The second largest web-conference in Europe was held last week in Amsterdam. Around 1000 Internet-professionals, startups and academics got together for the fifth time in one of the most relaxed conferences I have ever attended. It seems to be the modus operandi in the Netherlands – many things including credit cards, taxis, or schedule of the conference - do not work, but with a smiling face and great attitude everyone ends up happy. And in the end everything will be sorted out quite fine.

The conference speaker roster was not the most impressive. However, there were a number of great presentations from some unexpected speakers. Also, during the conference I started thinking about the future of web-conferences at the time of real-time web. Especially us tech-enthusiasts are very hard to surprise with anything new and thus many (myself included) came out of the conference with not much news to share with anyone. This said, I am very content with the conference delivery and there are some interesting insights I want to tell a bit more in detail.

Real-time location based services

For the past year there has been very much buzz about real-time location based services. Leading the wave are Foursquare and Gowalla and there has been a lot of speculation on which of these two will win the race for users, just like Twitter won the race of microblogging a few years ago. An excellent presentation by Joe Stump from SimpleGEO (an LBS itself) argued that location is not a war or a gold rush to be won. Instead companies (and individuals) should go beyond the ”check in” –functionality and innovate new services. Foursquare has only around 500 k users worldwide and the ”war” has not even started yet. Moreover one could argue that the time of “one service to rule them all” is coming to its end.

Social media and responsibility

Continuing from the last remarks of the previous chapter, there was a feeling in many presentations and table discussions that the “Follow me on Twitter!” -hype is not that attractive anymore. Facebook announced recently its latest World conquering plans and people were not too excited with that. Instead, there were more and more interest in the ownership of ones social graph and activities within social networks. If there would be a change of tide here so that you could claim ownership of your social network, it would end the gold rushes for the new fads. Instead there could be a plethora of new services all utilizing the social network owned by people themselves and doing the one thing extremely well. Here I must admit is quite a bit of wishful thinking in addition to weak signals from the conference. On the other hand, Robert Cailliau, the co-founder of World Wide Web, expressed his worry towards social media services very well; “they are like religious extreme groups: very easy to get in, but extremely difficult to get out.” You can try to delete your Facebook profile and see for yourself.

Startup bootstrapping

The Next Web presents a number of startups and provides quite a few of them the opportunity to present their business at the main stage between keynotes. I think that is just awesome. And even better is that there were very good startups presenting. Also some keynotes like the one from Tom Werner, co-founder of Github,  concentrated in the startup-dilemma and here the key message was very interesting: bootstrapping can take you a long way in today’s business environment. This emphasizes the thing that I have heard from other sources as well; the traditional venture capitalist model is not working anymore. Startups can get robust development tools for free from the Internet (legally), hosting services are very well scalable and there are ways of making money from day one. Startups today need only tens or hundreds of thousands financing to get a viable product out instead of tens of millions offered by VC’s. All this is once again generalization, but that was the feeling at the conference.

All in all the conference was a very interesting experience in the sense that there were not that many new things but the atmosphere indicated quite pragmatic and cautious approach to the changes happening in the Internet. Social media hype got many laughs although twitter was actively and very effectively used as a backchannel of the conference. My reading of the presentations and the talks with people is that we are taking breath right now before something new – good or not so good – is happening in the industry. ”May you live in interesting times”, as Robert F Kennedy once said, is a good way to end this report.

Hello and welcome to my report on MipTV, the TV content market and conference held in Cannes this week. The report is published in co-operation with digibusiness.eu service.

A multitude of business models

In a multi-channel world we will have a multitude of business models for content owners. Both main approaches, advertising and pay-for-content models will see new forms or applications emerging. On the advertising side at MipTV there was much emphasis on branded content, that is advertisers taking part in production processes through product placement or various sponsoring concepts.

News Corp’s digital arm chief Jonathan Miller predicted, that the most successful model may be a moderate pay-per-view charge complemented with some advertising.

Miller noticed that the question is not only whether the model is pay-per-view, subscription or something else, also value chains differ: as e.g. Amazon is a reseller who buys products with a wholesale price and sets their price independently, Apple is running an agent model where they decide on pricing and deliver the vendor a provision.

Now that I mentioned Apple: In Jonathan Millers vision iPads will turn newspapers into multimedia content providers and thus into another online TV or video access channel. iPads are more interesting as a platform than Kindle and other “e-book-readers”, as iPad has multimedia capabilities.

Online TV is the new normal, utilising measurement data brings new opportunities

Hulu, US web TV service backed by major broadcasters, disclosed that they generated last year 100 million dollar revenue and will this year reach 100 million in the middle of the year. According to Hulu SVP Johannes Larcher, their two last quarters have been profitable. Currently, Hulu reports 40 million monthly users.

