Below you will find an introduction on the Hype Cycle and the Priority Matrix and where emerging technologies are in the Hype Cycle.

What is the Hype Cycle?
Gartner states:
“Gartner’s Hype Cycle characterizes the typical progression of an emerging technology, from overenthusiasm through a period of disillusionment to an eventual understanding of the technology’s relevance and role in a market or domain. Each phase is characterized by distinct indicators of market, investment and adoption activities.”

What is the Priority Matrix Graphic?
Gartner states:
“The Priority Matrix is a tool for prioritizing emerging technologies by forcing technology planners to look beyond the hype and assess technology opportunities in terms of their relative impact on the enterprise and the timing of that impact.”

What does it mean for you?
As explained by Gartner it will help you as a company to understand what the trends are, where to look at (be it for internal or business/growth opportunities) and what the “state” of these technologies are.
Jumping bandwagons without solid trend information does happen often, depending on the corporate culture (Innovator for instance) this can be good, for many others an understanding before applying technologies is a sure way to go.

For us Agora Media / AppMarket.tv it means to understand technologies like Augmented Reality, mobile technologies and convergent technologies, what the benefit and mainstream adoption timeframe is.
The latter is important for planning and business development. Too early has its advantages but also challenges, entering too late the market means losing share and a certain brand recognition/positioning.

Gartner provides many Hype Cycles, which you can find on this page.
For this article, three of the Hype Cycles that are relevant for our business are:
“Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, 2010″
“Hype Cycle for E-Commerce, 2010″
“Hype Cycle for Business Use of Social Technologies, 2010″

Below you’ll find the individual technologies that are mentioned in the “Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, 2010″ and where they are situated in the Hype Cycle.

You can relate the phases below to the shown first image in this article.

On the Rise
Human Augmentation
Context Delivery Architecture
Computer-Brain Interface
Terahertz Waves
Tangible User Interfaces
Extreme Transaction Processing
Autonomous Vehicles
Video Search
Mobile Robots
Social Analytics
3D Printing
Speech-to-Speech Translation

At the Peak
Internet TV
Private Cloud Computing
Augmented Reality
Media Tablet
Wireless Power
3D Flat-Panel TVs and Displays
4G Standard
Activity Streams
Cloud Computing
Cloud/Web Platforms

Sliding Into the Trough
Gesture Recognition
Mesh Networks: Sensor
Microblogging
E-Book Readers
Video Telepresence
Broadband Over Power Lines
Virtual Assistants
Public Virtual Worlds
Consumer-Generated Media
Idea Management
Mobile Application Stores

Climbing the Slope
Biometric Authentication Methods
Internet Micropayment Systems
Interactive TV
Predictive Analytics
Electronic Paper
Location-Aware Applications
Speech Recognition

Entering the Plateau
Pen-Centric Tablet PCs

Augmented Reality is at the peak, meaning attention is reaching a all high record. Companies like Layar, T-Immersion, Junaio are pushing -with much success- the boundaries of this technology.
Microblogging on the other hand is sliding into the trough, meaning it will have hard times to prove itself within the environment and usage. In case of Microblogging I do see a bright future, but less hyped and much more relevant than in many present cases.
Interactive TV is climbing the scope, it has passed the trough and modified/enhanced offers are globally being developed, making it an interesting emerging market.

What do you think of the Hype Cycle management model?
Do you make use of it during strategic planning and growth strategies?

This week was announced that Google has waved goodbye its all-in-one collaboration tool Google Wave.

On Wednesday and Thursday, multiple sources have reported that Google has acquired Slide, a social application developer for $182 million.
In July, the news was announced that Google has invested in Zynga to form the cornerstone for Google Games.

Are these all indications that Google is leaving the arena of platforms and is focussing on the content, which is being deployed on the Web?

