“TV anywhere” startup Aereo is doing its best to stave off attacks that its business is operating illegally, and it has now asked a federal court in New York to block broadcast network CBS from filing additional lawsuits.

Aereo provides a service that enables people to watch and record the free over-the-air local television content online via desktops, computers, set-top boxes, and mobile devices. It does this by providing tiny antennae for each subscriber, thus making the service legal in the eyes of at least East Coast federal judges so far. But major broadcast stations like Fox, ABC, and yes, CBS are arguing that Aereo should have to pay a licensing fee for repurposing that content. And those broadcasters have filed several lawsuits to stop the startup from operating.

Right now Aereo is only in a handful of markets, but broadcasters like CBS have vowed to continue suing in each of the new cities Aereo plans to launch in. That’s what’s behind Aereo’s move to ask the New York federal court to stop CBS and others from filing more lawsuits.

The broadcasters are so spooked with the thought of Aereo’s continued existence that both Fox and CBS have threatened to take their programing off the air and transform themselves into cable networks. CBS has even made investments in startups that can mimic Aereo’s functionality.

Via Reuters

Photo by Devindra Hardawar/VentureBeat

This sponsored post is produced by StackSocial.

As the weather gets better and the nights get shorter, we all remain as busy as ever. That means we’ve got even more to balance in our busy lives, and we have to include watching our favorite shows into that mix as well.

Hulu.com has been a big help throughout the year for many of us, allowing us to watch our favourite content when we want on our computers. But what if you could add a whole other layer to your Hulu experience – one that gives you unlimited streaming on a myriad of devices, with access to entire seasons of your favorite series…and all in high-definition? That’s what Hulu Plus delivers.

Hulu Plus gives you even more control over your entertainment options – and VentureBeat has a deal that will help you take control of your entertainment with one month of Hulu Plus for absolutely free!

Hulu Plus also gives you access to exclusive content you can’t see anywhere else, along with the ability to watch shows produced by WWE, Miramax, UniVision, The Criterion Collection, and more – additional content that you can’t view on the standard version of Hulu. And you’ll get all of that content – plus the standard Hulu content – in HD.

With Hulu Plus, your shows go where you go. You’re no longer tethered to your computer to watch the shows you love. Hulu Plus can be used on a variety of mobile devices (for a full list of supported devices, click here), meaning that no matter where you are you can keep up with your favorite series. or watch that movie you’ve been waiting to see.

Regularly priced at $7.99 per month, we’re offering you well beyond the usual one week free trial. With this offer, you’ll get to try Hulu Plus for 1 month, absolutely free! (To see all important reminders surrounding this offer, including redemption requirements, visit our VB Store.)

So what are you waiting for? This offer won’t last long. Get one month of Hulu Plus for free by visiting the VB Store and get unlimited instant streaming TV shows and movies today!

If a rumored music service wasn’t enough to push Twitter into the territory media, now the company might be trying to get TV content playing through its service.

The social network is close to making partnerships with cable network company Viacom (MTV, Comedy Central, Spike) and major media company Comcast (NBCUniversal) to bring more high-quality videos to the service, along with commercials, according to a Bloomberg report that cites anonymous people familiar with the matter.

Bloomberg’s sources indicate that the partnership would allow TV video content to play on Twitter, and Twitter would then split the revenue on any ads. I’m guessing this means Twitter would give you the option of playing a clip from, say, The Daily Show within your Twitter stream, and then play an ad either before or after the video starts. Perhaps those clips could even be featured within sponsored tweets that appear before search results and such.

If true, this would be an interesting move for Twitter, and one that shows how much it wants a piece of the lucrative television advertising market. But this isn’t the first time the company has shown an interest in getting closer to the TV industry. Twitter purchased social TV analytics platform Bluefin Labs back in February, and prior to that it signed an agreement to work with Nielsen on a standardized form of social TV ratings. Twitter has also stacked its board of directors and employee roster with plenty of influential media executives.

We’re reaching out to Twitter for more information about its possible dealings with Viacom and Comcast and will update this post with any new information.

