Chromecast, the Google trojan horse

Chromecast was all the rage last week. The cheap, easy to use $35 dongle turning your TV into a giant wireless display.

I'm not going to write a device review - others already did a good job here, here and there.

What personally stroke me is how Google changed its tactical approach to reach the same objective.

Remember: back in 2010 or so, as part of a broader initiative to get its services on as many screens as possible, Google announced Google TV. The platform was meant to bring Google to the main screen, by seamlessly integrating linear programming, VOD, YouTube, and basically turning your TV into a big Chrome browser - and targeted ads recipient.

Flop. Or rather, epic fail.

Fast forward three years. Google's Android system is insanely successful, YouTube domination is undisputed, but still, one screen is resisting. The TV.

Here comes Chromecast. There is a lot more in it for Google than just a piece of hardware. It's a way for Google to hack its way (back?) into the living room by short-circuiting everyone, from hardware manufacturers to broadcasters to content providers. With this very low price tag, it's Google's window to give as many people as possible a taste of what Google TV experience is supposed to be.

You'll buy it for what it does now: play YouTube and Netflix videos, display Chrome tabs on your TV (including videos). Limited for now, but enough (in Google's view, and mine as well) to get to the critical mass and develop in two steps:

1/ Ignite

Entice developers to make their apps compatible with the Google Cast API. It's cross-platform (including iOS), open to anyone, and have a lot more possibilities than competing Apple's AirPlay. By example, in a slightly more far fetched but already supported scenario, you could play MMORPG running in the cloud, directly streamed to your TV via Chromecast (just like Netflix today), your smartphone being the controller. Watch out OnLive! I'm pretty sure developers will have more imagination than me - expect a land rush going on in the coming months.

2/ Integrate

With an established user base and a large apps support, Google Cast API will appeal to the hardware manufacturers, and they will integrate it natively into their wifi enabled devices - by this time, it may mean all of them.

Job done!

With this trojan horse into the living room, Google may ultimately get where they intended to in the first place: securing a channel for Google to distribute their services to as many possible TV screens as possible; it may not be called Google TV anymore, but it's damn close!

Have to go now, and get myself my own Chromecast.

The webification of TV ads

"Personalized" is one of the most (over-) used words in the digital realm. The seamless, continuous, consistent experience of one given user.
I can use Evernote and iCloud, consume Spotify and Canal+ (French pay TV) content, shop on Amazon, across all my devices, and always find myself at home, in a personalized environment, my environment.

Then I turn my TV on and get exactly the same content and ads as millions of persons.

I believe this is going to change, starting with ads. Not overnight - the TV industry is mature and well structured. But let me put two recent news into context.

News one: TF1, the leader of French broadcasters, announced a partnership with Weborama to serve targeted ads on their catch-up TV offering, using the same profiling technology as currently used on the web. It is a PC only initiative, and only on catch-up, but with the rise of connected TVs, don't be surprised to see it coming on your big screen, and inside the linear programming.

By the way, this might also lead to a personalization of the streams: think YouTube meets MoodAgent on your TV screen. Better personalization of your TV "channels", better targeted ads, leading to more consumption and better engagement, and higher monetization. Sounds familiar?

News two: Google revamped their AdWords campaigns to break the wall between desktop and mobile ads. Going forward, marketers will be able to plan their campaigns centrally, and will play with bidding options to target specifically device types, locations, hours of day ... But more importantly, it will reduce the gap between mobile and desktop CPCs. For Google, who is constantly nagged on the mobile CPC sensitively lower than on desktop, it's a big deal! And if you push the reasoning further, you can read "a screen is a screen, give us your expectations, we manage the display".

When correlating these two announcements, one can clearly see a future where TV audience is evaluated along the same metrics as what we see today on the web, and TV being one advertising channel subject to equally objective performance measurements: actual exposition, transformation rate (of a call-to-action on a second screen?), etc.

Highly disruptive for TV channels, who may fight this fiercely, but - will they have a choice? Wouldn't they risk loosing attractiveness for advertisers, who may increase pressure to get the same transparency as they enjoy on the web? And use the same tools and methods?

Will they ever come back?

