential feature so I am glad they enabled this.

This is part of the growing convergence of the Web and television. Forrester expects there will be 43 million internet-connected television sets in United States homes by 2015. Google TV also announced that several television networks and media companies, including HBO, the NBA, and CNBC would be its partners in offering Web content and programming to allow for on-demand viewing and apps built for TV.

NBC Universal said it will deploy CNBC Real-Time, which allows for stock-tracking on the screen alongside the live broadcast of CNBC business channel. The National Basketball Association created N.B.A. Game Time for following basketball news. So far the major networks, ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC, are absent from Google’s partner list. 

 

Will Traditional Media Firms Control the New Web Video?

That is a question that the Economist asks and comes up with a yes answer at the moment.  I have already written a bit about how Google, Apple and Microsoft are making plays in this market.  The Economist reports that in the first seven months of 2010 that 12% of all the flat-screen televisions sold in America in the first seven months of this year were Web connected and the number may increase dramatically. However, many of these consumers do not know how to use this connection and/or are not interested in it.

The three tech giants are challenging the cable and satellite vendors and looking for ways to run around them. However, there is another group that holds much of the cards in this game. There are only a few big film and television producers, and they have slowed down this game according to the Economist. Apple has been unable to set up a subscription service for television and films. Hulu, owned in part by the studios, has similarly failed to obtain many shows from cable TV or from CBS, America’s most popular broadcast network.

Traditional television is going as strong as ever. According to Nielsen people watch online video for three hours per month, compared with 158 hours for traditional television. The only winner so far is Netflix, which rents DVDs. It has been amassing subscribers with 15 million so far. Now it is gradually moving into online distribution, and is becoming popular on connected TVs if anyone uses them. Neltflex will be built into the new Apple TV. The Economist also reports that Netflix has lots of money to spend on rights, and its wants to acquire some content exclusively.

This continues to be an interesting game to watch. 

 

Is the Clunky TV Remote Going Away?

This is the question that the Wall Street Journal recently proposed in the article, Left Behind: the Clunky TV Remote.  The growing number of smart devices with Web access have much easier interfaces that the complex TV remote. Imagine that you had to work with your computer or your smart phone with an interface w like a TV remote? Or in my case several TV remotes. Soemtimes they do not work and at best they are slow and overly complex. They only reason that they get anyway with it is that we are used to it. But now the new devices are chaning our perceptions.   

This will change. For example, as the WSJ reports, Sony Internet TV, which has Google TV software built into it, offers Web browsing, software applications and access to services like Netflix. Any developer can write apps for Google TV. In  additioin, Apple TV displays shows and movies in easy-to-navigate grids of colorful artwork, and the remote has just six buttons. At the same time, Comcast and Time Warner Cable are working on iPad applications that use the device's touch-sensing screen to browse their channel guides and switch to a new channel, so consumers can ditch their cable remotes.

 The WSJ quotes Paul Liao, president and chief executive of CableLabs, the cable industry's nonprofit research and development group, "We are headed in the direction where the cable box will go away." It will be a good move in our opioin and this is the envirobnment where Tvissimo would work well.