Futurescape

New Futurescape white paper: The Social TV Factor

2011-11-22T16:35:00+00:00

How is your company's strategy responding to Social TV? Discover how Social TV impacts the TV business in our new white paper: The Social TV Factor The white paper covers: - Social TV as business - What is driving Social TV? - Social TV strategies and innovation Broadcasters HBO Connect Advertisers Analytics providers Producers and content owners TV manufacturers Pay-TV platform operators - Challenges - Key questions for Social TV Readers are already saying: "Really good stuff - the future of TV made simple." "Futurescape's white paper on #socialTV well worth a read. Great job guys!" Download your copy of The Social TV Factor. And see our comprehensive analysis of the Social TV market in Futurescape's Social TV report.

Sony’s marketing flags up Social TV to sell smart TVs

2011-09-29T18:34:15+01:00

TV manufacturers are capitalising on the new opportunities afforded by smart TV sets. Right now, Sony’s marketing department is backing social TV opportunities (Stay in touch with family and friends) as a major selling point for its Internet TVs. In their online sales campaign, this is the top-ranked Google ad served against UK searches for “connected TV”. Click on the ad and the Sony Internet TV sales site highlights three main consumer benefits. - Entertainment at your fingertips: music, movies, games and YouTube - Stay in touch with family and friends: Skype, Facebook and Twitter - Discover sharper, smarter viewing: picture quality and search technology Click through to Connect with family and friends and the sales page highlights a range of social benefits and their relationship with TV viewing.

Five key questions for Google TV, Motorola and Social TV

2011-08-15T19:40:48+01:00

Google’s $12.5bn acquisition of Motorola Mobility has major implications for Google TV. Motorola Mobility is the leading manufacturer of television set-top boxes. The obvious synergy is for Google to incorporate its Google TV software into Motorola STBs, which are bought by cable and other pay-TV platform operators. Google would likely provide the EPG, search and apps platform, for instance. This has the potential to save the Google TV platform, which had a disappointing launch. Integrating the software directly into a STB would eliminate the need for consumers to buy an add-on box, such as the Logitech Revue, which has sold so badly that it had more returns than sales in the last quarter. It would also give the system the chance to reach tens of millions of homes globally, via platform operators, and so give Google a shot at disrupting the TV advertising market. However, there remain unanswered questions about the GoogleTV STB scenario.

FaceFlix: A Facebook + Netflix strategy to rival cable VOD, Apple iPad, Google TV?

2011-06-24T17:46:00+01:00

FaceFlix: How Facebook + Netflix can take on cable VOD, Apple iPad, Google TV FaceFlix Reed Hastings, CEO of leading TV and movie rental company Netflix, has just joined the board of Facebook. The two companies now have an unprecedented opportunity to thoroughly integrate their services and offer consumers on-demand content combined with social sharing, across all viewing screens. So what are the major implications of FaceFlix (Facebook + Netflix)? And who will it compete with?

Comcast revolutionises pay-TV sharing via Facebook Friend Trends

2011-06-16T20:18:07+01:00

America’s biggest cable operator, Comcast, is opening a new era in how viewers share and discover pay-TV programming. Its radical new Facebook app includes the Friend Trends feature. This now lets a viewer instantly see what shows their Facebook friends have “liked.” Shows are ranked by the greatest number of likes. The app enables a viewer to watch recommended shows and also to share them to more friends from within the TV viewing experience. Crucially, the app aggregates the likes from a wide range of viewing sources in addition to television. It includes Facebook likes made via the Web, Hulu and Netflix. Social TV like this has major implications for broadcasters, advertisers and EPGs, because viewers may increasingly look to friends for viewing recommendations, The app is now live to Comcast subscribers in a market trial in Augusta, Georgia. When Comcast rolls out the service to its entire customer base, it will reach some 22m cable homes in the US market. Integrating Facebook into TV viewing, discovery and sharing makes the social network an even more powerful player in the television industry: you can find out more in Futurescape’s Social TV strategy report. 1) First view of the Facebook app: viewer sees friends’ status updates 2) Within the Facebook app: - Friend Trends is the first feature, with programming ranked by how many friends have liked it. - Design includes TV show title, with number of friends liking it underneath. - Each row begins with image of the TV show, followed by profile pictures of the friends who like it. - The app also has main Facebook functions: news feed, photostream, friends and your profile. 3) Selecting a TV show takes the viewer to the more information screen. From here, they can recommend the show to more friends, via the Share function, with Facebook and Twitter. Please feel free to share the screenshots with this link: http://bit.ly/8xwE76 For more on Facebook and television, see Futurescape’s latest strategy report Social TV: how Facebook and Twitter are power brokers for the global television industry.