Microsoft has pushed hard in recent years to become a fixture in the American living room — most notably via the XBox 360. A lesser-known part of its living-room play is its MediaRoom IPTV unit, which has been adopted by the likes of AT&T and Deutsche Telekom.

Now it appears Microsoft may be gearing up to sell its MediaRoom business to Ericsson, Bloomberg reports.

MediaRoom’s IPTV technology lets phone companies offer TV service together with voice and broadband, allowing them to compete with entrenched cable companies like Comcast. Microsoft describes MediaRoom as the “world’s #1 IPTV platform,” but even so, there may not be much room left for the company to grow the business, Exane BNP Paribas analyst Alexander Peterc tells Bloomberg.

Most consumers likely don’t even know that MediaRoom exists, which is another reason the company may want to let go of the unit. As a business-to-business play, it would be far more at home at Ericsson, which is primarily focused on providing enterprise telecommunication equipment.

AT&T uses the technology to power its U-Verse service, which has 4.5 million subscribers.

Microsoft would likely be better off figuring out more ways to make the Xbox 360 (and its successor, which is expected to debut this year) an integral part of the living room. MediaRoom actually allows the Xbox 360 to be used as a TV receiver, but that integration came after years of delays.

Kwarter closed its first round of funding, sealing the deal with $4 million. The platform offers tools for building customized mobile apps that create a more interactive relationship with the audience. Features include TV check-ins, discussion forums, complementary content, rewards, social gaming, social TV analytics, and ad-serving. Partners focus on the content and design, while Kwarter takes care of the technical side.

The first prototype app, FanCake, rolled out in 2011. FanCake is a live social game that rewards sports fans with tickets, gift cards, gear, and more for checking-in to a game and participating in challenges. Following that success, it launched that Social Dugout and Bud Light Sports Fan apps that are specifically designed for engaging professional baseball and football fans.

It is common for people to have their tablets or smartphones on hand while watching TV, and those trying to promote content on TV are interested in engaging the viewers on as many screens as possible.

“We’re interested in the problems facing television brands and broadcasters,” said cofounder and CEO Carlos Diaz. “If there’s one thing we’ve learned, it’s that the future of TV advertising and broadcast lies in this multiscreen experience—but the question is what experience makes sense. That answer depends a lot on the TV content and TV brand you’re talking about. Our platform is designed to be highly flexible, so that companies can create, publish, and manage interactive TV experiences that engage audiences for any type of programming.”

I generally try to avoid sports fans at all costs, being naturally indisposed to dislike contrasting color combinations, stale beer, and irrational yelling. That said, I have witnessed the significant amount of (inexplicable) emotion that sports enthusiasts feel when the ball arrives in its intended destination, and understand that business opportunities abound in this hotbed of excitement. Plus, game-day parties usually involve cheese.

The company has gained the most traction from clients in the sporting arena, but plans to use this $4 million to enter other types of programming. T-Venture led this investment, with participation from Kinetic Ventures. It brings Kwarter’s total capital raised to $5 million. Kwarter is based on San Francisco, and competes with PrePlay, GetGlue, Viggle, and Zeebox.

Welp, it’s that time of the year again: CES, when tech manufacturers bombard us with shiny toys, gee-whiz stats, and every possible mechanism to shock, awe, and delight.

As the show kicks off, the data nerds at Nielsen would like to offer for your consideration this fascinating organization of a ton of gadget facts.

Want the truth about second- and third-screen usage? It’s all there. Smartphone market share? Ditto. The rate of decline for traditional broadcast TV reception? Check out the infographic, son:

Click to see larger version.

According to the Neilsen blog post on the data viz of the day, all the info in the graphic comes from the firm’s Consumer Usage Report for United States gadget owners and Internet users in 2012.

Surprise, surprise: Negotiations with content providers are significantly delaying Intel’s plans to take over your living room, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Sources tell the WSJ that Intel originally planned to launch a television set-top box, which will reportedly allow consumers to subscribe to television channels over the web by the end of 2012. But now the timing is up in the air. Intel could either end up debuting it in the middle of this year or in the fourth quarter, due to prolonged content deals, the sources say.