US company Jumpwire launched their service for analysing internet torrent traffic to provide data on viewing demographics. The company points out that researching also illegal delivery they can gather useful information for content owners about viewers and their geographical locations. Should a TV show be frequently downloaded on a market where the show doesn’t air, the content owner might consider selling the programming on TV channels on such a market.

Also YouTube emphasises their friendship with content owners. According to Patrick Walker of YouTube, they are able to provide not only advertising services but also valuable viewing data. News Corp’s Jonathan Miller also found that online video delivery brings much needed data on viewing demographics and habits. According to Miller, online delivery can lower content development costs as new shows can be piloted on online services before deciding on full-scale TV production. Online piloting gives information on the popularity and viewer profile of the show. Miller estimated that News Corp. will be using around 10 million dollars this year for made-for-web TV productions.

Don’t forget the mobile

Mobile TV as it was promoted couple of years ago is next to dead in Europe. Despite of this, mobile devices and mobile viewing may have an impact on TV business, many experts reminded. The concept of mobile Apps – however trivial for software engineers – will bring interesting difference to how content is sold and bought on mobile channel.

Now that media companies are actively promoting mobile content and services (largely sparked by iPhone and iPad), the role of telecom operators seems to be becoming difficult. Especially, if they want to expand their business from the basic data transfer.

Yahoo Widgets live on TF1

Yahoo, Samsung and French commercial broadcaster TF1 had launched last Saturday interactive TV service running on Yahoo Widgets platform. In France, Samsung TV set buyers get access to a variety of TF1 and Eurosport add-on content. Yahoo lauched the Widget platform early 2009 and this is one of the first deployments in Europe. TF1 is also participating in another interactive platform development, HbbTV.

3D progresses surprisingly fast, will largely challenge content production

3D seems to be progressing much faster than anticipated. However, in the short term stereoscopic picture will play role mostly for cinemas: There seems to be a business model in a form of placing premium in movie ticket prices. Cinemas can also handle the viewing glasses issue better than homes, where the need for glasses is a real problem. It will take at least a couple of years until we will see 3D TV sets on market that do not require special glasses (this is called “autostereoscopic viewing”).

3D is not just a technical change. It has an impact on production and narration. In 2D, the programme is edited to emphasise details according to director’s vision. In 3D, the viewer’s eye does a part of this work. If the content is cut in too short segments, viewers may suffer of headache in 3D viewing.

Optimally, the distance to main target in 3D shooting should be 10-15 meters, the camera should not be far up from the ground level and the background should be not too far away. This results in that high-quality 3D production cannot be directly integrated in 2D shooting and editing processes.

In sports programming tennis, boxing and small stadium football are favourable for 3D. Gabriel Fehervari, CEO of major technical production company Alfacam noticed that 3D football in the FIFA World Cup may be a disappointment as the mentioned optimal conditions will not be met there.

As a sign of 3D importance and potential, Singapore has chosen to foster heavily 3D production. Production companies there have an access to a funding that covers 80 % of the extra cost in 3D productions compared with 2D.

3D advertising content hasn’t yet taken off. 3D spots are shown mostly just before cinema movies. Clearly advertisers don’t find the TV 3D advertising coverage to be adequate.

Social media didn’t find its role at a TV conference

Every reputable professional conference needs to mention social media. Real news, applications and business models related to TV viewing were few at MipTV.

Swedish company Starling launched a platform for TV channels to provide viewers ways to communicate and interact during TV shows. The idea reminds me on Sofanatics service that concentrates on sports content.

Video summary

Check out also our video wrap-up: Digital Media Finland MipTV Video Summary

Want to receive alerts as future reports are published? Visit www.digitalmedia.fi and click Subscribe to Conference Reports.

Timo Argillander is a consultant specialised in digital media strategies and business planning.

Hello and welcome to my report on this year’s IBC, the leading European broadcasting industry event, held in Amsterdam.

Here comes what I found the most interesting at the event:

Internet video to be business as usual, but still a headache for many broadcasters

• There is a clear consumer demand for internet video, but the broadcasting companies haven’t clearly figured out how to monetise it.
• “Advertising revenues earned on Internet video will settle on a lower level than what has been the case with broadcast TV advertising, broadcasters need to accept and adapt to this fact”, says IBM’s Saul Berman. “If you don’t cannibalise your own business [with internet video] others will do it, as has happened in music industry.”
• Ogilvy’s Rory Sutherland notes, that when launching a new delivery channel in any business, 50 % of the revenue of the new channel may be incremental. This is because people have (often non-rational) channel preferences and they don’t automatically convert to new channel. Instead, new channels can attract to a large extent new customers. In broadcasting this means that majority of viewers are likely to continue to watch linear broadcast TV even if online video were more convenient or provided better value.

IPlayer success continues, BBC considers opening the platform for others

• BBC’s iPlayer, the catch-up service on the Internet continues to show success.

