I completely agree with his assessments because change in TV networks will be in genres or steps and not wholesale categoriacal death as proselytized by others. We’ve seen the disruption in the time-sensitive news business (way dead), but TV and many non-news magazines are alive and well, and IMHO are poised to grow.

We’ve seen the DIY genre around for a while (e.g. 5min) without much impact so clearly there needs to be other ingredients in order to propel their audience growth and the subsequent ad or other revenues to continue production.  I believe that it’s content quality and relevance relative to the viewers needs are what’s missing. I watch the Food Network more for entertainment and inspiration, not how to bake cookies.  But if I’m making a souffle for the very first time, I need explicit instructions, visuals, and tips and would need that DIY 5min video because Giada’s highly edited segments just don’t cut it for me.  But I don’t bother to look for those videos because my odds of finding quality and relevant content is still sorely lacking.

But my overarching belief is that for the foreseeable future (5-7 years), we should be striving to increase the overall pie, rather than slice and dice it to nothing.  As mainstream TV and publishing are going digital and creating new markets that didn’t even exist a year ago, the challenge going forward for content creators is to think about how their content will be distributed, and to create the right experience by channel (web video, tablets, smartphones), and how to be discovered amongst all the noise.  I am hopeful that 2012 will be the year of discovery and curation for the overwrought consumer.

Let me know how you find things to watch!

And since this Hack-thon was just the one day, the focus was on existing teams and/or incomplete mobile game apps because at the end of the evening, teams pitch to a great panel of judges.

I’ve had this idea for a spelling game for the last 2 years and the time had finally come to do something about it, at the very least, to get a demo done and see it in action. Think Tap Tap meets Scrabble.  But remember, I’m the idea person, not a
coder.  Big problem.  Going into the event, Shirley (who is also a co-founder of the APWT -Asian Professional Women in Tech) told me that team formation was not the priority and to just come and check out the action and listen to some great speakers.  So I thought, ”What the heck, sounds like fun!”

MoboTurbo Hackathon 2011

The morning got off a little slowly (started at 9 am in Palo Alto, 1.5 hours from my house btw) so I introduced myself to everyone I could and pitched my idea for a mobile game.  I knew I needed a front end developer.  And at that time of the morning, there just weren’t a lot of developers, and the ones I met already had projects to work on.  I met two graphic artists and one UX expert (all females) who agreed to join my team, and we took turns peeling off to find developers.  We found two guys who were interested in the concept, but as back end developers, they had come to learn more about games and mobile apps.  Not perfect but an excellent start.  We had me, Nina-team leader; Terry-UX; Sue and Melody-graphics; Syed and Ryan-engineers.

Terry jumped right in and started with a paper prototype to test out the concept and basic game mechanics – was the idea something that could be interesting and how would it really work.  In the meantime, we moved to a bigger table and started talking as a team to figure out what we needed and who can do what.  We focused on the developers and based on the basic idea, they both dived right in to start researching turnkey programs and talking to other developers.  Sue and Melody got to work on graphic design and creating screen theme and elements.  Terry was a roving UX expert and went off to help other teams; I went off to find the roving iOS or Android experts.

Billl Nguyen

Sponsor presentations followed by a fantastic iPad app demo to teach kids how to play the guitar.  Raffle, food, coffee, coffee, coffee, donuts and soda.

Bill Nguyen, co-founder of Color.com gave his keynote speech – totally cool, followed by Gus Tai, General Partner from Trinity Ventures with how he looks at startups.  Did I mention coffee?

Gus Tai

As the hours moved on, more people were joining the event.  There must have been 14+ teams working on projects.  But we were still struggling with producing a demo.  Co-organizer, fabulous iOS coder and teacher, Bess Ho, recommended trying Garden Salad, a turn-key game dev platform since Albert Chen, Game Design & Dev college professor and Game Salad expert was coming to speak and help out.  Other developers came by to offer suggestions.  We started preparing for alternate demo methods like posterboards, flipcharts, and powerpoint.  We settled on powerpoint since we needed a pitch overview anyway.  I was worried that Syed and Ryan weren’t getting what they wanted to learn from the day but they said they were good.

