How will TV Go Social?
Wednesday, February 9th New York City at ibreakfast. The conversation covered a number of concurrent topics around how will television (however its delivered) connect with people using social media. Simon Applebaum who spoke at the event called it a "revolution with integrating social media, apps and on-line television." He also said that VC's need to get into the space and fund companies and projects to jump start the process.
Some of the topics discussed; What is the model for usage, how will people use their TV's in a social way? Facebook and others don't know the answer right now according to Applebaum.
"Perhaps its like the start of the Internet, people didn't know all the ways in which people would use and make money with it."
Alan Brody founder of ibreakfast said that VC's want 100x return on their investment "10x will only get them even" He also feels that companies will be kicking and screaming before they are interoperable via any "standards"
If you as the consumer and have a LG TV, and a Sony Blu-ray DVD, how will the Gate keepers make them interoperable? How will you as the consumer connect divergent devices to all your social media? Its hard to believe they will create standards, either officially or not especially when you look at the example of the turf being turned up right now with the Google and Apple, this over Google's decision not to support H.264, (owed by MPEG LA, the patent troll) in their Chrome browser.
Applebaum went on to say, Television will integrate and open Apps and development across their platforms, though when you look at cable providers they have yet to open their API's to developers let alone leverage them internally to their full potential. For example, when you look at Android, its open to all developers across different sources however, lacks consistency, when you look at Apple, they totally control all aspects of their App Store, but have a consistent sales experience.
Scott Varland, Social Bomb
His company creates social media solutions for large media outlets. They also have an API it leverages with different clients. He called it a social layer on top of social TV and is agnostic with different delivery platforms. He showed their True Blood allows users to share scenes using their Blu-ray remote to their Facebook and Twitter feeds as well as accessing virtual gifts. When speaking about VC's, he thought typically they are concerned when having to work with gate keepers.
Alan Brody (left) Scott Varland@ ibreakfast
Bonnie Sandy, 28 Squared
Her company specializes in designers from Africa, Europe and the Caribbean. She spoke of the divide between TV, Social and Community, this from her base in Brooklyn, NY. "What makes WebTV work is between you and I and not corporations"