• • - BBC plans to provide iPlayer platform for other broadcasters worldwide as well; the proposal is still subject to approval of BBC Trust
  • - iPlayer video game console adaptations have also proven to be popular, at its best PS3 platform has represented 10 % of all iPlayer viewing
  • - iPlayer is available also on Virgin Media cable network – that is on a non-IP service

• UK company IP Vision has launched hybrid service “Fetch TV” that combines broadcast and broadband TV.

• • - Fetch TV device comprises of two free-to-air terrestrial receivers and internet connectivity
  • - Supports free-to-air terrestrial transmissions, BBC’s iPlayer catch-up-service and video-on-demand pay TV offering
  • - Can be configured to show other web video content as well
  • - Consumer price is around 200 GBP, there is no subscription fee

• Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV or “HbbTV” is a new initiative backed by French and German broadcasters that aims at providing an open solution for joining broadcast and online video content on TV screens (see www.hbbtv.org).

London 2012 a rising sun for the industry

• London 2012 Olympics are building momentum – and hype – for broadcasting industry. By 2012 the recession should be over and businesswise ever-important Olympic games are anticipated to boost digital technologies. Everything will of course be shot in HD; Super-HD and 3D will be piloted.
  • - BBC’s Director of London 2012, Roger Mosey was asked how much the event will cost for the pubcaster. The answer: hasn’t been decided yet and when decided, it will not be disclosed…
• Sports continue to be among the major drivers for media business. Eurosport’s Arnaud Simon comments on future trends:
  • - Many youngsters get acquainted with sports and sports idols through video games first and afterwards start to follow live or televised sports.
  • - Society’s trend towards shorter span of attention and superstar culture will have an impact on what sports will be televised and thus what sports will enjoy most spectators – and sponsorship income. Tennis will be in trouble, also Olympics will struggle whether to stick with its traditional values or to change towards headline- and controversy-generating direction.

Social media takes some small steps

• There was not much social media hype at IBC, some interesting solutions though:

• - Internet recommendation network Trusted Opinion launched a solution for IPTV providers to bring TV and VOD content reviews and ratings for their viewers. The service takes the benefit of Trusted Opinion’s 1 million user base on the Internet.

• - Broadcasting technology vendor Harris launched their own virtual world environment based on Second Life platform to provide support and training for their customers. Yes, avatars are included.

3D and mobile TV don’t fit on agenda in recession

• 3D TV with or without glasses can be seen in horizon, but nobody promised any large-scale roll-outs in the near future.
• Mobile TV was in practice non-existent at the show.

author:

Timo Argillander

Digital Media Finland Oy

www.digitalmedia.fi

 

Futur en Seine (www.futur-en-seine.org) is a Popular Festival of the Digital city, a unique cultural, technological and social event, which will take place from 29th May to 7th June in the city of Paris and Ile de France region. For ten days, across the city and region, you will be able to see, touch and interact with innovative technologies and applications which will be part of daily life in the digital city of the future. The scale and scope of the Festival is breathtaking: 10 full days, 40 venues, some 300 events, 15 major prototypes, 30 conferences, and a digital village….all free of charge!

Futur en Seine also presents a pioneering international program and perspective. This stands alone in its open, inclusive and interactive format, bringing together leading international visionaries, thinkers, creatives and practitioners with “grass-roots” interaction and public participation. At the same time, the festival offers the international visitor a broad and mixed English language program, with a diverse range of conferences, exhibitions, prototypes, and demonstrations.

During the festival there will be ample opportunity for international visitors to present innovative technologies, prototypes and services and explore new research, development and business opportunities.

The festival also has a profound social and ethical perspective. At a time of global economic crisis, doubt in the future, and lack of trust in traditional social and economic institutions, the international festival and conference will focus not only on technological progress and services in the city, but also on the social and ethical potential of media to (re)establish trust and collaboration between the “grass-roots” public, digital research and development, government and business.

The social and ethical impact of digital media and information technology on the structure, form and experience of life in the city of the future, from new products, services, tools, applications, to our physical and virtual space and relationships, is a subject of concern throughout the world.  The international program of Futur en Seine addresses this concern directly. Over the festival, the Futur en Seine international program will bring together renowned international thinkers and visionaries with creatives and practitioners from leading European (and US) cities to discuss new approaches and prototypes, design new blue-prints, and formulate recommendations for a more “livable”, humane, and sustainable digital city of the future.

 The International “Futur en Seine” Program

Within this context, the international program will focus throughout the festival on certain central themes, which will directly affect the lives of the citizen in the next few years. These include:

 -       Mobility

-       Space, Security, Trust

-       Care and Aging

-       Collaborate Design, Mapping Complex networks across cultures and social layers

-       Environmental and Social Sustainability

To open the international program on 30^th/31st May, leading international thinkers will address these themes at the World Information City Conference, which has chosen to hold its major annual event in Paris, with such eminent speakers as Saskia Sassen (US/NL), Stephen Graham (UK), Bruno Latour (FR), John Urry (UK), Carlo Ratti (IT/US), Solomon Benjamin (IN), Eyal Weizman (IL), Christophe Aguiton (FR), Dominique Cardon (FR), and Brian Holmes (US). This major event promises new insight and debate at the highest international level, and is a fitting way in which to open the international festival.