3.5 hours before demo deadline, Sue brings over Rolandas, an iOS developer from Lithuania, part of a delegation who all exhibited at CTIA in San Diego.  He didn’t want to head straight back to Lithuania and came up north to experience a bit of Silicon Valley.  He definitely hit the jackpot, apparently going to a party the night before (which was why he was so late in arriving to the hackathon – as I suspect all the late comers must have been doing) and met Shirley who urged him to come on Saturday.  We meet, I explain the project, he says yes, and we’re off.  Serendipity is a wonderful thing.

We’re all watching the app development progress and giving various feedback to Rolandas, Melody is feeding graphic updates, and Terry and I are writing out the presentation points.  I can’t tell you how exciting it was for me to see this idea that I had in my head actually come alive in a live app.  Well, artificially alive since in one day, we didn’t have time to actually create the game, only to create the demo.

I messed up signing up for the pitches and we were slotted to go 7th.  It turned out that that was all that signed up so that meant we were last.  Which was probably a good thing because we were still working, including what to name this game.  Raining ABCs.  Then it was “pens down” time.

As the designated presenter, I immediately went up to the floor for a technical test of the projector.  That ruled out my PC and most everyone’s iPhone.  Our deck got loaded onto Terry’s iPad, and the demo onto Rolandas’ iPad.  That meant we’d have to switch devices in the middle of a 2 min presentation.  After watching all the other presenters, I decided to scrap the powerpoint presentation altogether.  So there was a benefit to going later.  The drawback about going last was that after 14+ hours straight, I was pretty beat.  As I sat down at the start of the pitches, I wasn’t so sure that I could stand up again, much less remember what I was suppose to say.  Oh, and the event was being streamed live on Justin.TV and there were 3,000 viewers.  No pressure.

Really great apps by either existing teams, unpublished but existing apps, two too cute 10 year old boys learning to code HTML5 and java script (they definitely won the cuteness factor), cool 3D technology with shark graphics, and maybe one other team of two people meeting up for the first time that day like us.  Oh, and all guys.

We had 7 new people meeting up that day (4 women & 3 guys), and when I thought about it, it went swimmingly well.  We all were able to come to consensus, each had important contributions, no arguments, no rudeness, people worked hard but also were able to float in and out, meet other people, chat, listen to presenters, and became really close by the end of the evening.  And that was an amazing feeling.  So it really didn’t matter to me whether we won or not because I felt we all had experienced something pretty big that day.  Besides, all the apps looked great so it’d be hard to feel badly about any of it.

Good thing I skipped the powerpoint presentation because it took some juggling to get the demo iPad showing through the projector so I started talking through the commotion.  Then the screen suddenly lit up, I shut up, Rolandas demo’d the app, and my eyes just lit up.  I looked over to the judges table and their eyes lit up as well because, well frankly, a picture may be worth a thousand words but a working demo is priceless.  A few questions and we’re off the floor.

Judges disappear, people start talking about what a great day it was – and I heard someone say, “….and there was that lady who came in with just an idea this morning, formed a team and produced a demo!”  I just had to smile a big smile.

Drum roll please.  3rd place, the 3D Shark game (cool!), in second place…. US!  OMG!!  First place, an interactive Novel created during the day using their publishing platform and pictures taken that day to create a graphic novel with a branching storyline (like the one from the movie Big starring Tom Hanks).

We’re all so excited and tired.  And 1.5 hours from home.  It’d been a great day.

Thank you team!  Thank you judges!  Thank you Color!  And BIG thank you’s to Shirley and Bess for organizing such a successful event!

Talk about Teflon – or maybe the halo effect, SAI’s Jay Yarrow quickly dismissed that Netflix didn’t botch the rate increase communication to subscribers – everyone will complain no matter what in this down economy.  Sorry Jay, yes, there are definitely ways Netflix could have handled that announcment better.  First of all, as I said before, even though Netflix is out to trounch cable providers, be respectful of your competition; else you may become one yourself.  Over the years cable companies have taken similar beating for the way they’ve raised their rates so they plan, spin, and offer consessions to work around that rate increase, and they do it ahead of of time.

What could Netflix have done?

