David Boardman
VP of Product Strategy
It was the 1980s. Every teenager was saying it or singing it: “I want my MTV.” Cable TV broke the broadcast model and opened the door for niche content providers such as MTV, ESPN, and more. Today, the internet is breaking the broadcast and cable model by providing even more choice in the form of Netflix, YouTube, iTunes, and more. If you listen closely you can almost hear the teens of today singing “I want my ME TV.”
I recently attended a Telco 2.0 Executive Brainstorm and Developer Forum in Palo Alto, CA. It was clear from the discussions that the market for Smart TV is ripe for disruptive technologies enabling a new era of relevance and personalization – the pillars of “ME TV.” Key players are falling into line around a common three screen vision, where content is connected, personalized, and available across devices. There are three experiences of this new media environment that emerged from our discussions. First is the traditional experience of watching content on the TV, American Idol or Rattle and Hum for example. The second is a social experience, such as tweeting about the show, posting Facebook updates, or interacting with a customized app for the show. The social aspect could enable viewers to interact with each other via video and have a shared media experience. The third experience involves consumption of related metadata or content, such as relevant wiki articles, ecommerce, or news stories. Metadata content can also include maps or travel information related to a particular scene in a show or movie, which provides the opportunity for deeper interaction, context, and connection.
Of the three experiences (consuming traditional TV content, social connection, and interaction with metadata) the latter two require a relevance or recommendation engine. One of the challenges with existing relevance and recommendation engines is that current capabilities only present similar TV shows or movies to viewers based on, “people who liked this also liked that.” To date, solutions have not been generic enough to be able to arrange and create relevant social experiences and metadata experiences based on the TV content being consumed across devices.
For me, a big “aha” moment that surfaced from the executive brainstorming session at Telco 2.0 is that the market is beginning to mature and our xPatterns solution can play a pivotal role in the smart TV ecosystem. xPatterns can drive relevance based on TV content and what’s changing in the social or metadata landscape and how each of these elements impacts the relevance of the rest. xPatterns can put the ME in the “I want my ME TV” anthem of the next generation.