Rumors of Intel stepping into the TV set-top box business have been around since last March, following the company’s move away from providing chipsets for Google TV devices and the geek-friendly Boxee Box. Last week we heard that Intel may debut its set-top box at CES next week, but now that doesn’t seem very likely.

Content deals have typically squashed attempts at revolutionizing the living room. Google TV had plenty of potential at launch with its ability to combine traditional TV service with web video, but broadcast networks were quick to block GTV devices from their websites and Hulu (which is owned by several networks). There’s still no official Hulu app for Google TV (or for devices from Boxee). Even Apple has dealt with content issues — it took forever for the Apple TV to get a Hulu app, and it’s likely a big reason why there aren’t more apps available on the Apple TV.

Nielsen has just announced a new form of television ratings. The Nielsen Twitter TV Rating will tell us all how socially engaging a given program is, based on Twitter users’ conversations and updates.

It’s one small step for Twitter, one giant leap for the legitimacy of second-screen data for marketing.

With a new agreement between the two entities, Nielsen will have data from Twitter that will allow it to create a “syndicated-standard metric around the reach of the TV conversation on Twitter.” Both parties say the new metric should be ready for the beginning of the new television season in the fall of 2013.

“Ultimately, we have one goal for this new metric: to make watching TV with Twitter even better for you, the TV fan,” Twitter media chief Chloe Sladden wrote today on the company blog.

For its part, Nielsen said in a statement that it considers Twitter the best source of real-time social data on TV shows. Most importantly, the vast majority of tweets are public rather than private, meaning Twitter data is easier to access than data from just about any other social source.

Twitter data won’t replace Nielsen’s current system of TV-tracking boxes; rather, it will act as a supplement in an industry (the ad industry) where more information is always better.

What does “live” mean when we talk about content on the Web? We think of most Web content in terms of on-demand rather than live, but that is really more of a false holdover from how we consider our traditional media consumption. If we shift our perspective, we can see in the Live Web one of the most substantial opportunities for content publishers and consumers since the initial rise of mobile.

Traditional TV and radio are “live” because when you turn on the device, you instantly receive a video and an audio stream, respectively.  The Live Web is similar, except that it is composed of any content or experience that has first been made available to the user at a singular point in time.  To narrow it in more practical terms, I define the Live Web as consisting of content that goes through three stages – being upcoming, then live and finally on-demand (or off the Web such as sales or live stream only events on ESPN3.com).

While the most visible components of the Live Web are live streamed video events, such as an MMA fight on Ustream.tv, the live simulcast on Bloomberg or the presidential debates on multiple sites, the Live Web is also an auction on eBay, an audio session on ESPN Live, and a chat session with editors of Travel and Leisure on Facebook.  Much like TV, wherein a lot of the content is actually pre-recorded content that is made available at a certain point of time, the Live Web also has content such as the articles on this site or an on-demand video on Hulu that was pre-prepared and then goes live on the Web at some point – they are all part of the Live Web.

The big difference from traditional television is that a lot of the Live Web isn’t scheduled or, if scheduled, hasn’t formally instituted a schedule.  So, the Live Web is all around us.  We just usually aren’t aware of it because it hasn’t been surfaced for us – we don’t know what we don’t know we’re missing.

The Live Web is the new ‘TV’

The Live Web represents the next frontier of content and technology convergence – the Live Web is the new TV (and by TV I mean traditional broadcast consumed via a unifunctional TV screen).

We are moving from a world where the classic definition of TV being a static device with access controlled by a set top box (STB)/antenna is changing to a digital environment of connected screens where the users can determine what content is displayed on the screen.  It’s a shift from passive to active media consumption.

Is the Live Web bigger than TV?  Absolutely.  First off, the continued progression of TV Everywhere, whereby authenticated subscribers to cable or satellite services have access to their cable video content on most connected devices, is going to result in TV becoming a virtual subset of the Live Web.  This will happen within the next two years.

Now add to that all of the content outside of the traditional broadcast providers –  such as Felix Baumgartner’s record breaking skydive on Oct 14, which at 8 million concurrent live streams on YouTube represents a massive live audience, and with very little advance promotion.  Classic TV programmers would kill for that type of audience in the current broadcast environment.  Finally, add in all the non-video content examples from above and you see that there are millions of daily events on the Live Web.