• be transparent with subscibers
• offer migration plans to move people over slowly to the new rates like all new customers get new rates and loyal existing customers get stepped up plans
• The point being, at least make an attempt to pretend to understand the impact this will have on your loyal customers

“Netflix Pays $1 Billion To Get Gossip Girl, And Other CW Shows For The Next 4 Years” -Oct 13.  C’mon.  With deals like these, Netflix will clearly be in the hole more quickly than they will ever admit.  When you start off being a cheap service, and move to the big tent with the big players, you’ll never be able to eek out enough blood from the proverbial turnips who are your subscribers.

On the other hand, like Steve Jobs never asked customers what they want, HBO always said that they’re a pay service, and that quality programming doesn’t come cheaply.  When HBO launched 30+ years ago, everyone balked and proclaimed that no one would pay for TV shows, but they did, and still do.  Quality original programming.  Not sure how much people will actually pay for The Gossip Girls.

Netflix is no HBO.  Netflix started from a different place and just may have a huge base of the wrong kind of subscribers to get it to long-term success.  As I’ve been saying ad nausem, the TV/Video content production/distribution ecosystem is a hecka more complex than the majority understand, and I think Reed is starting to grab a clue and panicked.

I started watching Wilfred because I read a great review of it in a trade journal so I trusted the source.  I’ve written before that recommendation sites based on popularity votes lose me instantly.  StumbleUpon Video does a great job of identifying my tastes to the point where I was watching every video they threw my way.  But still, I wanted to find programs that my family and I can all watch together at the regular, first-run appointed time (and Wilfred didn’t make that cut).

So far, cross promotions by networks that I tend to watch more frequently has been the only way I’ve been noticing new shows.  Although I did just walk by a bus shelter ad for Starz’ new program called The Boss with Kelsey Grammer.  I’ll probably check it out just to see what Chris Albrecht has been up to, especially after the Camelot disappointment.

Reaching out to my friends to find out how they find out about new shows turned up to be pretty much the same way:  word of mouth from people whose opinions they trust, and entertainment review magazines, meaning professional opinions.  No one had heard of the other recommendation engines like Clickr or Stumbleupon Video.

Btw, I can’t stand not being able to fast forward through commericals on long run-time programs like the X-Factor on On Demand (I’m Comcast but I would assume the network would make that demand of any cable provider).  I only want to see the highlights and forcing me to sit through long run-time pods of commercials is annoying.  So I go online to see the people I want to see and the On Demand opportunity is lost for good for all future episodes.

How do you find new stuff to watch on TV?  And are you still watching TV shows on TV or online?

Ryan’s posts here and here are great overviews of the impact of Netflix’s recent guidance changes on their stock.

All-in-all, Netflix did a really good job with their migration estimates; models only can go so far and are based on assumptions, some of which can be more gut than anything else. 200-800M out of 25mm is a drop in the bucket in comparision. And it’s understandable they may overestimate the DVD-only side since that’s their business’ legacy. But as we all know, the net revenue from a streaming-only HH is much higher than a DVD-only customer so they are still in a good position.

On the other hand, given the feeble way they executed the rate increase, Netflix did some damage to their good will value. Frankly, since cable’s been doing rate increases for a while, they do a better job of informing their customers. Lesson learned. But repairing good will takes a lot more effort than simply dropping another new customer acquisition campaign into the market.

As someone who’s been in the subscription biz a while, I am always dismayed when Wall Street continues to harp on pure sub numbers when in fact that in today’s world with a multitude of consumer pricing options, volatile licensing agreements, and escalating costs of DVD shipping, it’s the margin that counts, not Just subs.  20 million subs at $2 is better than 25 million subs at $1 (not real numbers but  you get the picture).  Comparing sub numbers from Netflix to video subs from TWC or Comcast or DirecTV is meaningless because the revenues from each are vastly different.

This is the same flawed reasoning that’s driving the TV/video business out-of-wack from the networks perspective because the revenue from high-volume/low-margin sources like online will not make up for the lost revenue from more traditional sources for the near-term (5-7 years).  And the networks need that revenue to continue producing the great shows that people want to stream for cheap.  Overtime, the quality of content will degrade and the only choices we’ll have will be which cheap-to-produce reality show to watch.