Last week, my company hosted a client event, where I was moderating a round table on the topic "Digital distribution: what model for the future?". Yes, I know - what an expectation! I guess anybody with a clean and definitive answer would keep it for herself and start her own company. But anyway, it was very interesting to hear what people from different horizons had to say - music, TV, audience measurement agency, etc.

But one point in particular really got my attention. A very senior executive from a major French free TV explained to us non-linear video consumption is not hurting at all linear programming, and that the opposite is actually happening, i.e. an increase in average daily linear video consumption. And when asked how could this be, as all teenagers are hooked on YouTube, his answer was that in fact "the stats have been showing for more than 10 years a sharp drop in audience from teenagers and young adults between the age of 14 and 25, but then a strong come back when moving with a partner, and/or having their first child". Wow. It actually depressed me. So were we all lured into a digital fantasy?

Not so fast.

He was insisting these stats had been showing the inversed gaussian profile described above for over 10 years. But that's the issue. Main concern should not be about how things were nor how things are. It's all about how things will be going forward.

My 4-year-old daughter doesn't ask for watching TV. The asks for "the cartoons inside the TV" to designate VOD services. And "the bird in dad's computer" for road runner episodes on YouTube. So, when (almost) never watching linear programs when a kid, how in the world could she ever come back to them?

OK, I hear you, there in the back of the room, saying this is a very biased view, because we are a population of technology addicts, and our habits do not reflect the broader population. But again. Fine, they do not. I am ready to bet big time they will soon.

And you?

In English, please!

Hello digital friends! From now on, this (reborn) blog will be in English, as I believe it is easier to exchange new ideas with the broader audience. Talk to you soon!

Internet is the king of the living room

Mark Suster est un serial entrepreneur américain devenu VC. Dans un post intitulé "The Future of Television & The Digital Living Room", il livre sa vision des enjeux et des opportunités liées à la convergence entre mobile et sédentaire, TV et Internet, broadcast et UGC.
Un post riche, comme on en voudrait plus souvent.

Arrivée cette semaine de "Gmail Priority Inbox"

Selon Techcrunch, à partir de demain, Gmail s'enrichit d'une nouvelle fonction permettant de filtrer les mails par leur importance à partir d'un certain nombre de critères, et d'identifier rapidement les mails importants des autres (mailing lists, notifications, etc). C'est un filtre antispam inversé!





Et la beauté du système est qu'aucune configartion n'est requise, le système "devine" quels messages sont importants, et "apprend" des corrections que vous apportez à son tri.





La mantra "Organize the world's information" prend ici tout son sens!

Le crowdfunding en tête d'affiche

En 1945, les Nazis sont partis sur la Lune - et reviennent attaquer la Terre en 2018!
Tel est le pitch d'Iron Sky, dont la sortie en salle est prévue en août 2011.


Un film de science fiction série Z de plus? Je vous laisse juges sur l'oeuvre, mais le procédé de financement lui vaut de se faire remarquer: sur le budget de 6,5 millions de dollars, les créateurs de Star Wreck prévoient de lever $900,000 auprès de particuliers. Avec des "packages" qui vont de $1,000 à $20,000, ils ont déjà atteint plus de 30% de leur objectif, en offrant aux investisseurs, en plus des parts dans le projet, des privilèges exclusifs comme des places pour la première, un nom dans les crédits du film, etc.


Cette démarche s'inscrit dans une tendance forte, qui vise à s'adresser directement aux particuliers pour remplacer ou augmenter les investissements institutionnels, et qui a été rendue possible par l'entrée d'Internet dans la vie courante de la population: pensez à Barack Obama qui a levé $500M via des donations en ligne de $80 en moyenne, pensez MyMajorCompany qui a permis à Grégoire, disque de diamant depuis, d'être produits par des milliers d'internautes, et qui est en train de lancer Thony Ritz, un enfant des Daft.


Le bouleversement ne s'arrête pas à l'aspect financier, mais impacte largement le processus créatif: les particuliers investisseurs sont très impliqués et sont sollicités pour donner leur avis et leur ressenti.


Pensez-vous que ce procédé va aboutir à une uniformisation des productions, ou que les projets réussiront à maintenir leur originalité en ciblant leurs investisseurs? Et quels sont les prochains secteurs qui seront touchés par le phénomène?


J'attends vos réponses - et souvenez vous: "get ready to kick some nazi arse!"