TVloop Blog

Adobe has announced that its popular Flash software will soon be coming to web-enabled TVs, Blu-Ray DVD players, and set top boxes.  The move will allow developers to leverage Flash to provide rich-media applications and widgets to consumer televisions.  So what kind of widgets can we expect?  The Venture Beat article specifically mentions dynamically updated online video, audio, and RSS widgets.

We’ve been talking about the Great TV Widget debate for a while now, and I still think the jury is out on whether this is something that mainstream consumers really want.  Our informal poll indicated that there was only marginal interest as most consumers want to watch TV when they’re watching TV. However, enabling Flash videos makes it a little more interesting for me.  Now you can see where content providers such as Disney, Netflix, and others could use Flash software on a web-ready TV to dynamically deliver movies and other video content to subscribers.  So in effect, the widget really just becomes another content delivery mechanism rather.

That may have been the plan all along, but this is the first time I’ve seen it more clearly stated.  Web video is infinitely more interesting than having lots of random widgets on your TV as the image below seems to indicate.  I just don’t see myself giving up that kind of real estate to news and RSS feeds.

Unlike ABC which is rumored to be courting a deal for an equity stake in Hulu, CBS has reaffirmed that it will go it alone when it comes to streaming full-length episodes.  According to a ClickZ article, CBS is in no rush to work exclusively with one aggregator above another.  In fact, CBS finds itself in a considerable position of power given it’s recent ratings dominance and relaunch of TV.com.

Up until this point, CBS has had a much more “closed door” policy when it comes to broadcasting its content online compared to other networks.  While they make full episodes and clips available on CBS.com and it’s other web properties such as TV.com, the network has elected not to provide rights for non-CBS entities to stream its content.  On the other hand, NBC and Fox have received numerous kudos for embracing and funding Hulu and it’s “video as a widget” strategy, while ABC has also ventured outside the Magic Kingdom’s realm if only with one foot instead of two.  NBC, in fact, just announce that it has streamed over 1 billion videos in two years.

The biggest question here is whether CBS is making the right strategic decision when it comes to the streaming of its shows.  On one hand, the network is able to concentrate all web traffic for its shows to its respective Web properties.  But on the other hand, a common tennet of the social Web is to take your content where your users are.  Will CBS’s insistance on maintaining absolute control hurt it in the end?  Only time will tell, but you, but as Forrester Analyst, Bobby Tulsiani, said in the ClickZ article: “They are the network in most demand on TV. If content is king, CBS will be in this game for a while.”

This is going to be a short post.  The Top 10 TVLoop TV shows for March are identical to the top 10 for February.  The only differences are the order - Gossip Girl moved ahead of Grey’s Anatomy and One Tree Hill moved ahead of Scrubs.

The biggest difference in the list is the number of new users for these top ten communities.  The total for February was ~118K new users while the total for March is ~102K new users - a 14% decrease month over month.  So while we’re still adding new users at a pretty good clip, things are starting to slow down a bit on the TV side.  The primary reason is that the TV season itself is starting to wind down with The L Word already in hiatus and Scrubs closely following it in a few weeks.

Other shows will go dark in May which could make room in the Top 10 for some newcomers.  Rescue Me is a prime candidate with Season 5 debuting last night to solid viewer numbers (2.3 million).  The Hills should also be in the mix since it’s already one of our larger communities.  But there’s already talk in the blogosphere that this season is going to be a dud.  Stay tuned.

NewTeeVee is reporting that the networks drove $1.63 billion in web advertising in 2008 - roughly 2.4% of the total generated on broadcast and cable TV.  As Liz Gannes says in her post, seeing the word billion next to online advertising of any kind is a good thing…especially in this economy.  The 2008 figure is an increase of over 28% from the 2007 total of $1.3 billion. Convergence Consulting, the company respsonsible for the report, estimates that networks will almost double their online revenue to $3.23 billion in 2011 - up to 4.6% of total advertising revenue.