The ecosystem of networks-producers-distributors-consumers is so entrenched, that it will take an industry-wide and illegal (anti-trust) type of cooperation to steer this industry away from the same whirlpool drain that the news business has already gone down.  But that’s for another post!

The bottom line differentiator between mobile apps versus mobile web is whether you need to utilize features or functionalities of the phone itself, for example, activating the camera, clicking to call a retailer’s phone number, or accessing lat long data residing on the device.  Then you need to develop an app, no ifs, ands, or buts.  Only mobile apps can tap into the device features and data.  Best examples are Foursquare and Gowalla, ShopKick and RedLaser.

On the other hand, mobile optimized websites are really great solutions for just about most or all content publishers.  Website programming software and tools are so readily available, creative developers like Treesaver.net (thanks, Scobleizer!) can dynamically format and scale just about any content to best fit the viewing screen size albeit iPod, iPad or larger.  Whether you’re trying to deliver content and ads and videos or sell stuff across a wide variety of devices, then mobile web is going to be  your best solution.  You won’t have to worry about device fragmentation or carriers; instead, go for the most widely adopted browser formats and you’re good.  Magazines should really be thinking about mobile web at this point.

However, there are drawbacks for either way you choose – big drawbacks.

First, for mobile apps, you have to choose the phone OS on which to develop but the biggest are the iPhone and Androids.  Secondly, we are already past a tipping point with over-proliferation of apps so that it’s impossible to easily find and discover interesting, useful, or entertaining apps.  Similiar to the online video space which has not been able to create the killer “discovery” vehicle, its way too early to expect mobile app discovery solutions today. 

Therefore, marketing your app becomes just as critical as marketing any product in a highly competitive marketplace and it should be approached with the same marketing strategy, discipline, and execution required to drive downloads or sales.  Marketing in a highly competitive marketplace is not something most app developers can do or want to do so be smart and find the right people to help you.

On the other hand, while mobile web sounds great in theory, in reality, the poor quality and reliability of web connections can completely kill the user experience, thus killing your mobile website traffic.  I hate Blackberry’s web function – it’s just too slow so unless it’s for color-coded freeway-speed  information while I’m driving, I won’t use it.  Of course, the iPhone is great when you can get/keep service.  But with the launch of AT&T, T-Mobile, Clearwire, and Verizon’s versions of their 4G networks, the mobile web experience will become much better soon, especially for data-rich content sites.

Do remember that  “soon” is a relative term.  Like the launch of any new device, you’ll have to wait for the roll-out of the devices as contracts expire or if you’re lucky, you’re just hot and people buy your 4G device anyway. 

Oh, and regardless of the distribution of 4G or good 3G devices, if your mobile website hasn’t been conceived and designed for mobile phones, then don’t even say you have one.  There’s nothing that kills a user’s interest in you faster than a really crappy mobile website.  You know, those companies who think their standard company website “should” be adequate “enough” so they can “say” they have a mobile strategy?  Ugh, forgetaboutit.  To have a successful, long-term mobile strategy, you need to “go undercover” and see things from your customers’ perspective.  It’s amazing how many companies seem to skip this step.

So define your goals and objectives, research your options, look at what’s happening and what technology is coming down the pipe in your space, see things from your customers’ perspective, and make a decision knowing that you’ve made the best possible choice based on the information you had available to you at the time.  Or just call me and we can walk through this together.

Thankfully, Dennis Shiao, who did a fantastic job moderating the second panel of the Virtual Worlds Conference, wrote 3 great blog posts about the first trends panel, the third entrepreneurs panel, and 3 Virtual World Technologies to Watch (this post).  After I get these posted, then it’s my turn to write about Dennis’ Corporate Panel: Serving Customers, Building Communities, Training Users.

http://allvirtual.wordpress.com/2010/09/26/3-virtual-worlds-technologies-to-watch/

3 Virtual Worlds Technologies To Watch

Thankfully, Dennis Shiao, who did a fantastic job moderating the second panel of the Virtual Worlds Conference, wrote 3 great blog posts about the first trends panel, the third entrepreneurs panel, and 3 Virtual World Technologies to Watch.  After I get these posted, then it’s my turn to write about Dennis’ Corporate Panel: Serving Customers, Building Communities, Training Users.

