Social TV © Futurescape 2011 FACEBOOK AND TWITTER ARE TV’S NEW POWER BROKERS, SHAPING THE FUTURE OF TELEVISION Facebook and Twitter are now power brokers for the global television industry. Their ability to create new business opportunities and engage viewers, boosting advertising and pay- TV revenue, gives them a significant and increasing influence over all aspects of television. The key findings come in the second edition of the Futurescape report, Social TV. Facebook and Twitter have become power brokers in global TV, through creating new business opportunities for the television industry. Shows such as The X Factor will use the Facebook Credits digital currency so that viewers can readily pay to vote. Pay-TV electronic programme guides (EPGs) are incorporating Facebook and Twitter: this lets viewers instantly recommend shows to friends and followers, encouraging them to subscribe to pay-TV channels for particular programmes. More than 30 startup companies are launching innovative forms of social TV to entertain viewers and provide value for broadcasters and advertisers: most have deep integration with Facebook and Twitter. The social networks’ power over the TV business will increase, because the future of television is social. Many viewers already communicate via Twitter and Facebook on mobiles and laptops while watching TV. This trend can only grow: consumers are buying Internet TV sets with Facebook and Twitter apps pre-installed and also entertainment tablets, such as the iPad. Viewers commenting during programming, particularly live event shows such as the Oscars, is likely to boost viewing and raise advertising revenue for broadcasters. Connected TV sets with Twitter and Facebook apps mean that television programming will co- exist with social media on the same screen. Television shows will be viewed with an on-screen, social context. See the following pages for extracts from the report and the full table of contents. About Futurescape Digital media research company Futurescape publishes strategy reports on the future of television. Its reports are bought by international advertising and media agencies, TV broadcasters and producers, cable, satellite and mobile operators, media owners, publishers, industry analysts and government agencies, including: AT&T, BBC, CBS, Digitas, Disney, Eutelsat, Fox, HBO, ITV, MediaCom, Ogilvy, Orange, Publicis, UBS, Virgin Media, Warner Bros. Social TV © Futurescape 2011 Sample Page 6.5. Facebook and Twitter on three screens – a better service for users Both Facebook and Twitter stand to benefit from their arrival on connected TVs. At the very least, their existing users will be able to enjoy the added convenience of having the services on the living room screen, as well as on the PC, laptop, mobile and iPad. Edelman’s insight that people think of social networks as entertainment means viewers are likely to regard social networks as another entertainment option on the TV screen. From a CE manufacturer perspective, Vizio co-founder Ken Lowe agrees: “We are witnessing the demise of television, new technologies are going to take over, television is being replaced by the entertainment display.” Just reading updates and tweets by family and friends can be entertaining. Contributing in real time, whether via the TV set or via a second screen device, creates opportunities for people to become even more socially engaged with TV programming. If users do appreciate having Facebook and Twitter on TV, then user satisfaction should grow, even if incrementally at first, and reduce churn for the social networks. Churn appears to be more of an issue for Twitter than Facebook. The company says it needs to better explain the service’s benefits to new users, as there is often a “so what?” reaction after joining. For each of the social networks, more users may be recruited as flat screen buyers discover that the two services are already available via the apps gallery. 6.6. Providing real-time conversation and social interaction via the TV One of the main commercial goals is to be the real-time conversation service that runs alongside major live viewing events, such as the Super Bowl or the Oscars. Such conversations are already increasingly integrated on broadcasters’ Web sites, via Facebook and Twitter social plug-ins. Providing them direct on the TV screen will give a social network invaluable usage and awareness amongst connected TV viewers. That awareness will spread from those viewers to their personal social networks. There will be further specific commercial opportunities from sharing advertising, sponsorship and other revenue streams, such as transactional, that derive from the app that incorporates the conversation. This will likely require the social network to have one or more partners. Depending on the social TV system, these could be the CE manufacturer or platform operator and the broadcaster or content rights owner. The prospective partners will have to consider their overall relationships with the social networks. For instance, broadcasters and content owners may opt to favour Twitter over Facebook. By backing the smaller service, they could give themselves some flexibility and not be locked into Facebook for all of their social functionality and social graph requirements. 