(Originally published at Atlantic Free Press)

by Richard G. Kastelein

If we all thought the Facebook and Twitter social media growth phenomena were extraordinary, wait until Social TV hits your screens.

And it’s not as far away as you think — not only with the logical IPTV market, but also terrestrial TV. I recently attended the International Broadcast Convention (IBC) in Amsterdam, which bills itself as ’The content creation management delivery experience’. IBC2008 attracted 49,000+ visitors and 1,300+ exhibitors from more than 130 countries. This year is expected to be bigger. Last year, I was part of a team exhibiting at MIPTV in Cannes, and was expecting something a bit similar… but this was almost all about hardware and software and less about the actual formats and programs. However, this was not a disappointment. For embedded in the show there were some jewels… which have profoundly altered my view of Social Media, the future and the implication of reach that will touch billions not millions.
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Informitv – a convergent communications consultancy agency – is one of our regularly read websites, an authority when it comes to television and its convergence. Their publication Connected Vision is well worth the read as well, which you can download here.

Dr William Cooper of Informitv has given 20 predictions for the next decade on television and its developments:
(Visit their website to read the additional information per prediction)

1. Television will be less dominant.
2. Fewer television channels will survive.
3. Global communities will dominate media.
4. Audiovisual communication will become personal.
5. Most viewing will be on personal screens. .
6. Mobile video will be delivered over data networks.
7. Displays will be network connected.
8. Displays will become resolution independent.
9. High definition will be standard.
10. Fidelity of reproduction will improve.
11. 3D will be a limited success.
12. Network distribution will become more efficient.
13. Fibre-optic networks will reach the home.
14. Broadband will become a utility.
15. Home networks will become ubiquitous.
16. Massive data storage will be cheap as chips.
17. Physical media distribution will decline.
18. Global releases will reduce piracy.
19. Copyright protection will be invisible.
20. People will pay to avoid adverts.

When reading through the 20 points, an apprehension is becoming clear that this industry is at the dawn of thorough transformation, melting with other media into a morphed new industry that has much more opportunities for that what it sustains: Content.
Summarized can be said that important developments are the fact that every screen can be used to consume content (whatever screen works to service what a user wants, when he wants it and where he wants it), television -as we know it- will decrease in importancy and hardware/underlaying technologies will advance the ‘front-end’ developments.

An exciting decade is awaiting us full of media convergence and evolutions. What are your most important conclusions or predictions?

Interesting video on the new Boxee beta release!

An interesting remark during the video was that Boxee is Open Source and opens up its platform for developers through their API’s.
This is great from a business point of perspective and for a market as Social TV, looking forward what third party developments will be.

What is your opinion on the opportunities of Boxee?

Below you’ll find the video, an image and information on the Boxee Box.
For further information check out the website of Boxee.

Another announcement last week, which I received with enthausiasm, was the approval of the Mobile DTV Standard by the ATSC (Advanced Television Systems Committee). The press release can be read here.

The Mobile DTV Standard are technical specifications which enable broadcasters to offer new services to mobile and other handheld devices making use of their digital television transmissions (DTV).

Indeed a milestone in the evolution and convergence of digital television. Broadcasters will have a wider range of devices to their disposal to offer existing -but more important- new services to their customers.

New business models arising from the Mobile DTV standard, will revolve around the evolution of Social TV and its convergence. The Mobile DTV Standard enables the possibility of interactive television services which will mix television, mobile and Internet to create new content services/applications and evolve transactional television to the next level. The Standard utilizes the Internet Protocol which increases the role of terrestial broadcasting even more.

The location characterstic of mobile devices, in combination with the increasing centralized role it plays and the mobility of the modern human will prelude a further democratization of television, where smaller/local broadcasters can take their chance to break through to wider audiences without the conventional television business model and its specifications.

As quoted from the press release:

“This milestone ushers in the new era of digital television broadcasting, giving local TV stations and networks new opportunities to reach viewers on the go,” said Paul Karpowicz, NAB Television Board Chairman and President of Meredith Broadcast Group. “This will introduce the power of local broadcasting to a new generation of viewers and provide all-important emergency alert, local news and other programming to consumers across the nation.”

It would be great if the Mobile DTV Standard will be incorporated in popular smartphones in the near future so that these early adopters have the chance to experience the next step in digital television and in this ‘role’ enhancing the applications to smoothen mass adoption.

by Richard Kastelein (originally posted on Atlantic Free Press)

It’s only been a couple of weeks since the European Broadcasting Union demonstrated the potential of the HbbTV specification at IBC2009 in Amsterdam. But it won’t be long before Europeans start seeing the results – before Christmas according to some pundits. And once compatible devices are out in the market, they say the speed-to-market of applications developed for the platform will be incredibly short… as the industry looks to new models that embrace open API’s and SDK’s much like Apple has done with the iPhone and the Open Source movement online with enormous projects such as Sourceforge. With an HTML environment activated by a simple red button, in the same manner as a Web portal, the resulting content can be delivered over the IP stream.
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