The rumors about a social network experiment called “Google Me” are not in lign with the aforementioned developments, but a rumor is a rumor.
Facebook and others, like Twitter and Myspace have such a large userbase, it would be very difficult for Google to compete.
Like Google Wave, other social experiments have not been succesful.

By investing in social gaming, it will get a better grasp on one of the activities employed by users online, making advantage of the large and established userbases of Facebook, Myspace and others.

Not only for Google but also for other companies trying to get a share in social networking, it is becoming hard. People have established networks, time and attention are fragmented.
The advantages need to be really compelling in order to persuade users to be active on yet another network or leave a present one. If an extra network is added to the users’ portfolio, less attention and time is available per network, which is a disadvantage for both user and the social networks.

Secondly, Google kills two birds with one stone, Google Games and social gaming distributed via Facebook and others.

This development fits to overall approach of Google, the Web as a platform where all sorts of activities are deployed.
Think of entertainment/video via YouTube.
Think of communication via Gmail.
Think of information via its core, Search.
Gaming fits this list of activities very well.

What’s your opinion on the developments concerning Google and (social) gaming?

The company will create severeal games based on Nickelodeon and MTV shows and characters.

Chairman and CEO of MTV Networks, Judy McGrath, says:

“Social gaming is one of the biggest drivers of the explosive growth in social media – it’s fun, it’s engaging, and it’s shareable,” said Judy McGrath, Chairman and CEO of MTV Networks.  ”Social Express brings us strong experience and know-how in this burgeoning space, which we’ll supercharge with the IP and scale of Nickelodeon and other MTV Networks brands to create great new social gaming experiences for our fans and cool tools for independent developers as well.”

On a conceptual level, it will be interesting to learn if MTV Networks will head towards transmedia entertainment concepts, incorporating television programs, websites and social games to create a full-fledged integral storytelling.
Each medium will serve another purpose and like McGrath already states, Social gaming is fun and engaging, two ingredients which could add a new experience and layer to existing or new concepts.

Transmedia concepts do exists and there are great examples, for instance the Happiness Factory by Coca Cola.
The Happiness Factory is a virtual world of characters living inside a vending machine. The series lives across multiple channels, including commercials, interactive video games, and a musical soundtrack that features a variety of artists. The series provides Coca-Cola with additional revenue streams, and customers with a fun brand experience.

MTV Networks could do similar concepts based on Nickelodeon and MTV shows and characters, taking it a step further, taking the engagement of the viewers of MTV a step further.

What do you think of the potential MTV Networks has with Social Gaming?
Is the Entertainment industry perfect for transmedia concepts?

Although the Commission said the combination raised serious antitrust issues, it reports:

[...]the agency’s concerns ultimately were overshadowed by recent developments in the market, most notably a move by Apple Computer Inc. – the maker of the iPhone – to launch its own, competing mobile ad network.

MobileMarketer has formulated nine implications for the mobile eco-system by this approval:
*Apple has competition
*Validation
*More brands to enter mobile
*Mobile CRM
*Multichannel is here
*Growth of Android
*More choice for brands and marketers
*Relevancy
*Mobile advertising will grow

With the acquisition, Google will have a 21% market share according to market researcher IDC, that estimates the market shares for the mobile ad networks (November 2009).

Both eMarketer and Gartner predict a steep growth in Mobile advertising spend.

Gartner projects that the worldwide revenue for mobile advertising will be $13.5 billion in 2013, up from around $500 million in 2008.

At the end of MobileMarketers’ article, interesting opinions from the industry are placed. Amongst them of course a quote by Google and AdMob.

What do you think of the approval of Google’s acquisition?
From a strategic marketing point of view, Multichannel strategies will become more and more visible.
Siloed campaigns will become obsolete, new crossmedia and transmedia concepts will be created  and more competition will arise.

It has been possible for a while now to download an iPhone app and using it as remote control for your TV. Examples include Apple TV themselves and Boxee.