While the number is still relatively low compared to what networks are garnering from broadcast and cable, a billion dollars is definitely something that grabs attention.  The more revenue these companies can drive online, but more they’ll continue to make their content available to consumers.  And that’s a good thing for all of us.  The big questions is whether they can drive enough to offset any reduction in TV traffic as a result of pushing more content online.

From our perspective, this is very good news.  Since we have full epidose content from ABC and Hulu (Fox and NBC), we have 2/3 of the shows that users are watching online.  So if they want to reach Lost viewers in a very integrated way, they can sponsor various product features throughout TVLoop to go along with any online video advertising they may be doing.  So as the networks have success online, brands will continue to get more and more comfortable with integrated online campaigns.  And that makes the increasingly tough job of our sales team that much easier.

You’ll see that one of the common themes on this blog is the never-ending quest to drive user engagement via product features, content, and fan contests.  We spend a lot of time analyzing user behavior and developing new product features for the specific purpose of getting fans to visit our communities more often, but also to do more things when they’re there.  Both will then lead to more friend invitations which leads to more users and so on and so forth.

One of the easiest ways to drive engagement is to set up fan contests.  We’ve done this numerous times at TVLoop and FanSection, and the opportunities are virtually endless.  Users lover to participate in the community and love to share their opinions, photos, etc. - and they of course, love to win cool stuff. In short, fan contests can be successful ways to accomplish the following goals in a social community like TVLoop:

1. Content - If you’re having trouble getting users to create or upload content, fan contests represent a great opportunity to provide incentive.
2. Partnership/Advertising - Advertisers are often very interested in getting users to interact with the brand in new and creative ways.  Contests provide a good opportunity because users will associate the brand as the provider of a great prize.  This also places a premium on the need for a contest to be flawless - you don’t want a positive turning into a negative.
3. Engagement - Contests are a great way to involve users in the community, and an even better excuse (not that you always need one) to communicate with users.  And in many cases, such as voting, contests can lead to new users as existing ones invite their friends for the explicit purposes of generating votes.

So, with those general goals in mind, we decided to run a Best April Fools prank contest in the Addicted to The Office community on Facebook.  For those of you that don’t watch The Office, we chose that show because pranks are a common theme - generally when Jim pranks Dwight.

The contest went over very well as we received over 200 entries.  This is the first written submission contest we’ve run in a while, so we weren’t sure what to expect.  It turns out that users like to write about their successful pranks and some were extremely detailed…and long.  But the time spent reading the submissions was well worth it as we received some fantastic stuff.  In the end, the winner was unanimous.  Below are the top 3 submissions beginning with the winner

1st place: The Rollercoaster

So the funniest prank I have ever done is to my dad. we went to a theme park and we were going to go on a rollercoaster. I sat next to him and brought a screw with me. When the roller coaster took us up to the first drop I leaned over, pretend to pick up the screw and said,”where the bloody hell did this come from?” and I watched his face drop!!

2nd place: The Alarm Clock

I set my kids’ alarm clocks ahead an hour after they went to sleep the night before April Fools Day.  I couldn’t wait for them to get up and get ready for school a full hour early … only to tell them as we were rushing out the door that it was only 6:30 (instead of 7:30).  As I retired for the night, so smug and proud of myself, I set my alarm for shortly before 6:30 … didn’t plan to get up any early than necessary myself! When my alarm went off, I crept out of my room ready to greet my kids as they bounded down the stairs to load into the car.  It was very quiet!!  As I poked my head into my children’s rooms, I discovered them sweetly and soundly asleep!  Their clocks reflected the ACTUAL time!!!  How did that happen????  I had forgotten that we purchased alarm clocks for the kids that updated the time according to a satellite (mine did not)!!!  Their clocks had corrected themselves overnight! The joke was on me!!!

3rd place: The Zoo

I work as a paralegal, so as you can imagine, attorneys are ALWAYS looking for new clients.  I gave a phone message to my boss with the title Possible New Client, and the persons name was Harry Lyon.  However, the telephone number was for the local Zoo.  The attorney actually made the call, and asked for Harry Lyon.  The Zoo’s receptionist responded that there was no one there by that name, and the attorney insisted that he had a message to call this number. Finally he caught on.