These themes are addressed throughout the following days in a wide and colourful range of conferences, exhibitions, prototypes and demonstrations throughout the city and region, with diverse cultural, artistic and media-related perspectives. On an international level, events in English will include ongoing workshops and presentations on such subjects as geo-localization and cultural mapping, audio-visual and open software innovation, and architectural experimentation in the WikiPlaza on the Place de la Bastille.

The “Immaterial” Digital Season in the Maison des Métallos hosts such events as the “Arctic Perspective Initiative”, focusing on an international project to design a mobile, media-centric facility, life-support habitation and work module with renewable energy supply, waste cycling and communications systems, and a range of other international exhibitions, conferences and performances.

To the north of the city in Saint-Ouen, Mains D’Oeuvres hosts the ”Mal au Pixel” (Pixelache) International Festival of Electronic Art and Culture, featuring installations, performing arts, meetings, workshops and concerts around the themes of public space, urban electronics and ecology.

The list of international events continues with Eurodigimeet, featuring key players from the Digital Industries, and Read Digital at the Bourse de Commerce, Dimension 3: The future of 3D at the Centre National de la Danse, Peter Greenaway’s “Tulse Luper VJ Tour” at the Bains Numériques in Enghien-les-Bains, and many more diverse and fascinating spectacles.

The international festival culminates in Cap Digital’s international event “World Future Digital City@FenS”, under the heading “The Digital City in the Next Five Years”, which takes place over two days in the inspirational setting of the refurbished Hermes factory, in the historic heart of the city, near the Place de la Bastille.

 World Future Digital City@FenS: “The Digital City in the Next Five Years

 * Time: 5th – 6th June, 2009

 * Place: Cap Digital, 74 rue du Faubourg Saint Antoine, Paris

 International guests (political advisors, planners, thinkers, creatives, business, research) and their Paris City/Region equivalent have been invited to collaborate in discussing and designing the new paradigm of the digital city.

Cap Digital’s international event aims to review and integrate the experience and insight generated and gained in the first days of the festival with the ideas, visions, and prototypes of practitioners, thinkers, and creatives, who have been invited from international cities renowned for their creativity in urban design and innovative digital applications. The international participants have been urged to show prototypes and demonstrations of their visionary work and to engage in workshops and interactive participation.

The event starts with an International Conference, moderated by Andrew Bullen and Humberto Schwab, on the key issues pertaining to the impact of the digital media environment, products, services, tools and applications on the form and experience of life in the city of the future. European city representatives will engage in a Socratic Discourse, led by philosopher Schwab, on the burning questions around the future digital city, whilst visionary European digital prototypes and projects will be presented. The participants will then come together to define fundamental values and best practices, leading towards a collaborative vision and scenarios around such key areas as trust, mobility, sustainability, care and collaborative urban design.

In the evening, participants will have the opportunity to enjoy a special boat trip and cocktails, visiting Futur-en-Seine prototypes and installations.

On the second day of the event, the focus turns from presentation and debate to a  “hands-on” creative lab to design and build prototype “blue-prints” for the digital city of the future on the basis of the values, visions and scenarios generated on the first day. Waag Society from Amsterdam will collaborate with the ENSCI School of Industrial Design and Nodesign from Paris to support participants in the move from vision to prototype on a physical level. The event ends with a presentation to the city and the international public of the visions and prototypes, underlined by recommendations for the measures, values, and collaborations needed to create an international paradigm for the digital city of the future.

Writer: Andrew Bullen

Programme:

Friday, 5th June 10:00 - 18:00, Cap Digital

Conference: “The Digital City in the next 5 years”

 Moderation Andrew Bullen / Humberto Schwab

 Morning

 Opening, Introduction:

 Reports on the Festival: new ideas, visions, projects

 Discussion / Socratic discourse with representatives of the cities and philosopher Humberto Schwab

 What are the burning questions concerning the digital city of the future?

 Confirmed participants:

 Rick Bartelaan (Senior Advisor, Strategy/Direction, Infrastructure, Traffic and Transport, Municipality of Amsterdam)

Marleen Stikker (Founder and Director, Waag Society for Old and New Media, Amsterdam)

Murielle Gagnon (Director, Strategic Programs and Joint Initiatives, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Ottawa)

Lia Ghilardi (Founder and Director of Noema Research and Planning Ltd, London)

Leonard Wright (Organiser Convergence Chicago, Hollywood film producer)

Lynne Teather (Associate Professor, i-school, University of Toronto)

Pouline Middleton (Director, Crossroads Copenhagen)

Lari Lohikoski (Programme Director, Culminatum Innovation, Helsinki)

Prototypes and projects for the Digital City of the Future:

 Amsterdam (Rick Bartelaan /  PTA )

 Amsterdam (Frank Kresin / Sustainability in the City)

 Amsterdam (Marleen Stikker: From First European “Digital City” to the Present)

 Ottawa (Murielle Gagnon: Urban Experience, Digital Nomadism)

 London (Lia Ghilardi: Cultural Mapping, Identity, Cities)

 Chicago (Leonard Wright: Digital Convergence)

 With focus in aspects of:

   - Trust / Control

   - Mobility

   - Sustainability

   - Identity / Collaborative urban design

 Lunch

Afternoon

  - Introduction of the Workshops

 - Plenary Briefing and Grouping around the workshop themes

   Values, best practices, visions, scenarios

 - Presentation of the Workshop results

 - Summary of the values, best practices, visions, scenarios, recommendations, personae

 Evening

 Special boat trip and cocktail for participants, visiting interesting

Futur-en-Seine events, installations etc.

Saturday, 6th June, 10:00 - 18:00

Digital City Lab, Physical design and prototyping

 In collaboration with Waag Society, Amsterdam, Nodesign, Paris, and students from the ENSCI School for Industrial Design

 Morning

 Recap of values, visions, scenarios and recommendations

 Introduction to prototyping with “scrap” – renewable materials from the city

 Inspiration session (Presentation of inspirational scenarios, projects)

 Live Video Link with Amsterdam Sustainability Festival: Workshops for the Citizens. Opening of the event live from Amsterdam / Paris with Mayors / Councillors of the Cities

 Brainstorming Session

 Lunch

 Afternoon

 Creative brainstorming and prototyping

 17:00 Presentation

  - Presentation of the Vision, Prototypes and Recommendations

  - Discussion on the continuation of the concept development and design process

 18:00 End 

 

Hello and welcome to my report on Consumer Electronics Show CES held in Las Vegas last week. As always, this is my subjective summary what I found interesting there!

Recession is here (but the next thing is upswing)

• CES regular attendees were wondering how empty it was at the show; there were 110.000 visitors (down 30.000 from the previous year) and 2.700 exhibitors (down 300)
• Consumer Electronic Association released some data on consumer electronics market: the global market in 2008 was up 13 % from the previous year; in 2009 the growth will slow down to 4,3 % and the market size will reach revenues of 724 billion $.
• In the US the market will decline this year by 0,6 %
• The good news: many good people are available for companies to hire in order to be fit when the upswing comes; people’s growing spare time will also give boost for social networking activities

TV sets to connect to the Internet, Yahoo presents TV interactivity

• Major TV manufacturers have launched at least pilot solutions where TV set is connected to broadband and Internet video content is almost seamlessly brought to TV screens (see also my IBC posting in September)
• Many TV vendors have partnered with video sites (YouTube, Amazon video, Netflix etc) and offer theri content through a television user interface
• Some solutions are shipping in the US, but I got no information when they would appear in Europe; partly a reason may be that the content partnerships are difficult to implement on European multi-country market
• Yahoo released an interesting widget platform, which allows to develop applications for TVs; widgets would be delivered over a broadband connection. Widgets and widget content is free while Yahoo places there some advertising. Yahoo pushes the widget platform to be standardised on some level. Many TV vendors were on the board, e.g. LG and Samsung. To me this concept made very much sense, could this be the route to make TV interactivity happen? (see also: connectedtv.yahoo.com)
• Ebay running on Yahoo widgets pictured below:

• 

3D comes to TV but it is still long way to go

• There is a growing interest towards 3D stereoscopic TV content and several TV vendors showcased their 3D solutions
• TV manufacturers are now looking for the next big thing after flat panel TVs and HD, 3D could be one (but the consumer interest needs to be awaked first: just 7 % of Americans have heard of the idea of bringing 3D to TV)
• 3D systems are widely being installed in movie theatres
• 3D requires usually special spectacles, but technologies that make eyeglasses redundant are coming
• Big film studios will launch 40 3D movie titles within next two or three years
• Content will be a bottleneck; ideally the same content could be used both for 2D and 3D viewing
• The boldest prediction was given by Fox’s President of Engineering, Andrew Setos: “HD quality autostereoscopic [no spectacles needed] will be here in two years”

OLED is the new, green TV display technology

• So-called organic LED (OLED) is the new display technology that brings many advantages compared with LCD: OLED need no backlighting making it energy-efficient and allowing really thin displays
• Several TV vendors showcased OLED TV sets (see Samsung’s OLED TV pictured below)

• 

• Sony unveiled a thin, flexible OLED panel that could be used for e-books

Netbooks continue to wake interest

• Several computer vendors unveiled new netbook – or small laptop – models, joining Asus and Acer, who have lead the netbook race so far
• Some of the netbooks are teared-down laptops for simple writing and browsing needs while are others fully-equipped computers
• For Internet service developers, netbook is a new form factor between mobile handsets and PCs – and a new screen size that needs to be supported

It’s their own mobile TV game in the USA

• As it has been known, Qualcomm’s subsidiary is running a mobile broadcast service based on MediaFLO technology. The service is provided for consumers by two major mobile operators, AT&T and Verizon. No information is available on the subscriber numbers (I tried to do some detective work but got no wiser).
• Now, US standards committee ATSC is the process of preparing their own new standard for transmitting existing TV channels with free-to-air business model, much in the way mobile TV works in Japan.
• There was a trial broadcast stream on air at CES and at least LG had several handsets on show that were receiving ATSC-based stream (see picture below; yes, there is an external antenna!)