These remotes are however slightly different to the remote control we know and love (or hate when it has slipped down the side of the sofa, or the kids have taken the batteries…because they needed them for one of their toys!). The Boxee iPhone app provides a ‘pointer’ mechanism, in that you can track your finger across the iPhone screen and it will direct the movement of a spot cursor on your TV. A nice gimmick you say and perhaps you are right, however one of the main reasons why these companies developed and launched these remote control apps is because it provided an easier way to input text into the search function or sign up function on the TV….have you every tried to type in a long phrase, or your email address using just the remote control…?!

Today, Comcast Labs announced their prototype for a new generation of remote control…the Xfinity remote.  It works on the iPad and any other IP enabled devices.

If you want to read the whole article, you can thanks to those great guys over at Interactive TV Today.

So why is this an exciting new development? I believe this could set the scene for a number of new developments in the connected home that will become the catalyst we have needed, to understand what the future holds for our 3 favorite buzz words right now – ConnectedTV, SocialTV and the 2 Screen experience…

This is the video from Comcast Labs which demos the Xfinity remote.  Read below the video for first thoughts on what opportunities this could have on the digital home of the future…

Heres why:

1. A remote control that is an app on my iPad / netbook / laptop / iPhone gives context between the content I am watching on the big screen, and other IP enabled services.

2. You will be able to use this app to browse and search through an EPG to find broadcast (linear) and video on demand content.

3. You can choose what content to watch on your big screen directly from the app…a simple touch of the finger will change the channel on your TV.

4. The app could use the content you have chosen to watch on the big screen as context for other related content on your ipad that you might like to snack on. It could become the ultimate tv companion e.g. see other content that relates to what you are watching, or help answer any questions you have relating to what you are watching (think tellylinks.com), join conversations about the content, add comments about the content and share with others, rate and recommend the content to others, buy the suit that the actor is wearing…all directly on your ipad app.

5. You can integrate social networks directly into the interface of the app so you can share and interact with others, whilst also getting recommendations from your friends, or choose to listen to a different commentary on a live broadcast event from one of your favorite social tv presenters.

6. Participative TV shows could have a new kind of format, with a new kind of audience.

7. Advertisers and Sponsors would have a new highly targeted and more personalised format that puts them directly in front of your eyeballs for the duration of the programme / film you are watching…and we wont mind so much because it will have context with what I am watching, but without the intrusion.

8. tCommerce could have a platform for enabling the easiest way for you to complete transactions.

9. You could see and choose which match to watch at Wimbledon ie. tapping into the red button services that broadcasters such as the BBC offer at big events.

Have you come across any other IP based remote control applications?

What other uses and consumer behaviours could these applications drive in the home, on the fingertips of your average coach potato?

I’ve been quiet for a couple of weeks now as I have been working on a new project related to socialTV. The project started when I tried to write a blog post that defined socialTV – what I have discovered was that socialTV is really a new ecosystem that is developing and that the second screen services, connectedTV services, widget et al. all are just a part of that ecosystem.

So defining socialTV was hard as everyone was using the term for the individual part of the ecosystem that they were working on. That project is nearing completion and I would hope to be able to blog about my results by the end of the week.

What I found though was that there was no real consumer research into socialTV though – many companies are developing technology, many start-ups are launching, many bloggers (including myself) are talking about socialTV – but no one had actually spoken to the consumers.

With the help of my wife (who runs a media research company) I put together a short survey that tries to answer a couple of key questions.

- do people want socialTV
- when do they want to use socialTV
- what functionality do they want from their socialTV

The survey can be found here - it would be great if people could complete the survey and pass onto their friends/family. I’m particularly interested in women at the moment as currently I have a heavy male skew.

Once the results are in, I’ll be blogging about each area of the results so that hopefully we can all get a better understanding about what consumers actually believe and want socialTV to be.

Richard Gale is the European Director of Marketing & Sales for Playboy Europe having worked in the broadcast industry for nearly a decade, looking after 15 linear channels that run across 27 countries from the UK down to New Zealand. He also runs a small agency set up to handle consultancy work for start ups and media companies.

