Recently, when Television Asia Plus queried MediaCorp Technologies’ Managing Director Mock Pak Lum about emerging viewing options be it IPTV, mobile TV, and Web 2.0, he categorically stated, “Media owners have no choice but to jump onto the online and mobile bandwagon.” “Increasingly, the challenge is to offer high quality original content to an engaging community. Previously the viewers talked about the shows they had watched the previous night when they met their colleagues in their office premises. Today, such conversations are conducted online, some of which are entered into when the programme is being shown,” acknowledged the media technology company head. “Many people, especially those on the technology side, believe that media owners are nervous about new technologies or platforms. Nothing is further from the truth. Whenever a new technology is created, from TV to VCRs to DVDs, the media owners can benefit substantially from these new ‘windows’ and are adopting new technology,” says Gregory Ho, vice president & general manager – Animax Asia, SPE Networks – Asia. Even as media owners created space on new platforms, they will at some juncture look at monetizing these new platforms. “Across Europe and the US there are fantastic examples of media owners creating content and making it work through a pay per view model. Across Asia, particularly China where external content is restricted, then this could have a major impact on how media owner make it commercially viable. As a rule the success depends on the content available, if it is to develop quickly then we will need to see major partnerships between content and hardware partners,” said MindShare China’s national tactical planning director Andrew Carter. “Another key issue which has had slowed down the development in Europe, particularly of broadband television, are the rights to broadcast. This has handed the advantage to the content provider who can now include additional rights costs which command a higher price. Therefore vendors/ manufacturers who buy the rights will ultimately have to pass this on to the consumer thus making it increasingly difficult to make it viable.” From the analysts’ perspective, Marc Einstein, senior industry analyst, Frost & Sullivan it is imperative to understand that viewer participation is being transformed, particularly in the IPTV space, via user interactivity. “IPTV operators have looked beyond simple VOD (video on demand) and monthly subscription plans to offer a wide variety of services – from food delivery options, to monitoring where your kids are, to financial transactions – all through a TV with an IPTV set-top box. One of the most successful interactive applications over IPTV in e-learning in Korea, offered by KT and Hanaro,” points out Einstein. At a macro level, the `Lifestyle Media’ era is driven by consumer participation, says Randy Browning, partner, PricewaterhouseCoopers New York. “Of course there is a varying level of richness in participation on all the various platforms, with PC being the most flexible, followed by Mobile and TV and out of home. What we are surprised at is how the participation models have evolved to allow for consumers to participate prolifically using the best option available,” said Browning. For instance on the PC, Browning says, one has the full richness to upload good quality video, audio, photos, blogs etc. Now most social networking services allow direct upload of photos and videos from mobile phones. This mobile to web integration has certainly facilitated participation. “But when you look at micro-blogging services like Twitter, one can participate via text message which is accessible to pretty much anyone, anytime anywhere. What new mode of participation we will see in 2008 we don’t know, but we are sure there are many new formats that we will see in the future which balance participation depending on device and network characteristics,” admits Browning. Browning states that consumption patterns will look different from the past, but the more the consumers are empowered the more value they receive and the more they will consume. “We have to understand that consumption is across information, news, entertainment and we have little doubt that as we look across consumption of all these segments the consumption is rising, albeit getting fragmented across networks, platforms and content type. Of course there is an upper limit since there are only so many hours in a day, but the good news is with consumers in control, the engagement will be better and therefore more valuable for advertisers,” he said. For his part, Einstein feels the increase in TV viewing will most likely come from wireless applications like mobile TV, which will allow viewers to turn to streaming video not only on mobile phones, but also on a wide variety of public media forums such as billboards and in forms of public transportation. “Mobile TV is still in its infancy in the region with the exception of a few markets like South Korea, but several licenses are planned in 2008,” he said. He also added, “The current buzz in the industry is centered around Web 2.0 applications, as there is little doubt that many Internet users are turning to the file hosting sites like YouTube which has taken a toll on traditional TV viewing, especially among younger demographics. The challenge, however, is for operators to figure out how to monetize this content.” Browning says while there has been a lot of focus on Mobile video in its various forms and the various devices, not withstanding the iPhone in 2007, the key trend is two-fold. “One is the rising tide of popular content being made available on the internet or on the IP platform. For example, the release of Hulu from NBCU, the various deals with Joost and the various content owners who have announced branded channels on YouTube such as by CBS, BBC and most recently HBO. In the past, the online libraries were light on popular content and rich in niche content, now we see a rush of popular content online,” he said. “The second trend is the length of the online programming. Popularity of online video started with video “snacking”, or short clips, but we are