July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Rumors are now circulating that Apple is currently in negotiations with Time Warner to bring the HBO Go app to its Apple TV set-top boxes later this year.

HBO Go is the streaming video service of the premium cable channel of the same name. This provides on-demand access to hundreds of movies and a complete library of all HBO original programming, such as the The Sopranos, True Blood, Newsroom, and Game of Thrones. The only catch is that you must already be subscribed to HBO through a cable or satellite TV provider, which costs anywhere from $15 to $40 on top of your regular monthly subscription bill.

The news, which comes from a Bloomberg report citing anonymous sources, might have been exciting a year ago when HBO Go first came to competitor Roku’s line of streaming devices, Xbox Live, iOS devices, and a handful of others. This is especially true when considering all of HBO Go’s setbacks.

In addition to not being able to pay for HBO Go as a standalone service (like you would with Netflix), it also requires authentication that you subscribe to a cable service before it gives you access. And not all cable providers enable their customers to access HBO Go seamlessly. Such is the case with Comcast, which only permits subscribers to use HBO Go via Xbox Live but not the Roku or iOS apps.

The point is, adding a HBO Go app to Apple TV isn’t going to make the device more exciting. At best, it’ll probably defer a few long-time Apple customers from buying a Roku or upgrading their television to a new Samsung Smart TV if they really want HBO Go.

Apple is clearly not making the Apple TV a priority, as we’ve previously pointed out, and the company dragging its feet on HBO Go is just another example.

Photo by Tom Cheredar

MHL lets you plug your smartphone to a big-screen TV so you can watch your mobile content on a big display and charge you phone at the same time. And today, the consortium is announcing a list of 15 Android mobile games that you can play on a big-screen TV.

MHL (named after Mobile High-Definition Link) uses a cable that links a smartphone via a micro universal serial bus (micro-USB) connector to a TV via its high-definition multimedia interface (HDMI) connector. The cable, originally created by Silicon Image, has been created by a consortium of companies, including Nokia, Samsung Electronics, Silicon Image, Sony, and Toshiba. Together with mobile game controllers such as Moga, you could use the cables to turn mobile devices into game consoles or HD video players. MHL can be used with TVs, projectors and, PC monitors.

Sunnyvale, Calif.-based MHL, founded in 2010, has created a “Meet MHL” web site that provides an overview of MHL technology and a list of games that you can play on the big screen. MHL says it makes smartphones into game consoles and turns any TV into a smart TV.

The list of games includes Atlantis Sky Patrol by Big Fish Games; Azada 2: Ancient Magic by Big Fish Games; Beyond Ynth by FDG-Entertainment; Bombshells by Glu Mobile; Enigmatis by Big Fish Games; Farm Invasion USA by Handy Games;  Fieldrunners HD by Subatomic Studios; Monster Shooter by Game Lion; Panic Flight by AMA; Puzzle 2 by AMA; Riptide GP by Vector Unit; Samurai Vs. Zombies Defense by Glu Mobile; Shine Runner by Vector Unit; The Tiny Bang Story by Herocraft; and Townsmen by Handy Games.

It may sound like a hassle to connect a mobile device to your TV. And that is especially true when trying to do it over a wireless network. So the cable is aimed at simplifying the conversion. And it’s not such a crazy idea since consumers spend on average 17 minutes a day on a smartphone or 30 minutes a day on a tablet. They also spend 39 minutes a day on a PC or 43 minutes a day on a TV. By switching content to the big screen, the engagement becomes deeper and longer.

“When we saw such rapid traction of MHL in smartphones, our first concern was whether app developers could take advantage of the capabilities that MHL offers. This was the genesis of this program,” said Judy Chen, the president of MHL. “We’re pleased to see the enthusiastic reception with the game publishers and hope to expand this program to include more than just games in the future.”

With billions of smartphones and tablets shipped in the past few years, consumers have spoken – mobile devices are the indisputable computing platforms of choice, said Chen. They want to effortlessly move their content to new devices where it will play better. MHL’s 5-pin connector has no loss of clarity or fidelity and zero lag, the consortium says. And MHL can provide 900 milliamps of power back to the mobile device, allowing it to charge while plugged into a TV. More than 200 million MHL-enabled products are on the market and 160 companies in the ecosystem.

