Second Screen Revolutionizing the Television Experience

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Second Screen

Revolutionizing the

Television Experience

A GCP Information Series – Part 2

The Technology

In Part 1 of our series on the Second Screen,

we explained the concept of the Second Screen app

and what ramifications it would have on the

broadcasting industry. We also talked about the

opportunities available for additional revenue, how to

improve audience engagement and refocus attention

on the primary content. Obviously, this has

ramifications on the entire supply chain — on

advertising, on media companies as well as on

the digital offerings surrounding mobility and

social networking.

In Part 2, we examine some of the technologies

that are fueling the fire of this viewer engagement

and becoming part of the holistic approach to

Second Screen.

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About the Author

Russ Stanton

Russ Stanton is a media veteran who recently joined TCS after more than thirty years in Radio, Television, Publishing and Advertising. He currently serves as the Manager of the Media Practice within GCP (Global Consulting Practice). Russ began his career on-camera, spanning the areas of camerawork, production and direction. For his production work he has received13 Addy awards, 4 Tellys and one Gabriel Award. Recently, he has become known for his work in digital asset management, production workflows, digital strategy and development, including social media technologies and practical applications for that medium. He has worked in strategic IT operations for companies such as Simon & Schuster, Golden Books, BBDO and J Walter Thompson, and brings that experience to the consultancy of many TCS clients within that space.

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Overview

Second Screen Technology

Applications written for mobile devices, such as the iPad, iPhone Android and laptops are taking on significance and importance within digital media that is on the cutting edge, if not the bleeding edge of revolutionary. To date, there have been somewhere in the neighborhood of 550 thousand apps written for the iPhone, with downloads reported at 5.65 million per day. On the Android side of the business, there are over 300 thousand apps with downloads totalling over 16 billion.

The entry of the iPad and other tablet devices, with greatly enhanced user experiences due to the screen real estate, 3G or WiFi connectivity, has caused some people to abandon their laptops for this everything-in-one device. The iPad has over 200-thousand apps to date. This is dated information from when I first wrote it..

In all cases, new apps are emerging every day, for those who live and breathe by their phones. So much so, that the phrase, “I don’t know what I’d do without my phone or my apps,” is a common statement made by those owning smartphones and tablets.

Nearly 1 out of every 2 people in the US alone owns a smartphone, which roughly translates to 150 million people. Also, it is estimated that over 100 million people use Facebook from their phone in a

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month, which represents almost 100% growth in 6 months . These are significant numbers; an almost exponential growth. Smartphones are already outselling PCs and it is believed that by 2020, the mobile

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device or tablet will be the world’s primary connection tool to the internet .

These figures are not lost on the entertainment community as it struggles to select the most appropriate communication channel, whether that is the movies, television, advertising or any other media product that needs eyes and ears to create revenue.

The behavior, or rather, the limited attention span of the consumers demands continuous innovation on the part of the industry, along with constant content and gadget changes to keep the consumer

engaged. The technology industry is therefore responsible for creating innovative apps, and is always looking for the next great hook. Without it, the app just becomes another unopened, or dare I say, deleted part of the extensive array of apps within the device. The technology that is driving these apps for the smart devices is changing almost daily and new innovations are being inspired by the rapid adoption within the consumer community. This is spawning creativity as well as technology innovation.

The common mobile apps for the iPhone, the iPad or the Android use the same platform as a Second Screen app. However, the latter also uses media-specific technologies that provide the social and interactive bits that complement the main app. These technologies have matured over the last several years to the point that they are now commonly used to enrich the app in terms of that companion aspect of Second Screen.

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And this is the differentiator for the broadcasters — because merely having an app that shows the viewer the backstage cameras at the Oscars, for example, is not enough. What is important is the providing of the social element and the engaging of the Second Screen audience in a conversation that builds a totally separate audience, still engaged in the primary content.

The technologies described below provide more than just the companion aspect of the app. Instead, they also interact with the primary TV program through elements that must be added to the show

post-production or dynamically as the show airs, such as in a live event. Then, within the app, there is detection software that picks up the embedded aspects from the show.

Obviously, this requires additional attention and added elements that the show’s producers must consider when putting the show together, and in most cases it requires additional lead time prior to the show’s air date and time. However, considering the benefits and the size of the audience being attracted through these apps, we think the cost and time aspect is well worth it due to the potential return.

For full information about some of these apps, please refer to the links in the footnotes of this document.

Community-driven Second Screen applications are powerful enough unto themselves; however, a true convergence experience is more meaningful if the Second Screen app is completely synchronized with the content being watched.