US analog TV will be shut off in February… maybe…

• USA has decided to close down terrestrial analog TV transmissions in February, 17th
• During CES, Obama’s transition administration sources suggested that the switchoff date could be postponed, because many citizens are unprepared and government’s 40-dollar set-top-box subsidy coupons have run out. Regulator FCC’s chairman Kevin Martin however told CES attendees that they are committed to the decided date.
• 17 million US households depend on terrestrial transmissions
• Because US pay-TV market is already well developed, digital switchover is not believed to give a boost for TV subscriptions

Your comments are again more than welcome! (Don’t be discouraged by the somewhat clumsy reply process on this site!)

by Editor-in-chief Irina Blomqvist:

DIGIBUSINESS Think Tank members met last week in Venice, Vega Park. The meeting was an extensive mixture of Finnish, Italians, English, Dutch, Northern Irish, Spanish and French digital content & services business support people. The idea in these meetings is to exchange information on what’s happening in our respective countries or regions and start working on concrete project ideas. We went through European funding opportunities and discussed vividly on the lack of funding for commercialization for example. We don’t think there are tools for that, so therefore is there something we should do as a group to help companies to get such funding? There is clearly an issue to be raised. As an European Think Tank we aim to find possibilities for our companies to meet and collaborate. Because of the nature of DIGIBUSINESS area the companies tend to be small in size and they could benefit a lot with this “collaborative entrepreneurship” idea, which is nothing new really. Companies could actually look at the markets together.

DIGIBUSINESS companies or ICT/Media Creative companies are very innovative by nature. But, being small and innovative doesn’t necessarily bring the business in. As a Think Tank, and also as a support group for these companies we need to get Europe working together. Europe can get a head start by setting up best practice initiatives for innovation across government, industry and education. Properly developed, funded and practised, it could help a powerful climate of innovation and a thriving intellectual infrastructure to develop in Europe. Such an integrated set of initiatives - public and private - would not only be timely, it would be a bold and innovative strategy in itself.

By adopting an innovative philosophy in business and applying a creative strategy across the enterprises, embedding it in the business mix, we will be in a much better position to map business successfully onto the turbulent but wonderfully challenging environment in which we all find ourselves.

Many Think Tank members will be in Lyon in ICT 2008 Conference and networking event on 25^th November if you want to find out more.

Irina Blomqvist
Programme Director
DIGIBUSINESS Finland, Digibusiness Cluster Programme
Culminatum Innovation
Editor-in-chief for http://www.digibusiness.eu
Mobile +358 40 5722 393
irina.blomqvist(a)culminatum.fi

by Mr. Timo Argillander:
Hello and welcome to my report on this year’s IBC, Europe’s leading broadcasting event. As always, this is my subjective summary of what I found important at the show and conference.

Economy slow-down brings implications to media technology as well, but the industry will continue to grow

• - the growth of broadcast and media technology market will slow down to 5% or below in 2009 from this year’s 13% (IABM)
• - in 2010 the growth will speed up again
• - in 2009, Japan will see a 1% decline, all other markets still are to show growth
• – fastest growing markets are unsurprisingly Latin America (+30%), Africa (+24%) and Eastern Europe (+17%)
• - in general consumers tend not to cut their media consumption during recession, but they are likely to postpone buying new gadgets and to downscale their pay-tv subscriptions
• - economy slow-down will also further speed up the trend towards free content services (today’s general belief is that content services should comprise some relevant free content to attract audiences and pay content to generate more revenues)
• - some further broadcast and media technology market data presented by IABM:
• – the total worldwide market size is 24 bn$
• – products bring revenues of 15 bn$ and services 9 bn$, with services showing the highest growth

