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months and years to come. For Google users, this could mean cross-screen experiences via your single Google+ or
Gmail login, and being that Google is heavily fueled by advertising (remember, it's a free service), expect to see a lot of
marketers and advertisers leveraging Google if this offering becomes a reality.
While all this is occurring in the United States, it's not the only area bringing cable and Internet together as one
uber-platform. In fact, the Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV (HbbTV;
http://hbbtv.org
)
is a huge European initiative
bringing television, video on demand, interactive advertising, gaming, and social elements (among others) together in
a standardized way. HbbTV leverages open web standards with traditional broadcasting techniques that serve as an
alternative to proprietary technologies that don't scale. Services using HbbTV can operate over different broadcasting
technologies, such as satellite, cable, or terrestrial networks.
Currently, you more than likely have a cable subscription, an OTT STB like Apple TV or Roku, and maybe
even Google TV along with a Blu-ray Player that connects to Netflix or Hulu. Wouldn't it be nice to have one device
that does it all, including the broadcast of user-generated content? Well, that's what HbbTV aims to accomplish! I
personally love it! I believe this is where the industry needs to go and, more importantly, where it's headed. With
web technologies such as HTML5, WebRTC, and video delivery specifications like MPEG-DASH, you'll be sure to see
revolutionary improvements in this arena.
Not
■
Broadcast mediums entering the Internet age raises many questions. For instance, how will these platforms
track users? Will privacy remain the same as online, or because the experience is more personal and “in the living
room,” will it become much stricter? If if becomes stricter (which I believe it will), it will take a full agency shift, where
traditional creative and media agencies need to adopt the usual “asks” of digital and remove the barriers that were
once present. These “asks” would be any form of measurement that digital offers over traditional broadcast such as
impressions, interaction time and activites. This also begs the larger question of how the media will be bought and
sold in the new market. CPM models may work for some but may not work for all; especially when one campaign will
span across the interactive and linear broadcast channel. One thing is for certain: user experience will win overall, and
the ad servers that can measure across screens will come out on top.
With all of these amazing technologies coming to cable platforms, Enhanced TV Binary Interchange Format (EBIF),
a model for deploying interactive experiences over broadcast, shouldn't go unnoticed. Leveraging EBIF, the future holds
some amazing things for the cable industry. Developed and maintained by Cable Labs (
http://cablelabs.com
)
, EBIF is
currently deployed in more than 40 million U.S. households by companies like Comcast/Xfinity and TimeWarner. EBIF
enables everything from interfacing with the Web to phone services such as caller ID to even household alarm systems.
The home is now hyper-connected! It's pretty amazing that we live in a world where your television can notify you when
someone is at your door , and you can change the channel to view who's at the front door. Utilizing EBIF to control cable
STBs from second screens and never having to interact with the TV guide again offers really interesting cross-screen
opportunities for users, developers, and marketers. Use your tablet or phone to do the searching and cue up your favorite
shows. Make your own video playlist for a rainy day, or even find out more information on your second screen while
watching a film on your TV.
Not
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Cable Labs is an open consortium for the cable industry, much like the w3C is for the web.
Game Consoles
After learning about OTT devices and STBs, you may have wondered about the other devices attached to your
television. A game console such as Microsoft's Xbox, Sony's PlayStation, or the Nintendo Wii is no stranger to this
growing market either; these consoles are not just for the “gamers” anymore. With more of these consoles taking
an approach to entertainment as a whole, they're offering more than just a game experience since you can install