6.7. The social networks target the TV data market, to supply social data to the TV industry Both Twitter and Facebook have the ability to provide social graph data to the TV industry, either free or in paid-for services. This can take two main forms. One is social graph data for content recommendation. The other is data about TV viewing behaviour. Both have major commercial significance for the TV industry and hold opportunities for Facebook and Twitter to monetise their data and further diversify their revenue streams. Social TV © Futurescape 2011 Sample Page 5.8. Set-top box and middleware providers and their app platform partners For middleware providers, Internet connectivity and widget platforms are features that are required by their existing customer base of pay-TV operators and that they can also offer to new customers in consumer electronics. For both sets of customers, Facebook and Twitter are regarded as essential consumer services. 5.8.1. Alticast The interactive TV software specialist offers its customer a social networking app The app enables viewers to interact with social media in an “intuitive non-obtrusive manner” on their TV and facilitates a live community conversation focused around content The AltiConnect Social Media platform lets pay-TV subscribers interact with sponsored Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare campaigns from their TV set The aim is to provide an interactive social media experience that maintains the viewer's focus on watching television Pay-TV operators can measure subscriber participation and monetize success, and also measure the campaign's success within social networks Anne Dirkse, director of technical services, application solutions: “What we've really tried to parallel is the Like button or the Re-tweet button or the Share button that you'll see on web pages today, where the focus is on content, as opposed to Facebook.com.” 5.8.2 Cisco January 2011, demonstrated a three column TV guide for media with three columns: the first for TV channels from a distributor, the second for Web content, the third for family videos and photos. The guide is replicated on laptops, tablets and smartphones. 5.8.3. Irdeto In September 2010, the content management and protection company demonstrated an interactive social TV experience uniting televisions with connected devices, such as the iPad, connected TV and set-top boxes The aim is to make it easy for friends and communities to share recommendations and interact in real-time as they watch shows and communicate across connected devices, set-top boxes, over- the-top and hybrid devices For the demo, it partnered with Axel Springer Digital TV Guide Daniel Thunberg, Vice President of Marketing at Irdeto: “Social platforms are starting to replace traditional electronic programming guides as consumers lean toward engaging with personal channels that they trust for content discovery and recommendations” 5.8.4. Motorola SocialTV Companion Service from Motorola Mobility lets TV service providers offer their customers multi-screen experiences – see full details in the section Social TV Services from TV, Media and CE Companies Bringing its Motoblur mobile device software to its set-top boxes Motoblur syncs a user’s address book, e-mail contacts and friends from Facebook, Twitter and MySpace, and shows their status updates A user can update to any or all of the three social networks at once Social TV © Futurescape 2011 Sample Screenshot Page Screenshot 45: Verizon Twitter widget – send Tweet Social TV © Futurescape 2011 Complete Table of Contents 1. SECOND EDITION – KEY UPDATES 1 1.1. New to the second edition: social TV startups and extensive enhancements 1.2. Facebook vs Twitter – the battle continues 1.2.1. Social networks are overtaking entertainment sites 1.2.2. Facebook’s strengths 1.2.3. Twitter’s strengths 1.3. Facebook’s strategy for television 1.4. Mark Zuckerberg: Facebook will disrupt the entertainment industry 1.5. Facebook CTO: Facebook will disrupt the media sector 1.6. Models for TV companies to partner with Facebook 1.6.1. Facebook Places as a TV check-in to make the EPG social 1.6.2. Facebook Credits for video-on-demand: Warner Bros 1.6.3. Facebook Credits for TV voting: The X Factor 1.6.4. Facebook Credits for TV gameplay: FremantleMedia’s Scoreboard 1.6.5. Apps for TV voting: Britain’s Got Talent 1.6.6. Building audience and engagement to launch a TV channel: TVNZ’s U 1.6.7. Authenticating identities for new pay-TV services 1.6.8. Driving traffic to broadcaster and content owner Web sites 1.7. The Facebook patent for curated search 1.8. Twitter’s strategy for television 1.8.1.