Telewebber – enhanced TV viewing

Last night I was watching Euro2008 semi-final Germany-Turkey together with a group of Germans. And for a Dutch guy that might be a bit strange, but it was for a good cause and it was only virtual

I was test-driving a new site called Telewebber.de, as they state themselves “watching together makes TV better” (this is a very rough translation of “gemeinsam besser Fernsehen“). The idea behind the site is that you tune in to a program on television and you chat with other users in a chat-box dedicated to the program.

That does not sound to revolutionary, but the smart thing is that they index all programs on the main commercial and national channels, and you literally tune in to your program and you will automatically find other people watching the program and chatting about it.

Here’s a screenshot of the site:

 

So I watched the football match last night and it takes some practice to follow the match on the TV screen while keeping an eye on the chat. But once you get the hang of it, it really enhances your TV viewing experience. Especially with a live football match and I guess most live programs like Eurovision song contest, Idols, and so on. And…you can do the good old game of guessing commercials (who knows first whose commercial it is that’s on the screen).

The service is fast enough to have a real time chat. It was amazing to see that when there was a goal or nearly a goal scored, the people in the chat went crazy in real-time. I guess that is possible now because of the limited amount of users (they’re still in beta). I wonder how that develops when they launch the service.

How sustainable is this? Well, untill we have this functionality on digital TV this is a promising new service. And I guess it will take some time since you need a return signal on your TV and not many providers have that incorporated into their systems. My only advice to the guys would be: make a mobile version as soon as possible, roll out internationally and be quick because the window of opportunity is limited.

 

Online Video – Day 2: Babelgum, the other P2P videoplayer

Today a short post about Babelgum. It is “the other P2P videoprovider”. In my belief it was supposed to be a European alternative to Joost with all its great content only available to US residents. But it is not. What it is, is a Joost copy concentrating more on independent (smaller) producers rather than on premium content. It has a catalogue of matches of the Italian series A football (soccer), but somehow I was unable to watch any matches (maybe it is restricted to Italian IP adressess). Then there are the short films for a British Film Festival, to a certain group of viewers definitely interesting. The rest of the content is Ministry of Sound TV (again), some travel documentaries, cooking programs, nothing really great. So will Babelgum make it? If they think they can be a real competitor to Joost, maybe on the European market they do need premium (Hollywood, British) international content. In Europe they need another thing: local content and although they succeeded to get the Ialian football on board this could prove to be quite difficult.

Maybe the best would be that Babelgum keeps building its database with European content and then would be bought by Joost. Who knows…

In the next episode more on vlogs, mobile video platforms and the YouTubes of the world.

Diary of an online video consumer – day 1

Since I am working on a project about online video, I decided to really test-drive online video this Christmas break. So I abandoned broadcast TV and turned on the TV on the web. I will post my findings here regularly.

My little experiment coincides with the testing of the Dell Latitude D430, an ultra-portable laptop (12.1 inch screen, weighs around 1.5 kg). The reason I mention this is because one of the arguments often used against online video in favor of the old TV is the “lean back-lean forward” user experience. Television is watched sitting on the couch leaning back, i.e. relaxing; online video is watched leaning forward, i.e. being quite active. While I do think that as a metaphor the distinction is very valid, when you take this literally the gap between the two becomes smaller with an ultra-protable notebook like the one I am testing these days. I have watched online video sitting at the table, lounging on my couch, lying in my bed.

 Enough about the ergonomics. Let’s turn to the real stuff: what have I seen until now? Well, I started out with some catch-up TV, series, documentaries and talkshows I missed on regular TV lately. In The Netherlands the public broadcasters have a fantastic portal for this on which they publish their own proprietary content untill one month after the original broadcast on TV. 

I also took a more serious look at Joost and Babelgum. Both are P2P, legal, videoportals/-players/-broadcasters/-enablers. Well any way, you can watch professionaly produced content in a dedicated player which you have to download and install first. Everyone has their eyes especially on Joost since the guys behind this new venture are the founders of Skype, Niklas Zenstrom and Janus Friis, and they were able to get some serious money behind them (last investment round US$45 million). What’s more they struck some remarkable content-deals with CBS, Viacom, NBA, National Geographic, Warner Bros. TV, and many more. But… most of these channels are only available in the US. That leaves me with Ministry of Sound TV (Ibiza clubbing, dance music videos, intervies with DJ’s), Stuff TV (gadgets, gadgets, gadgets), Aardman Animations (Wallace and Gromit, Chicken Run), Comedy Central, Ripe TV (not even going to explain this one).

All in all I am stuck with British lads TV with some music and clay puppets. Not exactly my cup of tea, but what does it say about the chances for Joost?  

First of all the player is fantastic, although it requires you to have a fast processor, state-of-the art videocard and enough free memory (here are all the requirements). Secondly, the Joost guys managed to recruit some of the best people out there and they are well-funded. Thirdly, P2P is a  solution to server-based video and partly solves the bandwidth problem. And lastly, they did strike some good content-deals, but not in Europe. And I can totally understand this: they first try to build a success in the US which is much easier since you do no not need to deal with localization, translations, and the best content providers are at hand. So I would bet on Joost becoming an important online video provider, at least in the US. Europe is a different story and that’s where Babelgum might come in.

More about Babelgum, but also about Hulu.com, Seesmic, Kyte, and many more on the next episode

Good news for Old Media…for a change

Deloitte & Touche U.S.A  put out some good news for us “old media” companies:

Favorite and promising new television shows beat the Web as the most frequent media conversation topics for all generations

• Extensive amplification with the Millennials as they tell the most people about what they like
• 52 percent of Xers are visiting television show Internet sites

Printed magazines are an integral part of every generation’s life

• 72 percent enjoy reading magazines over finding the same information online
• 58 percent of Millennials agree magazines help them learn about what’s “in”

Compared with online activities like surfing the Web and downloading music, all generations aspire to reading a book in the coming year

Advertising Insights

64 percent  tend to pay greater attention to print ads in magazines or newspapers than advertising on the Internet

More than one-in-four would pay for online content vs. being exposed to ads

Search engines and word of mouth are the most effective means for driving Web site traffic — 85 percent of Xers are influenced by someone’s recommendation

87 percent of respondents continually visit the same Web sites

Generation Xers are a little more responsive to advertising”

“Millenials” is age group 13-24, “X-ers” is age group 25-41.

Let’s hope it’s not just to please D&T’s big old media clients