Visible progress of the Live Web can be seen in the YouTube Live initiative whereby they set aside $100 million for original content creation.  It’s the first step to seed what could ultimately be a new online programming wheel with YouTube as the distribution platform.

The current cable/satellite infrastructure is limited in the number of channels it can accommodate and you have terms such as “rollouts” and “carriage agreements” to get to increasing levels of household penetration.  There are about 100 million US households and even 100% penetration of them does not mean you get 100% of the household’s time. Compare that to YouTube users who can access YouTube content 100% of the time via their cell phones, tablets, computers and connected TVs due to the ubiquity of connectivity today and the lack of geoblocking or windowing on most of its content.

Maker Studios and Machinima have hundreds of “channels” – they couldn’t do that on the traditional cable platform.  Hence, it’s clear to see the Live Web will eventually accommodate thousands of channels as a subset of these YouTube channels adopt a linear format for a segment of their content (more on why they will do that later in this post).  As John Chambers of Cisco said, “there will be one million TV stations in the U.S.” because the Internet-connected mobile devices enable easier video production and consumption.

Sites ranging from Facebook to Huffington Post are making “Live” a standout item across their main navigation. Likewise, CNN Live and ESPN3 are examples of leading mainstream Web and traditional platforms making significant forays into the Live Web.  Ustream has more video streamed per minute than YouTube has uploaded per minute.  eBay has millions of ongoing auctions at any point in time, while we have seen the growth of scheduled sale sites like Gilt Group and Vente Prive.

Back in 2000, Gemstar-TV Guide bought SkyMall because it saw an opportunity in emerging T-commerce as a result of its position on digital TV with the Interactive Programming Guide (IPG).  Fast forward to today and you can see how T-commerce will play out on screens – except that it should be called C-Commerce for connected screen commerce.

It’s the natural outcome of exposing contextually relevant options while the user is consuming content – in this case on a connected screen.  It’s all a part of the Live Web.  Whereas TV and radio are for the most part stand alone platforms, the Live Web provides the true choice to the digital consumer – what they want, when they want it and how (where?) they want it.

Why does time matter on the web?

The Web can be, and is, both on-demand and live/real-time. Asynchronous content consumption by consumers is the current norm. And in the foreseeable future that will be continue to be the case.  However, all content isn’t created equal and there is a segment of content that lends itself especially to live consumption.

Certain content can only be consumed live, such as an auction or sale – once it’s over, it’s over – or content that is time or quantity limited (e.g. a live streamed concert that is not available on demand and for which only a certain number of “tickets” are sold).  You have to be there live.  There is other content for which the consumption experience is degraded ipso facto, much like a bottle of red wine once opened.  Sports and, to a lesser extent, news are the two classic content categories that are hard to time shift.

The recent outcries over the Summer Olympics in London are a prime (time) example of the problems and possibilities opened by the Live Web.  Though the events in London were taking place throughout the day, prime time schedules here in the U.S. dictated when they would shown on television and, to a large extent, their “official” access to viewers on the Web.

For those of us even marginally connected online during the day, however, preserving the suspense and drama of waiting to watch the events on television became an Olympic feat in its own right.  Medals were celebrated on news sites, controversies debated on social networks and memes arose and disappeared all before the actual events had made it to their prime-time airing.

When the content doesn’t automatically speak to Live, Web publishers would do well to take a chapter from the producers of American Idol or The Voice and convert passive consumption to active engagement. American Idol created faux interactivity on a one-way medium to create a live ratings juggernaut.  The live experience is significantly enhanced when there is any measure of interactivity and that is a key advantage of the two-way capability of the Web to traditional unidirectional content broadcasting. We have seen what it can do for entertainment; imagine the use cases in education, medicine, and commerce.

The other significant macro factor that has amplified the importance of time on the Web is the ubiquity of connectivity. According to an October Pew study, 50 percent of U.S. adults now have a smartphone or tablet, and tablet ownership alone has doubled since last year to 22 percent.  Global estimates put smartphone penetration at 10 to 15% and growing, while news consumption is growing as 43% of the users reported increased overall consumption.