Internet video is now

• - IPTV is already business as usual and now TV and video services that are delivered on open internet have moved from “future trends category” to today’s services
• – a steadily growing amount of consumers want their TV/video content on demand and broadcasters just cannot leave these audiences unserved
• - the flagship example at the show was BBC´s iPlayer service, which has been very successful in the UK
• – 63% of the viewers are 35 years or older (well, it’s BBC…)
• – many platforms are supported; split of viewing by platform: Windows 85%, Mac 10%, iPhone/iPod Touch 3%, Linux 1%, Wii 1%
• – yes, they really support Nintendo Wii as well, however, its user experience in TV viewing was said to be disappointing
• - other notions on internet video services:
• – Apple is the dominant online video content retailer: over 150 million TV episodes and 15 million movies sold online
• – in the US, Hulu (joint service of NBC Universal and News Corp.) has been a success with 119 video streams served in July
• – previously much-hyped Joost is said to do not too well
• – Amazon is coming to market with “Amazon Video on Demand” service
• – UK broadcasters BBC, ITV and Channel 4 are developing “project Kangaroo” as a common web interface to their programming
• – and yes, there of course is YouTube, but it is seen more a promotion channel for content owners, not a serious delivery platform
• - video rental is moving online
• – in online rental the content owners get 60% of the money, in physical DVD rental only 20%
• – US company Netflix - famous for its web-based order service and innovative logistics for physical DVD rentals - is now offering rental movies also online
• - some market data provided by Strategy Analytics:
• – European online video revenues are 1.4 bn$ this year and 6 bn$ in 2012
• – in Europe’s big countries web TV is watched most in Spain, UK and Italy; less in France and Germany
• – in Europe half of the 15-24 year olds watch web TV at least once a month; in this age group web TV streaming is now more common that p2p shared video viewing
• - consumer electronics manufacturers are bringing new products and features for web TV
• – Panasonic has introduced Vieracast - a TV set with internet connectivity and content bundle with Eurosport
• – Sony has released Bravia Internet Video Link connection box for TV, upcoming movie “Hancock” will be shown through this device prior to theatre launch
• – Apple TV has high potential despite of drawbacks (Apple surely has a strategy for digital home)
• - there will also continue to be user-generated content on the web, but now that mainstream content owners are coming to web with force and mainstream consumers are starting to tune in to web TV, user content was left in the shadow of professionally produced content
• - web is also a potential channel for professionally produced non-broadcast video, for production companies this may mean new business

Mobile TV still going forward, but it’s a multi-platform world

• - Austrian and Dutch DVB-H launches were seen as good signs for mobile broadcast TV; at least this was the first time at IBC that there was a commercial mobile broadcast stream on air
• - German operators have caused confusion by introducing DVB-T for mobile use, so what do we need DVB-H and other specific mobile broadcast networks for?
• – despite of battery technology enhancements, DVB-T still consumes clearly more handset power than DVB-H
• – DVB-T does not allow decent indoor reception
• – DVB-T does not allow interactivity as such (although this probably is no issue for consumers)
• – DVB-T wouldn’t work in many countries for mobile, as few countries can use such high transmitter powers than is possible in German terrestrial network
• - US-based MobiTV announces that their service has over 4 million subscribers in cellular networks
• - Nokia is now including DVB-H software components on all handsets with S60 platform, which makes is easy for product development to add DVB-H functionalities for handsets
• - there are still different competing mobile broadcast technologies in use and it seems that so will be in the future as well
• – many mobile TV hardware and software providers have chosen a multi-standard strategy, they either deliver products for different platforms or have in their product range hybrid products that are supporting two or more platforms
• - now that we are in a multichannel world, technology providers in all parts of the value chain support several delivery channels, mobile usually being one of them; this increases the readiness for supplying TV and video content for mobile devices (e.g. Envivio encoder incorporates encoding of several parallel video streams for different codecs in a single system)
• - mobile TV is being introduced also in many non-phone devices, such as car navigators

After DVB-T comes T2

• - the industry organisation DVB has developed next generation terrestrial broadcast technology called DVB-T2
• - compared with widely used DVB-T, new T2 provides 50% better capacity - around 36 Mbit/s in a multiplex
• - T2 will be deployed over time and it will co-exist with DVB-T
• - first live DVB-T2 demonstration was shown at IBC
• - BBC will probably be the first user of T2 - they plan to convert one of their two UK multiplexes to T2 to allow inclusion of HD content in their transmissions in late 2009

Digital Signage said to make breakthrough - again

• - digital signage usually equals replacing outdoor billboards and signage with flat-screen displays and providing compelling (advertising) content on them
• - now that display technology gets all the time better and cheaper, the cost of digital signage competes with the cost of operating and maintaining traditional signage, in addition to this digital signage brings moving image to outdoor marketing
• - at IBC lots of digital signage technology was shown, many say that this time digital signage will make breakthrough
• - UK company Digital Screen Networks (DSN) is running a digital signage advertising network
• – DSN rents window space from high street retailers and places 63″ displays in the windows
• – DSN sells advertising for the screens and pays the window owner a share of revenue
• – the displays are now in 17 locations in major UK cities, with 8 million people walking by the windows weekly
• – they run a six-minute loop consisting of unmodified TV and cinema ads
• – 75% of products advertised are entertainment, which DSN says means lucrative ad content
• – the cost of one installation (screen, sound system, pc, software) is 15.000 pounds
• – DSN is experimenting with bluetooth connectivity and interactive advertising as well
• - control software is essential, advertisers need reliable reports how their campaigns are run
• - in addition to advertising all kinds of application areas such as schools or corporate training were mentioned, but I suspect whether one can find a business case there

