I’ve been working on digital strategy from a number of different perspectives over the last few years – I’ve worked with Telco’s and Media co’s trying to move us closer to a vision of the Digital Home – and at various stages it’s felt like big pieces of the digital strategy puzzle are falling into place.
First it was reaching mass adoption of Broadband, taken for granted now but it felt like a long jouney.
Then the war of Music Downloading, a series of tough battles leaving few standing and most not where they wanted to be, that established a download/on-demand expectation for entertainment consumers.
Along the way much posturing and occasional stuttering progress in the transition from DVD to download, and that feels like another journey that will,be long and painful.
But at the same time the way we watch TV programmes is going through perhaps the most exciting changes. We now take for granted multi-channel TV with a choice of services – the choice of which will extend even further in the UK with Sky introducing services via the ariel and Freeview being joined or superceded by Freesat. Not to mention the fact that BT are making progress with their Vision service, and unfortunately Virgin Media seem to be taking three steps back for every step the others take forward.
In addition to all that we have Timeshifting and Placeshifting – two concepts that sound like they belong in a dodgy Sci-Fi movie but actually are happening in more and more households right now. Timeshifting is easy enough now with the introduction of PVRs like Sky+ mean that we are increasingly making our own decisions about when we want to watch our favourite programmes rather than being dictated to by the programmers schedule (also of course many of us fast forwarding through the ads) which is causing much disruption in the industry. The next step is Placeshifting, and I’ve decided I need to rise to this particular challenge in my TV viewing this year. We have multi-channel TV at home (no need to go into whose service it is because that’s not the point here) and we are lucky enough to spend a few weekends and some of the summer in an apartment we own in Southern France – I want to Placeshift my TV choices from the UK to my place in France. It’s early days but already I know it’s technically possible (I can install a Slingbox at home aand recieve the programming via Broadband on my PC in France) but how and when is it going to become easy and convenient? I want to watch it on a decent sized TV screen and that means I will need Fast Broadband (something I can’t rely on currently) and I will need to port what i recieve from Slingbox across to the TV (not exactly a convenient and easy user experience). So my challenge for 2008 is, will this become possible with a decent user experience and without a technical training course for the average punter?
I will be keeping my eyes on it!
The broadband internet has created tremendous opportunities for new digital media services to develop in music, video, games and gambling. At the same time pirated distribution and downloading has taken first mover advantage and many new brands have appeared. As more consumers look for interesting and exciting digital downloads so the popular consumer brands will take their place and supplement the ‘cool’ service with the ‘trust’ factor– as Shelley Taylor says “converting pirates to pilots”.
As we move more and more of our personal music collection to the hard-drive and the network we will want to control our own entertainment experience rather than feeling that everything is locked up and inaccessible. So aside from the technology development that’s moving quickly enough for most of us there’s also a demand for a simple, intuitive customer experience built around us rather than focused on the service providers product. Some of these experience issues are not new and fortunately there is a lot we can learn from how the most successful e-commerce companies have persuaded customers to buy products online through intuitive web page design, simple transaction processes, effective merchandising and attractive pricing and promotions.
The battle is on to ‘own’ the consumer relationship in the digital home. Consumer electronics and computer companies are converging on the digital living room, major computer companies like HP and Dell, and household names like Philips and Sony aren’t planning on leaving without a fight. At the same time the Telcos and Broadband Service Providers like BT, SBC, Yahoo! and AOL all expect to deliver the services that bring this digital home to life via a fat broadband pipe and a wireless network. The combined value of the consumer electronics industry and the online entertainment market runs to hundreds of billions – whether you report it in dollars, pounds or euros.
Consumers have taken to large LCD displays, high-powered multimedia PCs, and portable devices, but connecting them all is still a work in progress. But the UK now has over 6million broadband connections and the rate of adoption is accelerating fast – once homes are sufficiently wired, there is the question of where the digital living room begins and ends. With mobile phones, PDAs, and portable game players becoming more powerful, the four walls that once housed all of our movies, music, and photos are breaking down. The time we spend on entertainment now blends into the workday, helping us stay closely connected to business associates and family. The broad use of the Internet, which spawned the previous tech boom, and the increasing number of high-speed connections will inspire new generations of technology and a huge wave of digital entertainment services.
It’s a confusing world at the moment if you’re trying to keep track of what’s happening with digital entertainment with much talk about IPTV and other variations that often aren’t used clearly or defined properly for market observers. Here is an attempt to simplify it and a push to use the generic description, Broadband Delivered Video.
Broadband-delivered video can be defined as; video delivered from a remote server to a user’s computer. Its delivery requires a high speed or broadband Internet protocol (IP)-based connection, as opposed to a dial up connection.
As an early-stage technology or business model the definitions and language used can be confusing. Such services are sometimes referred to as; “Internet TV”, broadband TV”, “web video” or “online video”.
IPTV can be defined separately; as video which is delivered over a closed IP network to an IP-based set top box (STB) connected to the user’s television. This type of application leverages some of the underlying technology of broadband video, but the business model is closely related to existing multi-channel TV services.
This differs from broadband-delivered video; where the user experience is likely to be closer to (and will evolve from) today’s Internet-based consumer experience. The business models will be closer to those seen on today’s Internet, and we should ensure we adopt the lessons learned by successful e-commerce services.
This definition may evolve further depending on whether the video is actually viewed on the computer or on other devices, and other factors such as what underlying technologies might be used.