In other words, the user is no longer tethered to a TV or PC to consume content, and likewise, content is all around us.  I, the user, can finally consume content when I want to (the where is irrelevant and the what is simple – everything).  It’s my choice, and I want the option to consume live if I want to.  Which means that publishers need to provide us with the options so we can determine if we want to time shift any content.

Finally, the “digital watercooler” makes almost all content a now experience.  You can’t wait until tomorrow for the spoiler alert in the office.  Pausing the live stream of the Presidential debates meant having to forgo reading Bill Maher’s tweets or the rest of the Twitter #debate comments in order to avoid spoiling the live experience, and precluded actively participating in the then current conversation.  Being one minute behind prevents one from getting the most out of the two or three screen experience.

For significant live events, the two-screen consumption experience (TV and tablet or smartphone) is becoming more commonplace, creating a digital watercooler of immediate response and reactions so that events such as the landing of the Mars rover, Curiosity, take on a new urgency and excitement online — could Bobak Ferdowsi’s mohawk have made him such a sensation without that live and instantaneous reaction?!

Why the main participants should care

All of these elements of the Live Web have significantly impacted the way we think about content as consumers, yet publishers of online content are frequently still struggling with these notions.

The ubiquity of connectivity now means that publishers and producers have not only a much larger potential audience around the globe, but as importantly, have a much larger addressable time with those audiences. While we often get distracted by the number of potential users that the Web opens for content, time is the truly revolutionary shift that the Live Web precipitates.

Advertisers will pay a higher CPM for an audience delivered at a certain point in time. It’s why the networks fight so hard for shows like American Idol and why they get such a premium.  Controlling messaging by time can be even more important for the Web because you can actually “day part” a user.  A particular user is more likely to purchase content at a certain point of time just as they are more likely to consume video during lunch time or at the end of the work day.

When I was at TV Guide, we would see major spikes in traffic on TVguide.com before and around 5pm EST and PST as people checked the TV listings online to determine what was going to be on TV later that night before they left work.  Similarly, the scrolling guide on the TV Guide Channel would see spikes in traffic a few minutes before the top and bottom of the hour as people clicked over to it to see what was going to be available for the next thirty-minute slot or at the end of an hour long show. That’s why it was so important to reach viewers at the point of decision making during that time slot, and what gave rise to in-grid advertising on the IPG.

Similarly, if you can provide an audience to an advertiser at a certain point in time when they may be more likely to undertake a desired action, the advertiser will pay a premium.  Just as all content and audiences aren’t created equal, neither are audiences at certain points in time.

Online publishers are still largely locked into conceptions of Web content within the context of on-demand, and thus are missing the opportunities that lie in recognizing content’s preceding facets.

In an age where established online content publishers and producers are struggling to build viable businesses and generate the kind of residual value of content that television forged, the opportunities that arise from the Live Web, from understanding the importance of time, really can’t be ignored.

Understanding the Live Web would allows publishers to create digital prime time for their content, create an outlet for content that can’t find a place in their traditional programming wheel, and create a direct and recurring connection with their users instead of leaving the discovery of their content to search.

And that’s valuable to us as consumers as well. When our options for discovering great new content are left to proactively finding what we already know about, or limited to the top links of an online search, we don’t know what we’re missing.

TV image via B-A-C-O/Shutterstock

Sanjay Reddy is CEO of OVGuide. Previously, he was CEO and Co-Founder of Live Matrix and served as head of business development, strategy and M&A for Gemstar-TV Guide International. Sanjay is a digital media expert who has advised a range of new media companies including MyDamnChannel; Pixsy; BuddyTV and TVersity; and has served as a member of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences’ Interactive Media Peer Group’s executive committee.

Apple’s long-rumored revolutionary television-set product is closer to hitting retail shelves than originally thought, according to Jefferies & Co. analyst James Kisner.

The new device — which may or may not be a more advanced version of the company’s Apple TV set-top box rather than an actual television set — will likely combine the innovation and developer enthusiasm of Apple’s App Store with the current pay-TV subscription business model that cable and satellite providers use. Previously, we reported that Apple was having trouble reaching agreements with any of the major TV providers and had thus put its TV revolution on pause.