Utilizing the audio aspects of the smart device, such as its microphone, and a complex embedded audio

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signal within the video content, the Second Screen app can identify the program that is playing and display graphically rich information about the show, such as the episode name, the actors, production personnel, or any other information that the producers, marketers, advertisers or network wish to provide to the Second Screen social network.

The opportunities are endless, as the watermarking follows the linear playout of the show and at certain points can provide ads, merchandising, advertising augmentation or enhancement, celebrity news, previous episode information to help set context, and a host of other information.

Example #1: Program Merchandise

On the show The Good Wife, the actress Juliana Margulies appears in a dress that is particularly appealing. Based on the point in the audio track and the episode where the dress is being worn, an ad pops up on the Second Screen App informing the viewer that the dress is available for 10% off at Macy’s, with a “click here to purchase.” This is a merchandising opportunity for wardrobe, but could apply to set pieces as well, especially since set pieces from the show Friends became quite popular purchases. With a little creativity, the possibilities are endless. Of course these kinds of merchandise opportunities have to be worked out well in advance with the show’s producers, set designers, wardrobe coordinators and the writers, to make sure they fit seamlessly with the plot of the show.

Audio Watermarking

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This type of function is currently available through a manual app called WiO. However, the viewer has to activate the request for the merchandise or information and the ad has to be WiO enabled, a process that is fairly manual and dependent. With Audio Watermarking, this process becomes more seamless and dynamic for the viewer, which as some behavior analysts will attest, this audience requires. In other words, the less the viewers have to work for it, the more likely they are to engage.

Example #2: Ancillary Advertisement & Co-op

During a commercial break, an ad for Charmin bathroom tissue plays on the primary screen – the TV. As the ad plays, a coupon pops up on the Second Screen offering 20% off on Charmin at participating Walmarts. This involves a second chance at advertising revenue from P&G, plus co-op revenue from Walmart.

Again, these kinds of offerings have to be planned well in advance with the advertiser, the media companies and the ad producers, but audio watermarking has been used in advertising for almost a decade, and hence its use in Second Screen apps is definitely possible.

Example #3: Online Partnership Marketing

While watching the re-broadcast of The Lion King on the primary screen – the TV, an ad pops up on the Second Screen App for 15% off the Blu-Ray, remastered DVD set of Beauty and the Beast from Amazon. This is an opportunity involving Disney Studios, Amazon and the cable channel broadcasting The Lion King, most likely the Disney Channel.

These are just three examples, and the possibilities are only limited by the imagination and partnerships put into place.

Digital Watermarking is very similar to audio watermarking, but has more potential in terms of

embedding visible or invisible watermarks. This is the process of embedding information into a digital audio, video or picture signal, just as some papers bear a watermark for visible identification. If the signal is copied, then the information is also carried into the copy. A signal may carry several different

watermarks at the same time, either visible or invisible.

In visible digital watermarking, the watermark is visible in the picture or video. Typically, this is in the form of text or a logo, which identifies the owner of the media. An example of a visible watermark is when a television broadcaster adds its logo to the corner of a transmitted video.

With invisible digital watermarking, information is added as digital data to the audio, picture, or video, but it cannot be perceived as such. The watermark may be intended for widespread use and thus, is easy to retrieve; alternatively, it may be in the form of steganography, a secret message embedded in the digital signal. In either case, as with visible watermarking, the objective is to attach ownership or other

descriptive information to the signal in a way that is difficult to remove. It also is possible to use hidden

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embedded information as a means of covert communication between individuals.

Digital Watermarking

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Video Fingerprinting

Nielsen Watermarking

This is a technique in which the software identifies video extracts and then compresses certain characteristic components of the video, enabling that video to be uniquely identified by its resultant ‘fingerprint.’ This may be based on any number of visual video features including, but not limited to, key frame analysis, color and motion changes during a video sequence.

Video fingerprinting methods extract several unique features of a digital video that can be stored as a fingerprint of the video content. The identification of video content is then performed by comparing the extracted video fingerprints. For digital video data, both audio and video fingerprints can be extracted, each having individual significance for different application areas.

The creation of a video fingerprint involves the use of software that decodes the video data and then applies several feature extraction algorithms. Video fingerprints are highly compressed when compared to the original source file and can therefore be easily stored in databases for later comparison.

Video fingerprinting is technology that has proven to be effective at identifying and comparing digital video data. However, as you might imagine, this technique is quite complex and thus requires a great deal more lead time to implement prior to release for broadcast. Most postproduction processes use it on DVD production such as Blu-Ray releases of motion pictures.The huge number of videos currently available (thanks to the development of user generated content sites) presents video fingerprinting technologies

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with a scalability challenge because of the effort involved in capturing and encoding .