Some of the high-profile MHL-enabled products include the Samsung Galaxy S3, The Samsung Galaxy Note, HTC One X, Sony Xperia T, Pioneer AppRadio 2, Roku media streaming stick, and the ClamBook.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

NBC has been getting a lot of flak on social networks lately for its handling of the Olympics. Because of the time difference between the United States and London, most of the high-profile events are shown with a delay of several hours.

This is well after the results are known to people who check the news online or read their Twitter stream.

I agree with a lot of the complaints. It’s 2012. The world is networked thanks to Sir Tim Berners-Lee. He was even featured in the opening ceremonies. (If, like the NBC commentators introducing him, you don’t know who that is, check out Wikipedia.) We know what happens as soon as it happens. Many of us have computers at our desks and can watch live streaming coverage any time of day. Some people care about obscure “sports” like dressage and handball.

But, to put it in terms that Silicon Valley understands, we’re edge cases.

We’re not like most of the people in this country.

Regular people:

• Have jobs where the boss would be pretty pissed off if you sat at your computer in the middle of the day and watched sports. (Many people even have jobs where they don’t sit in front of computers and can’t access Facebook or Twitter!)
• Don’t have friends all over the world who are tweeting up-to-the-minute sports results.
• Pay for cable and satellite. It’s a cheap form of entertainment. A month’s cable or satellite bill is cheaper than taking a family of four to a baseball game or a concert. The vast majority of American households pay for TV.
• Want to watch American athletes.
• Don’t know what sports they should watch and are happy to have someone curate for them.
• Want the sappy features that tell the backstory of the downtrodden athlete who came from a broken home and walked uphill both ways to train.

That is the audience that NBC is catering to. For them, NBC is doing a pretty damn good job.

Now, this doesn’t fit my style of viewing. I hate the sappy features. I TiVo the nightly Olympics broadcast and fast forward through all of the commercials, featurettes, interludes while waiting for scores and sappy features. I’ve nicknamed my TiVo’s fast forward button “Bob Costas,” because I hit it every time I see his face. I can watch five hours of Olympics programming in about two hours. If I happen to hit the live mark, I flip over to Netflix and watch an episode of Breaking Bad until there’s enough Olympics in the queue that there’s stuff for me to skip over.

But, again, I’m an edge case. Most people don’t have a TiVo, Apple TV, and Roku box. (And almost no one has the Nexus Q.)

Could NBC do better? Absolutely. But television is a complex business with a lot of mouths to feed. There are local affiliates, content producers, the networks, and cable and satellite providers. And the advertisers want to get their money’s worth.

Sports programming in particular has some especially big mouths, starting with the International Olympic Committee. NBC paid $2.2 billion for the rights to broadcast the 2010 and 2012 games to the IOC. That’s more than Google paid for YouTube. And that doesn’t include the substantial production costs. It’s not uncommon to broadcast major sporting events at a loss because the exposure can be used to promote the network’s other programming.

Comparisons to other countries are foolish. Many countries have state-subsidized television. In the United Kingdom, the BBC gets substantial revenues from a television licensing fee paid by consumers at a rate set by the government. The BBC also pays substantially less for broadcast rights to the IOC.

Change of the sort that Silicon Valley wants in the television business is going to take 10 to 20 years. TiVo was introduced in 1999. 13 years later, only about 43% of households in the U.S. have DVRs. (And most of them aren’t actually TiVos.) More households have VCRs than DVRs.

Even though many of us don’t believe in the linear programming model, it still matters. Just ask Conan O’Brien. If linear programming were dead, he’d still be on NBC.

Sports fans already have access to way more Olympic coverage than ever before. Instead of one network, NBC is offering coverage on multiple networks. And it is making thousands of hours of content available through online streaming for people who prove they have a pay-TV subscription.

Like many product managers throughout Silicon Valley, NBC has to make the best product for the greatest number of people.

Some fixes are within NBC’s control. For starters, get Bob Costas to stop being an arrogant ass during the parade of nations or when talking about foreign athletes. (If someone like him were to describe Americans on a foreign network, our athletes would be introduced, “Here come the Americans. They’re known for shooting each other for no reason and starting wars just because.”)

NBC should also learn that once something is out on the Internet, it’s hard to undo it. Reporter Guy Adams posted the email address of NBC’s Olympics president Gary Zenkel on Twitter. He encouraged people upset about NBC’s coverage to email Zenkel at Gary.zenkel@nbcuni.com. NBC complained to Twitter and Twitter suspended his account.

Clearly, NBC is unfamiliar with the Barbara Streisand effect. They should look it up. Possibly using that thing that Berners-Lee created.