As mentioned on Bloomberg:

“Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information, and ITA does that for travel,” said Henry Harteveldt, an analyst at Forrester Research Inc. in San Francisco.

With this mission comes their advertising model, adding ITA’s will enhance the travel information they can provide users.
Increased relevance for the users means higher earnings for Google due to the higher costs which are paid by advertisers.
Google has five times more search volume than Bing has in the US, with the addition of ITA’s software, quality can increase due to the enhanced search and buying experience.
Bloomberg Businessweek reports:

With tools that help users find flight information online, ITA Software may help Google compete with travel-search features offered by Microsoft. The companies are tussling for share in the U.S. market for online travel, which generated $88.4 billion in sales last year, according to Sherman, Connecticut travel consulting firm PhoCusWright Inc.

One of the most sophisticated travel-search features offered by Microsoft is the Farecast technology which is the basis of Bing Travel.

From the customer point of perspective it all sounds pretty logical and fine, who wouldn’t want a shorter buying journey?
Though from the B2B point of view, it’s a different story, hence my initial question.
Google would not only intermingle with the offline agents, but as well with their online equivalents, the OTAs. The ultimate “direct” supplier has signed in.
As mentioned by this analyst:

Since the GDS power both of those channels, there would most certainly be a major impact to their transaction volume for air ticket sales, which is what drives their business model.

If Google is able to kill two birds with one stone, namely further disintermediation of the travel supply chain and a higher search share from Microsoft (and others), it has a potential winner.
This will go accompanied by power shifts in both the industries (Search and Travel), how do you think they will respond?
What’s your general opinion on this possible acquisition?

Yes, what it will do at least, is shake up the TV industry and get them out of their “Walled Gardens”, and actively look for business model innovations.  Google has the potential, reach and money to penetrate the market with more than just a shake up. It will likely be cataclysmic… and they will truly launch the concept of Social and Connected TV into the Zeitgeist by 2011.

The rumour mill has once again ground out another flutter of gossip about Google going into the TV market – but still – nobody will go on record. This time it’s about when they will release their official foray into this space.

The Wall Street Journal wrote that:

Google Inc. is planning to introduce Android-based television software to developers at an event in May, according to people familiar with the matter.

Google is headhunting for developers in this space, which validates the buzz.

Android and Chrome both have substantial development communities, but it will likely take some time before investments are made from software developers – and it will come when Google can show a critical mass adaption. Until now, Yahoo Connected TV has been leading in this space, but interest in their Widget Development Kit (WDK) is rather tepid. Google TV’s future development kit (likely based on Android and Chrome),  won’t likely be wide open, but will surely be more flexible and malleable than Yahoo’s.

But other news on Google TV recently came with a report from the  Korean Herald,  who published an article about a possible marriage between the world’s leading TV manufacturer, Samsung, and Google TV. In other words, Samsung, who is already tied to Yahoo Connected TV is considering cutting another deal with Google and building CE devices with Android architecture.

Yahoo won’t be happy if this pans out – but they don’t seem to be able to develop much traction in attracting developers to this space, nor creating enough buzz about Social TV, TV Apps, Widgets etc.

Will hardware manufacturers lose their control? They might, if they don’t play ball, Google just might start producing TV’s themselves.

According to a quote from the same Korean Herald article

Chun Seung-hoon, an analyst at Eugene Investment & Securities, said Samsung’s Google TV is plausible, given that Google’s Android is an open platform. “There is no problem for Samsung to produce Google TVs,” he said. However, he said the hardware manufacturer faces the risk of losing its control over the TV market to Google, a software firm, should it make Google TVs. “This is not a good picture. I think it would be better for Samsung to expand its own platform Bada,“ he said.

Google’s perspective is from the software side, manufacturers is from the hardware perspective, and a complementary growth strategy for both sides is more plausible.