The ratings godfather, Nielsen, has been experimenting with technology, specifically audio watermarking, for over 5 years. Basically Nielsen watermarks are acoustically masked audio data packets that are

embedded into every TV broadcast as part of the Nielsen TV Ratings program. Recent upgrades to the technology behind the watermarks make them usable with iPads, iPhones and other smart devices, using the onboard microphone. It creates a seamless, two-screen, interactive television experience by bridging a cable/satellite connection and a mobile device or tablet.

The app looks for certain contours in the audio signal, as we described above, so that it knows when to display a particular poll or other item, linking up with a precise moment in the show. This could also be an ad, or an interaction requiring some participation from the viewer. The app ‘hears’ what is going on in the room for the first few seconds, to capture the audio watermarks embedded in the program. It can function in tandem with live TV or recorded programming from a DVR.

Because Nielsen watermarks have been a part of every TV show in the past, the broadcasters already have the hardware in place to execute their placement within all of the content, and developers can take advantage of that when building the Second Screen app. Nielsen is committed to advancing their watermarks and the promotion of the use of Second Screen for the broadcasters.

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ABC has collaborated with Nielsen to use the latter’s technology to “listen in” when a viewer begins watching an episode of a show, and sync the app to related interactive content (i.e. polls, quizzes, show details, bios, advertisements, etc.) to enhance the experience via that Second Screen.

In addition, this could revolutionize the way ratings are determined for all television, which will include social listening on the app side, which makes it is perfectly suited for Internet TV, which could be the next revolution in viewing. We’ll be talking about Internet TV throughout Part 3 of this article and about how the true convergence will start to take shape with TV hardware manufacturing, but I digress…..

IntoNow is another audio listening app that identifies the TV show you’re watching and links you with other people also watching the same show. As far as companion apps go, this is probably the most popular one available for download. Toward the end of 2011, IntoNow was acquired by Yahoo!, and the latter has plans to integrate IntoNow with many of the other Yahoo! Apps, with the clear purpose of generating revenue through advertising and merchandise.

At the end of last year, IntoNow had been downloaded 1.6 million times and Yahoo! quickly released the iPad version shortly after its acquisition of the app.

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According to an article in FastCompany , Adam Cahan, the founder of IntoNow and now a vice president at Yahoo!, explained how it worked. “If you're watching a game, for example, the app can serve up statistics for the particular teams who are playing, or even for individual players,” he said. “If you're watching the news, the app will dig into the Yahoo! network's vast database of content – both original Yahoo! content as well as content from its many partners – and serve up related stories to those being broadcast. If you're watching a scripted show, the app can surface the most relevant tweets, including those from the show's actors.”

Yahoo! has plans for aggressive advertising associated with some of its existing clients, opening up another form of revenue and another form of media.

If you recall the mention of Comcast and its app called Tunerfish in part one of this series, the creators of that app have gone one better.

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Comcast is developing technology (and has applied for a patent) that will allow notifications to its subscribers when their friends begin watching a particular TV show or movie that they, the subscribers, have recommended, and then reward the customers with discounts on their cable bills when their recommendations are then viewed by other subscribers.

Comcast also intends to use its interactive program guides to display the most popular shows in each city in a trending way, much like Twitter. In addition, subscribers will be able to set DVR recordings or create

IntoNow

Comcast’s Social Patent

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video-on-demand playlists based on content recommended by friends. This strategy can help navigate the hundreds of TV channels and will certainly impact ratings for cable and broadcast networks. It is not clear exactly how Comcast plans to use this new social TV technology, but there are several intriguing new features including:

Receiving notifications when friends change channels.

The ability to transmit program recommendations to subscribers of other content providers such as Netflix or Hulu.

Viewers that recommend shows, or achieve goals such as watching five episodes of 30 Rock, can receive rewards like coupons or discounts, or graphical badges similar to those used by social TV check-in services Miso or GetGlue.

The technologies listed above are only a small sample of some of the innovations that are either in development or already in use, with more coming out every day.

Developers are releasing their apps early, to get the community to be their QA test bed and help drive innovation; much in the same way as the Internet evolved into the social being it is today, steered by the user community.

While we do want to know about options, consumer behavior and monetizing the apps, what do the industry moguls really think about all this? After all, it is quite a stretch from what they’re used to dealing with.

In Part 3 of this article we look at the buzz within the industry and the topics that are the most compelling — what are the industry gurus saying about this phenomenon, and what are the practices that they think are the most compelling to get this new media channel fully up and running?

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