[Top image c/o NBC Olympics website]

Zynga is finally bringing its mega-popular Texas HoldEm poker game to the living room TV set, but it’s not going through a major video game console manufacturers to get there.

In addition to its social media and mobile gaming apps, Zynga is now offering Texas HoldEm as a Google TV app — the first set-top box platform to feature the game. The game has almost 30 million active monthly users across all platforms (Yahoo, Google+, iOS and others), according to AppData.

Technically speaking, Google TV’s support for Flash-based web sites means players can already play Texas HoldEm Poker and other Zynga games through the web browser. However, the new Google TV version announced today is “especially optimized for playing poker from the comfort of your own couch,” and easily controllable with the Google TV remote, Zynga said.

The announcement comes after Google recently updated its struggling TV platform with support for the Android Market, granting users access to TV-optimized Android app games like Droplets as well as many other useful features.

But the additions might be too little too late for Google TV. The platform has previously had trouble gaining a foothold in the market due to interface problems and a lack of content availability. Major Google TV hardware supporter Logitech announced last month it was giving up on the platform after losing $100 million on its Logitech Revue box since last December.

Other video-streaming-focused set-top boxes have also made small moves into gaming. For instance, Roku’s addition of support for Angry Birds on its devices earlier this summer. Integrated smart TV platforms from manufacturers including Samsung, LG, Sony and Panasonic have also dipped their toes into gaming, with support for simple titles, like Tetris, that can be downloaded directly to the television set.

And device manufacturers aren’t the only ones that realize the potential in set-top box gaming. In October, startup PlayJam announced it had raised $5 million for what many see as a burgeoning Smart TV gaming market as well as a way to get around the established console makers’ control of the living room TV.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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How “quiet” the revolution is depends on whether you pay any attention at all to the media, which is rife with coverage of the rise of network-connected (and otherwise “smart”) televisions. But quiet or loud, DisplaySearch says the category will continue to grow at a fast clip – from 2.5 million sets on 2010 to more than 10 million in 2014.

Total TV shipments grew by a “staggering” 17 percent in 2010–to more than 247 million — representing “the best growth seen since the start of the flat panel TV transition,” DisplaySearch reported.

Sales in North America, however, were nearly flat as those screens, rising by just 0.4 percent through 2010′s first three quarters. Much of the growth came in Japan and in emerging markets. Part of the problem in North America (besides continued skittishness among recession-battered consumers) is that prices remain relatively lofty as features are added to TVs: LED backlights, 3D, Internet connectivity. Prices fell by 22 percent in 2009, compared with a drop of just 6 percent in 2010. LED-equipped sets will continue to increase their market share in 2011, rising to about a fifth of all sets sold as prices fall.

About half of all the sets sold worldwide were LCD TVs.

The “quiet revolution” could get a lot noisier once the market for smart TVs settles down and leaders emerge. For now, there is a baffling array of options, from simply buying an Internet-connectable set to buying a Google TV or Roku box to relying on Hulu, iTunes, or Netflix, or any number of combinations of those. Programmers, cable companies, and Internet upstarts are waging turf wars, the outcome of which is hard to predict.

Fortune’s Jessi Hempel writes today that there is great promise in the smart-TV world, but “for the moment, all that promise translates into a proliferation of new boxes and services that are impossible to compare.” For now, we have “a Web TV experience that feels a bit like the Internet circa 1998, before publishing companies embraced the Net and Google arrived to help us find and instantly consume the stuff we’re looking for.”

Roku announced that the new UFC Channel will be available today, and will give users access to all live pay-per-view events in high-definition, as well as to archival footage via a special membership.

Saratoga, Calif.,-based Roku has been around since 2002, known initially for its SoundBridge line of devices that let users stream music from their computers to their stereos. The company became more of a well-known name in 2008 when its set-top box was launched as the original “Netflix player,” which Netflix positioned as the ideal solution for getting its streaming video content to televisions. Roku’s box is still one of the better Netflix streaming solutions available, but it also offers much more outside content from the partners mentioned above.

The addition of the UFC channel marks another direct content acquisition for Roku, instead of going through services like Netflix and Amazon. While Netflix is appearing on many other devices now, including Blu-ray players, game consoles, and even televisions, Roku’s direct relationships with content partners will allow its boxes to be seen as more than just a “Netflix player.” I wouldn’t be surprised to see NFL and NHL partnerships down the line, and Hulu is also a possibility, especially with talk of its subscription-based service coming soon.