3D, Super Hi-Vision and other nice cool stuff

• - 3D video demos have developed to a good quality level (unfortunately I didn’t have the time to look at 3D video business more deeply)
• - Japan’s NHK demonstrated what they call “Super Hi-Vision”, 7680 x 4320 pixel digital video with 22.2 multichannel sound
• – also live connection from London was shown, with this resolution and a 600 Mbit/s (!) fibre transmission
• - Vuzix sells nicely working video-eyeglasses that support also 3D video in price range of 200-330 EUR
• - DiBcom showcased Packetvideo’s small white-label box that receives DVB-H broadcast signal and retransmits it over WLAN to mobile device; this way they could show “mobile TV” on an iPhone…

Timo Argillander
Digital Media Finland Oy

A Think Tank is usually an organisation that claims to serve as a center for research and/or analysis of important public issues. In general, however, research from Think Tanks is ideologically driven in accordance with the interests of its funders. And our interest is in Digital Content and Services, that’s why we are called DIGIBUSINESS Think Tank.

We are not talking about a Finnish Think Tank nor UK Think Tank – no way, by nature this is an European Think Tank. And I am rather proud of the fact.

DIGIBUSINESS Think Tank is an international network of people with strong background in digital area. Mainly it is a group of business service organisations that jointly exchange information and work on selected projects. Among the network’s scope is to understand trends and weak signals within digital business industry and to develop an open innovation platform.

That means you have to find time to THINK. It’s best to do it in bed when sick, I think No meetings, in other words, time to ponder.

We gather regularly in different European countries in our partner’s premises to discuss, present projects and ideas and to argue. At the end of March the place was Barcelona, www.barcelonamedia.org. Thanks to Marta, Vicente and Jordi.

It is important for us to understand the digital content opportunity. Also, we need to build linkages between industry, digital content companies, the creative industries and the educational system. Furthermore the creative energy and digital knowledge of the new media industry needs access to the business acumen and deep resources of the established business community and vice versa. Together they present the best scenario for a successful digital economy.

There is much confusion surrounding the definition of Digital Content. Some use the term purely to describe the digital content market, others to describe the online and mobile publishing field. The drivers of the digital content market have been the low cost availability of advanced digitally based communications and entertainment platforms to businesses and consumers. But defining digibusiness is something we are working on at the moment. So, I’ll come back to it during the spring.

Because I don’t have a crystal ball to tell me what’s going to happen in the future I have a feeling that DIGIBUSINESS Think Tank is going to be very much valued. Thinking is about to become big business again. Trust me.

April 8th, 2008 by Irina Blomqvist, Program Director for Finnish DIGIBUSINESS Cluster and the lady behind DIGIBUSINESS Think Tank initiative

Photos by Tommi Rissanen

Every time there is a new phenomenon, two groups of people emerge. The advocates predict new world order and teach the less civilized part of the population all about the new tools and ways of making business. Not far behind follow the second group, the antagonists that predict the doom to all those believing in sudden changes. 

Social media is definitely in the peak of hype at the moment and a classic phenomenon that attracts both advocates and antagonists. I must admit that I am a social media junkie myself – just give me a hint of a new service and I’m all in. At the same time I am rather critical to new business opportunities and thus have managed not to take sides in the debate of whether social media brings us to the garden of eden or gates to hell. 

The Internet business is not what it used to be in the ”good old” hardware and software times. Business models have become complicated consisting of free services, open source software and user-generated content. At the same time the amount of users has become a meter of success to services. There’s nothing wrong in that compared to the brilliant services of the 90’s that had great business models but no users. However, the leap from a free service with millions of users to a profitable business is still a long one.

On the other hand, we can criticize the criticizers as well. All kinds of doubts have been presented about the viability of the business reminding and warning about the horrors of the Internet bubble in the late 90’s. Then again, if we think what has happened with Facebook for example, the evidence is convincing; the amount of users have grown from 30.000 to 300.000 in Finland alone in less than 4 months. Over 50% of the Facebookers go there every day and many of them prefer spending time in Facebook to watching television. These are sound arguments against those saying that nothing changes. The impact in media behaviour is imminent and denying it is short sighted. 

I would not put my millions, if I had them in the first place, to social media services. Not anymore, because I’ve heard taxi drivers talk about Facebook. However, looking back to the actual dot-com bubble, the Finnish market was different; undeveloped venture capital market, huge amounts of money easily available and businesses based on future expectations and market share instead of sound business models. In Finland another Internet bubble is still far away and instead of predicting doom we should figure out why so few Finnish companies break internationally even though they are in the forefront of development. 

That’s the thing we are doing our best to help with in the DIGIBUSINESS cluster programme for the next six years.