Here’s Dennis’ link and post about our third panel: http://allvirtual.wordpress.com/2010/09/30/hear-from-a-panel-of-virtual-worlds-entrepreneurs/

Hear From A Panel Of Virtual Worlds Entrepreneurs

On September 24th, FountainBlue held its annual virtual worlds conference.  This year’s event was hosted on Cisco’s campus in Milpitas, CA.  In the afternoon, a panel of virtual worlds entrepreneurs spoke about new developments in the industry.  The panel was titled “Entrepreneur Panel: The Tools, The Goods, The Immersion Experience”:

1. Facilitator Nina Gerwin, The NRG Group
2. Michael Gold, CEO, Electrotank: virtual world & virtual games development platform
3. Steve Hoffman, CEO, Rocketon: virtual world for tweeners
4. Albert Kim, CEO, Zenitum: Augmented reality with 3D displays
5. Jim Parker, President, Digitell: SaaS 3D immersive virtual events and virtual training

I covered some of these entrepreneurs’ businesses in a separate posting about virtual worlds technologies to watch.

Adapting your business

Each panelist was asked to describe the genesis behind their business.  As is customary with web startups today, no one is working against their original business model or vision.

For Digitell’s Jim Parker, business began by assembling content for online libraries.  Then, he was struck by the notion of allowing consumers of the library content to meet and collaborate in real-time.

Zenitum’s Albert Kim experiments with a number of different technologies.  When one set of technologies differs enough from the core set, he looks to spin that out into an independent company.

Online gaming

Online and social gaming may be the hottest trend on the web today.  So of course the topic arose with Electrotank’s Michael Gold and RocketOn’s Steve Hoffman.  Gold and Hoffman highlighted technologies available to game makers today:

1. Flash
2. HTML5
3. Objective C
4. Unity

Note: Unity’s David Helgason spoke on the Trends Panel at this event.

According to Gold, HTML5 has its benefits, but you can’t yet develop a game using it.

Virtual worlds and engagement

An audience member asked how virtual worlds can track engagement – so that in a corporate setting, the meeting host can measure whether the content is hitting the mark.  Digitell’s Parker notes his clients often use his system for accreditation.  The system uses an idle timer – it renders a “click to continue” message and if the user does not click within 10 seconds, “you don’t get accreditation.”

Studies have shown that viewers of webinars often lose attention and multitask.  A virtual world forces users to remain engaged.  Parker notes that for some sessions, the instructor leads the “students” on a guided walk.  “If Jim doesn’t follow the rest of the group, then you know he’s not paying attention.”

Conclusion

Believe it or not, it’s not a bad time to be a virtual worlds entrepreneur.  As the panel demonstrated, the key is to be nimble and adapt to a changing marketplace.  Next year, it will be interesting to see how these entrepreneurs evolved – and, to see what new entrepreneurs appear on the scene.

I agree that a key to these entrepreneurs’ success has been their ability to follow their passions and evolve.  And they all involve social interactions – either on a 2D monitor screen or blurring the lines and merging the digital world into our real world. 

But don’t be fooled – it’s a struggle.  Notice that only 1 (Rocket On) of 5 companies (I’m including Virtual Greats who couldn’t make it because of illness) is based in the SF Bay area.  The digital world and AR space doesn’t fit that VC model of huge exits so these companies had to flex to support themselves. 

The digital world space is struggling to find density of players, and the ability to find common ground to even create a groundswell of momentum.  That spaghetti is looking pretty spread out on that big blank wall and strands are falling off every day.

Thankfully, Dennis Shiao, who did a fantastic job moderating the second panel of the Virtual Worlds Conference, wrote 3 great blog posts about the first trends panel, the third entrepreneurs panel, and 3 Virtual World Technologies to Watch.  After I get these posted, then it’s my turn to write about Dennis’ Corporate Panel: Serving Customers, Building Communities, Training Users.

Here’s Dennis’ link and post about our first panel:  ttp://allvirtual.wordpress.com/2010/09/28/trends-in-the-virtual-worlds-industry/

Trends In The Virtual Worlds Industry

Account tab > Privacy Settings > Things Others Share:  Enable or Disable.