Expansion of its own mobile development platform Bada – Samsung could perhaps itself  head towards their own Social TV development and make a play for both a two screen and one screen experience.  People’s demand in the end is what will make or break a Walled Garden, in this case Bada, which already has an ample app store.

Already mentioned in one of my earlier analysis Television 2.0’s foremost challenge is… , consumer control and attention are essential in understanding the coming paradigm TV shift.

In the end, all that people want is any content at their time, on their screen when they’re in the mood. Creating a battle between open systems, from any kind of manufacturer, is a risk for growth strategies and revenue streams.

Going from the platform to the actual content consumption which will be enabled by Google Android TV, it will be interesting to see how this will develop and evolve.
On NewTeeVee, researcher Marie-José Montpetit at MIT’s Research Lab for Electronics, says that Social TV doesn’t mean a cluttering of content and widgets on the TV screen.

Google has the resources to analyse this in-depth, create understanding how the new television experience could be enhanced in appropriate ways, not a simple centralisation of different content on a screen.

There’s more than enough landscape on the next generation of TV’s to allow for optional widgets to be popped in and out, and if sized correctly,  a single screen experience can work. The widgets, from a design perspective, can and should be optional and can and should be designed to be part of the overall TV experience, if planned well. If they can get the Interactive Design down pat – getting ‘social’ on one screen can work. There are many examples of websites that have this kind of alternative.  Our blog has an optional widget for Twitter that can be pulled out and retracted quite nicely 0n the bottom right.

Here again the ultimate quest is to provide users control to gain their attention which will lead to -new- revenue models.

Apps/Widgets have been said to be the new Cash Cow generators for the digitized ubiquity, the syndication of content and the consumption of it. If Google and the industry will be able to go forth in the evolution of television and the experience, conventional revenue models could be proven not to be the only valid ones.

What do you think, will Google be able to get movement in this cumbersome sector?

UK broadcasters such as ITV, Sky, Channel 4, and Five are all working on their own  catch-up technology or are already well into talks with other parties.

“…Channel 4 and Five have already signed third party deals with YouTube and SeeSaw and ITV isn’t playing ball,” states the Daily Telegraph technology report.

Ben McOwen Wilson, ITV’s director of online and interactive added in the article,

“Hulu is a major success in the US but the UK TV market is a different place. It is much more consolidated, which mean there are fewer online locations than in the US, which users need to visit to get access to their favourite content – therefore there is less need for aggregators.”

Hulu, as Gianluigi reported earlier this week, is rumoured to be putting in a subscription service into place soon in the US market.

“Ultimately, Hulu is expected to adopt the same commercial loads as network television.”

Network TV in the USA is horrifically unwatchable with broadcast stations allocating 16 to 21 minutes per hour to commercials. The model of driving people to subscription with interuption TV online might work – but will web viewers take it?  This model would certainly never work in Europe.

Somehow it feels like going backwards to adopt methodology from the old school broadcast world – they would have to be a lot more creative in converting European viewers who are used to watching reruns of Oprah with few interuptions and sans commercials every seven minutes on their normal TV – as they cut out most of the commercials.

It is not confirmed yet, but the blog mentions an subscription service of $9.95

“[...] according to people with knowledge of the plans.“

The subscription service should start on the 24th of May. Viewers will still be able to view the first couple of shows for free, but for additional shows needs to be paid.
At the end of the article, the mentioning of

“Ultimately, Hulu is expected to adopt the same commercial loads as network television.”

is interesting, because one of the differentiators is the load of commercials. If this will be within the same amounts of network televisions, a Hulu and other streaming video platforms need to position and gain an unique advantage through Content, social aspects etc. Of course syndication their content to devices like the iPhone and iPad could add value to their proposition as well.

Would you pay $9.95 to access a more comprehensive collection on Hulu?
What do you think of the advertising plans similar to existing television networks, are there other revenue models which generate the same or more and be less disruptive?