- Eric Schmidt on Government Scrutiny and Economic Recovery
- Schmidt on Social Media, Ads and Hulu
- Sun Valley on Social Media
- Eric Schmidt + Larry Page on Revolutionizing Computing
- WPP's Sir Martin Sorrell on the Ad Recession
- Twitter in the Sun Valley Spotlight
- Sun Valley Dealmaking Confab Kicks Off
- Making Money on Michael Jackson's Memorial
- Court Ruling Could Mean Trouble for TiVo
- Another Music Lawsuit, but with an Unexpected Target
More Videos
- Eric Schmidt on Government Scrutiny and Economic Recovery
- Schmidt on Social Media, Ads and Hulu
- Sun Valley on Social Media
- Eric Schmidt + Larry Page on Revolutionizing Computing
- WPP's Sir Martin Sorrell on the Ad Recession
- Twitter in the Sun Valley Spotlight
- Sun Valley Dealmaking Confab Kicks Off
- Making Money on Michael Jackson's Memorial
- Court Ruling Could Mean Trouble for TiVo
- Another Music Lawsuit, but with an Unexpected Target
|
CNBC'S MOST SHARED
- Unemployed? Bored? Make Money Playing Beer Pong
- Social Networking's 'Naked' Truth
- WPP's Sir Martin Sorrell on the Ad Recession
- The Highest Grossing (Inflation Adjusted) Movies of All Time
- Merrill's McCann Seen as UBS Wealth Frontrunner
- Geek Squad V. Gizmodo
- Warren Buffett's Top Three Investment Rules for the Average American
- Why You Should Watch Fund Flows
- Roginsky: No More Mr. Nice Guy
- Eric Schmidt on Government Scrutiny and Economic Recovery
- Market 360: The Week's Best & Worst
- Geek Squad V. Gizmodo
- Brandt: Google Chrome OS in the Post-PC Age
- Other People Are Weirder Than We Are
- Bank Failures: Is The Nightmare Over? (Video)
- California Here I Go? No.
- Roginsky: No More Mr. Nice Guy
- Commercial Conundrum
- Stimulus Will Kick in Later this Year: President Obama
- Lender CIT Group Hires Premier Bankruptcy Adviser
- Government Selling Bank Stakes for Too Cheap: Panel
- Buffett's Top 3 Investment Rules for Average Americans
- Market Insider: Earnings Loom in the Week Ahead
- Bulls Get Summertime Blues, But It's Hot Fun for Bears
- As Banks Fail, Strong Institutions Become More Visible
- GM IPO in Second Quarter 2010 at the Earliest: CFO
- Merrill's McCann Seen as UBS Wealth Frontrunner
RSS FEED
Text Size 
 |
When it comes to content distribution, media and tech companies have been focused on giving consumers what they want, when and where they want it.
Now the big buzz word is interactivity. So much of the technology here at NAB sends data both ways to the consumers, and back to broadcasters and advertisers.
Interactivity allows advertising to reflect what viewers are watching, enabling much more targeted advertising. And interactivity allows for a whole new social element--chat and the sharing of TV clips--making sitting alone in your living room as social as spending the afternoon with your nearest and dearest pals.
And these same tech and media companies love the idea of consumers sharing TV clips with friends the way we currently forward a newspaper article. When friends make recommendations people simply consume MORE content, and it makes whatever service or platform they're consuming content on, that much more "sticky." All in all, a win win for content distributors and advertisers.
A range of companies are investing in this business. Enrique Rodriguez, the head of Microsoft's[MSFT
Loading...
()
] TV business told me yesterday that while TV until now has had basically nothing to do with software, this new interactive TV will be all about software. That means Microsoft wants to dominate this kind of software sales to media companies--just as it has consumer software sales. Rodriguez says he thinks layering IM-style chat on top of TV watching will become another common way to communicate, just as email and IM are now.
Motorola [MOT
Loading...
()
]has an interactive TV system (part of its home networking division) it currently offers through cable and telecom carriers in Europe. It allows sports fans to not only be alerted when their home team scores a goal, it also allows them to purchase merchandise with their teams' logo in the heat of the moment. Talk about tapping into the urge to make an impulse purchase.
AT&Ts [T
Loading...
()
] U-Verse is the only pure Internet Protocol TV available in the U.S. (Verizon's [VZ
Loading...
()
] Fios is a sort of hybrid.) It's in the process of rolling out and the head of AT&T's TV ventures Daniel York says they can't keep up with demand. Adding 12,000 subscribers a week, they're expecting to top one million subscribers by the end of the year.
Because U-Verse only sends the consumer exactly what he or she wants--instead of taking up bandwidth with every single option--the idea is that you can offer a lot more options, at very high resolution. York wouldn't comment on what social interaction features are in the works, but he hinted that we could be seeing some announcements soon.
More on mobile broadcasting coming later today.
Questions? Comments?
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes