Entertainment = Consumption + Interaction:

Internet-enabled TV will bring about some radical changes.  Nielsen’s Three Screen Report indicates that consumption of the moving image is increasing across all three screens: traditional TV, internet, and mobile. The interactivity of this “data” will surely change. Entertainment now equals both watching and interaction: checking out additional content online, playing games, or participating in ads as entertainment. 3D and gesture-based interactions will also redefine this blurring of the line between passive and active viewing over the next few years.

Ditch the “dumb” set-top:

Content models that rely on “captive audience” set-top box capture of viewing habits are outmoded as delivery systems, and deliver poor analytics and reporting compared with the information we can glean from a data-only model. If content owners rely on this information, why does the old model remain unchecked? The set-top box is largely a passive unit that doesn’t include an interface, platform, or APIs for allowing advertisers to interact directly with their target audience in real-time like the Web does. We have seen some recent (and awesome) successes with new methods of delivery: Hulu, Netflix, MLB, and on-demand efforts. However we are in an infancy of thinking about the possibilities of satellite, cable, and their antiquated set-tops, and how broadcast can recapture some of the money that migrated to online advertising.

This is an opportunity for direct access to consumers in their living rooms. The delivery method is there, there is already a large internet-enabled box in many living rooms: tuner, DVR, AppleTV, Slingbox, etc. MSOs already have the access to provide value-add applications to the experience, but what is preventing them from radically changing the intersection of TV, Internet, and advertising? They actually have had a better chance than anyone.

Develop a platform:

Imagine tying content delivery to analytics and advertising – a platform that delivers both choice and guidance to direct viewers to shows they like, and then targets accompanying ads based on more granular information and feedback. Visible World does last-mile ad insertion for parent company, Comcast, who acquired one of the big three: NBC.  A small wrinkle in this still-disputed merger is Sen. Kohl, who is asking for a divestiture of NBC’s holdings in Hulu, arguing that it potentially violates anti-trust.

But this is an amazing opportunity for MSOs to radically change the model for consumers and advertisers by providing a platform for interaction. MSOs have a chance to drive people back to their subscriptions — otherwise we will see a switch to online viewing, where advertisers can get a lot more feedback for their digital dimes, and consumers can have more choice, and augment their experiences.

The TV could supersede the MSO-provided set-top box as a platform:

Internet-enabled TVs or TVs with companion internet-enabled boxes will supersede the current MSO interface and platform. Federated search across Internet/DVR/broadcast is far more useful and less clunky than a remote-driven interface.  In addition, the ability to bring in dynamic web content — ads, additional content, or related information — should quickly reduce the three screens to just two.

When MSOs realize they are missing out on key advertising opportunities, we will see a rush to market with subscription- and licensed-content across the three screens. You would have thought that Hulu would have put the fear in them, but wait until Google TV takes their bite.  Their recent partnerships with TV manufacturer, Sony, ensures that this will be widely distributed to Best Buy, Walmart, etc. beyond the market reach of Roku, Slingboxes, of the world.

Prepare to lose ad revenue:

NBC Universal’s (current) CEO Jeff Zucker and his oft-quoted ‘trading analog dollars for digital pennies’ was revised last year to ‘digital dimes’ from the man himself. That is good news, especially for the multitudes of investors that entered into internet video ventures last year. Out of that gold-rush of investment though, there hasn’t been significant pay-dirt for many. Clearly the answer lies in uniting broadcast to the Internet, bringing the interactivity the web provides, in addition to the type of analytics that are possible. I predict Google TV will make more of an impact than Apple TV did to unite those advertising schemes, although watch out, Apple’s clearly got some plans a brewin‘.

Google TV offers the opportunity to sell ad’s within the interface, and provide targeted advertising, on the TV. Show me what you got MSO’s.

In Conclusion:

It is a rapidly changing world, and people have clearly shown that the TV, cable-tuner, and DVR do not have all the features people want. The cable companies who own the infrastructure and delivery method of video and data are being left out of this equation. Google has side-stepped around cable companies and the licensing issues — wisely I might add — and added a layer with enhancements that will allow them get deep into people’s living rooms, to collect data and provide a smarter ad platform. Things are going to get really interesting….

Early sketch of 174 Grand Street, by Loadingdock5

In the summer of 2008, we worked with Sam Bargetz of Loadingdock5 Architecture to redesign a client’s office. Our work required a creative approach to every aspect of the technology integration to achieve the sleek, modern appearance that the office design called for. Sam and his team were great to work with and we’ve kept in touch.

This year we were excited to learn that Loadingdock5 is attempting to build NYC’s first new building which fulfills the strict German “Passive House” standard. Passive Houses are airtight buildings that use heat from common household appliances and even your human body (!) for warmth. Every effort is made to conserve thermal energy, state-of-the-art heat exchangers are used to provide lots of fresh air.

We’ve been passing notes back and forth to Sam about the technology and are excited to follow his blog updates on the project.

Conversation view — how about an option to turn it off?

Conversation view, conversation view, conversation view!

It’s terrible. I have finally gotten used to it, and I still think it’s terrible. If only there were an option to shut it off. If you don’t know what it is, it’s a feature that groups email of a thread together. But it isn’t perfect and it can be pretty awkward. Emails tend to get jumbled up, and sometimes mixed into the wrong thread. Someone high up at Google must have came up with this one because it is one of the most complained about features and still they wont give you a way to shut it off.

Mobile device integration is really weak.

Being a Blackberry Enterprise user, the move to IMAP is a big downgrade. Sent mail is important! Email in under 2 seconds is hard to give up; with IMAP, be prepared for a full minute, unless you manically hit refresh. Google offers their mobile mail client, but it leaves a lot to be desired, it gives you labels (aka folders) and sent mail, but it’s clumsy and lacks basic things like original email text in the body of replies and copy/paste, to name two biggies.

Google plans to release Blackberry Enterprise Server integration this summer, but my hopes aren’t too high. Since one of my goals is to live in the cloud, having a BES server at our office doesn’t fit into that fantasy. Plus, calendar sync is one-way, and email sync is “under 1 minute,” but — I have to say it again — BES and Exchange give me email in under 2 seconds!

Return on Investment

I am willing to overlook these inconveniences, and many others because the ROI from an administrative/business owner perspective is really that good. Take Instant Messaging as an example. If you wanted to implement a company-wide IM platform with Microsoft, prepare to drop $5-$7k on hardware, another $3k+ on software, and about the same on installation. Then add in maintenance, training, and once (if) it gets adopted and people can’t live without it, get ready to plan on backup, archiving and a data recovery plan. We are talking at least $20k to do it right.

With Google Apps, you want company-wide IM? Check a box. You want all IM messages saved and searchable? Click another box. Cost? $0. You want video and voice chat too? Done. Gone are the days of patching servers, mailbox limits, backups running during the day, defragging information stores, Google Apps’ greatest strength is in the fact that it’s not there. It’s everything a cloud application should be.

“In Google I Trust”

One of the biggest drivers in my support of the Google platform is my trust in Google to quietly innovate and release new features and updates. I trust they will get mobile device synchronization right soon. Maybe Microsoft will cave and license them the rest of Active Sync. But  I still have mixed feelings about Google Apps. Life in the cloud is the future — if I was starting a new business, there’s no doubt I would go with Google Apps.  Coming from a Company with 10 years of Exchange process and history, it’s a harder decision. But I still might choose the new pain over the old.

Google Apps for Business has been getting a lot of press recently — both positive and less-than-positive — so I wanted to share some thoughts on my experiences testing the platform as a replacement for the traditional Outlook/Exchange ecosystem. It’s been six weeks using Google Apps with a small group of guinea pigs here at CG. And after 10 years architecting, deploying, backing up, patching, defragging, archiving, replicating, maintaining, recovering* and yes, using Microsoft Exchange, I was definitely ready for a change and I was pretty eager to find out how the hype and marketecture lived up to a real world test.

After digging deep into Google Apps for my everyday communications, I found both some really cool features and some stinging gotchas for the average user. I also wanted to share some insight from the perspective of the administrator and the business owner. Here are a few quick thoughts on the positives…

Strongest points:

• Having one console for 90% of what I do, from any computer, Mac or PC is a relief. It’s fast, and simple. I have had enough ‘mandatory coffee breaks’ – waiting 20 minutes to have Outlook open up because it’s reindexing my local mail database.
• The document collaboration, particularly spreadsheets is really nice. It’s definitely not something to produce finished quality work, and rich change tracking that you might use for editing a contract is out, but in terms of getting an idea out there quickly, sharing it and collaborating with your team, I have not found anything simpler, faster, or easier. And I really like the paradigm of individuals maintaining ownership of documents and allowing others to edit them. File servers need to go the way of the newspaper.
• Google-powered search of my email is a no-brainer killer feature. Add Google Chat to the Google Mail window, and you’ve got an email client that’s hard to beat (though I do have one major complaint with Google Mail…. I’ll share more in a follow-up post).

Next week, I’ll share more thoughts on Google Apps, focusing on some of its weaknesses. Update: read Part 2 here.

*eseutil /R — ’nuff said