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PICNIC Innovation mashup
Last Tuesday I visited a new event organized by the PICNIC organization; the innovation mashup. In the morning four speakers shared their visions, of which those from Shell and IDEO stand out. In the afternoon there were different workshops organized to think on innovation. I attended the one of colleague agency Frog to experience their methods of creative collaborative thinking, which is comparable to the approach we have. Sitting together with people from different backgrounds thinking on a case was a good experience.
In stead of doing a full report I publish my Storified tweets. Marcel Kampman did a nice video report of the day too.
Connected video trends
Online video and connected TV were hot topics last week. I visited the Immovator CrossMediaCafe and the Online Tuesday, and FastMovingTargets invited also two players in this field. For me this field of connected TV and second screen apps are a longer interest, and I blogged before on this concept [here, here]. We will see a breakthrough this year and a possible definite change in the concept of watching video content if Apple is entering this market later this year. I wrote something on it also in my year forecast.
Four important elements defines the new online video experiences, close connected.
- moving to a personal on demand consuming by default
- the second screen as integrated part of realtime tv
- crowd generated curation
- authentic stories as binders
We have entered a time-shifted TV-viewing experience. We use the on demand services from our broadcasters more and more and watch our own selected TV-series. The next step is the personal relevant guides that will generated suggestions or even complete evening programs based on your data profile and social behavior. Tools like Peel will be common and build in our screens and work like Nest does, continuous becoming smarter. The payment model will change to a access based pay-per-use, where we can lower the costs by interacting with commercials.
Personal on demand behaviour we do on our own or with our family. But we still like to share our experiences with others. The on demand services will have an integrated social layer that connects others that are watching the same in the world or from your contacts, like the Into_Now app does, and it will even suggest to watch certain programs together with your peers at work so you have a topic for the next day. This can go as far as going watching together in a location like a cinema where you program you own evening.
This will be all part of your second screen mainly. We will have a second screen as integrated part of realtime tv (something we used to call live tv), but it will also be your tool to connect to others with time-shifted TV.
With the second screen it is important to understand the first and second screen are one. One experience, one story. At the same time the notion of first and second screen implies that one of them is dominant, and the other supportive. And that is the case indeed. A second screen that draws the attention away from the first screen is not a good experience. Our abilities to share attention will change by the way. For me there are a couple rules if you are designing this second screens.
First is that you should peel the story of the program down to its essence and build the different touchpoints on this story. The first screen will be the lead in the story, the second screen can play different roles. It can be a part of it to make it your personal story, or, and this is the most important function, it will generate a social emotional layer to the watching. In that sense the presentation of Kevin Slavin on this phenomenon is essential; we will have a kind of reference point for our own emotions with the emotions of the crowd that we experience via the second screen.
This can be passive like giving indications on the number of watchers and tweeters over the world (you see only filtered and relevant tweets complete) or it can be more active by creating a extra layer in the story as the Thuiscoach app is a nice example.
We will see a mayor development with the second screen apps this coming year, for instance as families are integrating their second screen apps together in one experience. And we will see integrated concepts between first and second screen apps from Apple, GoogleTV and Samsung.
On the content part there is a long winding trend tipping now; the use of amateur content in mainstream programs. Or better said; amateur content becoming broadcast content. With the on demand watching we will see that curating by peers is getting dominant. Apps like Showyou will get a place under a button on your remote control. And the channels made by people themselves will be part of TV evening.
The last aspect are the authenticity of the stories that becoming the brands of video content. This is important to create compelling multiple screen experiences, as well as it is the way to connect people in on demand viewing and more important, to let them generate profile data entries. Because just like all mayor trends generating, collecting and processing data will be the key in all concepts made for the new connected video.
The impact Steve made Apple make
I read a lot (too many) stories on the resignation of Steve Jobs last day. I find this one on O’Reilly Radar the best, really focusing on the impact and change he made Apple make.
In an era where entrepreneurialism is too often defined by incrementalism and pursuit of the exit strategy, Jobs’ Apple was always defined by true husbandry of a vision, and the long, often thankless, pursuit of excellence and customer delight that goes with it.
Ironically, though, Jobs’ greatest innovation may actually be as basic as “bringing humanity back into the center of the ring,” to borrow a phrase from Joe Strummer of the seminal rock band, The Clash.
Nuff said? Well, the article doesn’t go into the impact of the resignation itself. Is Jobs replaceable? He may have raised Apple to stand on its own feet, and he may also have built in the right insurance by staying in the board, but time will tell if this is enough to resist the urges from a market leader too control its positions in stead of keeping the view on the future product leaps.
I truely hope it will. But there are enough signals it is moving into a new phase. Not only based on the lawsuits for market protection and the patent wars, I think this was probably always a invisible part of the business. And also not only based on the fact that the new CEO Tim Cook has earned it credits in making the business more effective. But definitely by the next phase of lock-in strategies with the introduction of iCloud. How great the service seems to be, it could be well used to play the world domination card like we know it from Microsoft the last decades.
I’m a big lover and collector of the Apple products, and enthusiastic user of the service ecosystem. And I give it a fair chance that the DNA of the company is strong enough to inspire us with more disruptive human touched products. But it will be exciting times for sure…
Can we expect Google Groups?
This week a very interesting presentation by Paul Adams of Google was published on Slideshare called The Real Life Social Network. He nailed some trends in social media on real behavior. It was all over the blogosphere already. It reminds me of my presentation on virtual gated communities at Reboot 11 in 2008. One of the things I was thinking about back then was the way we would create groups with different levels of privacy. It will be very interesting if the presented visions of Adams are translated into a new social approach by Google, just like the rumor that was spread this week by former CTO of Google. Interesting to see how Google are trying to use another angle to confront facebook, with a differentiation in groups. Another thought I had is still valid: can we have interoperability in these groups between different providers?
links for 2010-01-14
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Beautiful clear infograph of the world progress report. With some interesting numbers too.
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Better version than the Dutch wie-o-wie. Looks adequate.
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Tool for making bookmarklets form a lot of short cuts in one bookmarklet. Works smart, like quicksilver but in the browser.
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Marketplace for fan pages of Facebook. More hype than trend maybe…
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Like the simple design and the focus of this tool. I doubt this could be a word killer for meeting minutes. And really missing an export function.
links for 2010-01-12
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Great list of speakers, good place for inspiration lost hours ;-)
links for 2010-01-11
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This is a good post on the new phase in the web we are experiencing right now. I think I wrote about it more than one, the smart context. The term predictive web describes is well.
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Adding feedback options on a beta-version of site is hip. And this is a nice overview of the current products in the market.
links for 2010-01-10
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It is an interesting continuous discussion; the role of privacy. It definitely is changing, people will be using privacy more instrumental. With a more open starting point indeed.
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Another tool for company inside collaborative working. For on the list.
links for 2010-01-09
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A research on the use of twitter. With a analysis of a sample of 1000 tweets with not a lot of surprises.
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Good overview of the new form of marketing where you start with a dialogue, conversate and collaborate.
Can Layar become an on-the-road-search tool?
You all know Layar of course, it can’t be missed. The new tool made by SPRX Mobile is as the say themselves ‘the first mobile augmented reality browser’. Next week there will be a first devcamp with Bruce Sterling setting the context. And that is interesting because I think the approach of Layar is showing different models for a new emerging augmented world.
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