seeing strong interest in full length programming being delivered and consumed. In one sense online is becoming a true alternative to consume feature length programming. Our view is that video on IPTV or online or on mobile platform is complimentary to the TV viewing as it responds to the consumers need for flexibility and choice and participation in what we have always called Lifestyle Media, which is essentially about personalisation and participation within a social context,” he said. Enterprises need to engage in Lifestyle Relationship Management: PwC In the wake of the increasing number of options for consumers about what and how they watch it is creating fresh challenges for the media owners. According to PwC’s Browning the industry is amidst the early stage of a cycle of new media explorations. There is a long runway ahead for both using existing platforms in new ways as well as monetizing new platforms. “Its very clear that advertising is here to stay, its format, measurement and applicability will vary and new models are emerging and will continue to emerge. This is the time to be innovative, to invest in new models, to take well analyzed and informed risks,” he said. “Customers now are more powerful than they have ever been and this is not going to change. Powerful in their choices, in who they give their precious attention to they have found a collective voice and they want to be listened to. All this means change for the enterprise in how they view a customers. I believe even customers and their relationships need to be viewed through a Lifestyle Media lens, i.e. find the intersection between customers relationships and Personalisation, Participation and Social Context.” According to PwC, this is what form it might take: 1. One-on-one Attention: Personalisation means relating with the customers on a one-on-one basis. This doesn’t mean one human to one human, but what makes a product or service to map to a customers rather than the other way around. This means innovations that drive unparallel customisation in products and services. Dell is a good example of that as its winning proposition in early days was that every customers could have a PC built exactly as they wanted. In services the online portals and even social networking sites are a good example of that. At the high end of products and services, this has always been true for a long time but usually made possible by higher cost by employing more people (in financial services, a high net worth individual gets a personal attention than others for instance). What practical mechanisms, technologies, practices can companies use to economically provide one-on-one attention without a large workforce. Requires new toolsets, economics, business processes, etc. Requires building flexibility/configurability in products and services as well as monitoring customers experiences to drive customizations. 2. Customer as Employee: Employee’s create value and get paid for it. Customers usually pay for service. What if customer contribution generates revenue for the enterprise? What is the relationship then? Participation means involving the customer at all stages of the lifecycle of your product/service. From conception to retiring. The question is what are the functions that you have your employees do now that can be done by customers at large and moderated by the enterprise? Google does not go around placing links in contents, end users do that, but they are able to leverage that for enormous benefits to searchers, advertisers and themselves. eBay does not place the feedback on buyers and sellers, but moderates the mechanisms for doing so and that is the key foundation of commerce activity on eBay. American idol is a good example of getting end customers to do the judging. How can such mechanisms be adopted in selling broadband services, consumer electronics, media, cars, etc. etc. How will such analysis provide the economic basis of having a large number of unpaid but valuable employees? Maybe large temporary staffing services that have been supporting large number of unpaid employees as a middleman to employers have something to teach here. 3. Community as customer: Socialisation, this is where we can incorporate one line of thinking about community as the customer. The meaning of the customer has changed. What does it mean to treat community as a customer, rather than an individual as a customer? Once again, eBay and Amazon are good examples whom I believe treat community as customers by proactively bringing features such as feedback ratings, reviews, collaborative filtering, recommendations etc. into the commerce experience. The individual experience hangs off of the group experience. What can iPhone bring to the mobile industry? According to PwC, it might be too early to have the data on which new viewing platform or technology is currently standing out but the contributions to mobile video from iPhone or iTouch is something to look out for. The key prospects that iPhone can bring to the mobile industry is two-fold: 1. A new interface: Much like Palm created a market (PDA market) by innovating on the graffiti interface, RIM created the market for mobile corporate email by inventing the thumb typing interface (and unseated Palm in doing so); Apple’s iPhone brings the multi-touch interface. Multi-touch can optimize limitations in screen real-estate and allow for complex functionality to be delivered as we are already seeing from the market success of iPhone and iTouch. 2. Support for PC like functionality. iPhone has a fairly complete version of the MacOS on it and therefore can support full Mac functionality. To begin with it supports fully display and interaction with web pages as used on the PC/Mac. What this means is that iPhone/itouch could be one of the first devices where you could do all that one does on a PC/Mac (using a new interface however) without compromising richness we are used to on a PC/Mac. Even if iPhone were to fail in the competitive market, the lasting legacy it could leave behind would be to have introduced a new interface and trained people to expect richness of a PC/Mac like experience on their mobile devices.