However, this isn’t stopping those major providers from assessing the impact an Apple television device would have on its infrastructure.

“Our discussions with industry contacts suggest that at least one major North American MSO [multiple systems operator, which includes companies such as Time Warner that own many cable systems] is working to estimate how much additional capacity may be needed for a new Apple device on their broadband data network,” Kisner said in a recent report. “We believe this potentially suggests an imminent launch of the Apple TV, a positive development for ARRIS, who is directly exposed to data traffic growth from incremental IP video streams on cable networks.” ARRIS Group, for those who aren’t familiar with it, is a company that supplies many of the major cable providers with communications tech to help manage broadband network infrastructure.

With the iPad Mini, the fourth-generation iPad, and the iPhone 5 all just beginning their product life cycle, Apple does have a gap in the spring that would allow it to focus all its efforts on launching a new television product.

Apple iTV concept art via Guilherme Schasiepen/Flickr

Via Barron’s

Twitter’s dreams of Hollywood fame and fortune continue today with the just-announced hire of Ben Grossman as head of global operations for Twitter’s media department. Grossman was previously editor-in-chief at Broadcasting & Cable, a television industry trade magazine.

“I have resigned as editor-in-chief of Broadcasting & Cable and will be joining @twitter as Head of Global Operations, Twitter Media,” Grossman tweeted Tuesday in an appropriately placed announcement.

Welcome @BCBenGrossman to Twitter's Media team! Ben will lead our media marketing & operations. Thrilled to have him & his personality ; )—
Chloe Sladden (@ChloeS) November 13, 2012

Grossman will lead Twitter’s media marketing efforts, according to a tweet by his new boss, Chloe Sladden, vice president of media at Twitter. Sladden has been with the information network since 2009 and heads the team that recruits celebrities to the platform and cements partnerships with media and entertainment companies.

By adding Grossman to the team, Twitter is signaling a growing interest in not only infiltrating Hollywood but understanding the dynamics behind the market it wishes to conquer. According to his LinkedIn profile, Grossman also oversaw Broadcasting & Cable’s digital and event businesses and makes regular appearances on broadcast networks and radio shows as a media commentator. Basically, he talks the talk and walks the walk.

The hire comes one day after Nielsen announced the acquisition of Twitter data-dissector Socialguide to help it inform television advertisers and networks on how tweets affect ratings. The M&A activity and the new hire both highlight how intermixed the TV industry and Twitter have become of late.

Twitter did not respond to a request for comment.

Photo credit: shdowchsr/Flickr

Bravo TV’s latest “reality” show, Silicon Valley, makes a mockery of how Silicon Valley really works.

So what, right? So-called reality television hasn’t had any connection with reality since MTV’s “The Real World” first crammed a handful of screen-tested strangers into a house and shoved video cameras in their faces 24-7. No one is expecting the makers of “Real Housewives of New Jersey” to deliver anything even closely resembling its nominal subject.

And the fact that the trailer for the new show already has a rating of just 2 stars — on Bravo’s own website — shows just how execrable this show probably is.

But one thing pisses me off, and no, it’s not Bravo’s loose relationship to the truth. It’s the way the word “geek” is getting steadily drained of all meaning.

Bravo’s trailer proclaims “Geeks are Definitely the New Rock Stars.” Ok, then. So where are the geeks in the trailer?

Apart from one middle-aged guy with a Vandyke beard who appears onscreen for about one second, and who might be central casting’s conception of a geek but is more likely some kind of generic boss figure, there is not one single geek in the whole video.

Instead, we’re treated to a parade of frat boys who like to “work hard and party hard,” airbrushed beauties who weep as they claim “I’m pushing myself so hard,” and testosterone-laden knuckleheads who say things like “Silicon Valley is just balls to the wall.”

These people aren’t geeks. They may be smart, they may be entrepreneurs, and they may even be coders (though I’ll believe that when I see the first line of code any one of them writes). But they are not geeks.

(And let’s not forget the way this trailer seems to airbrush all diversity out of Silicon Valley. In a place where 52 percent of startups are founded by immigrants from India, China, Japan, and many other places around the world, it’s just insulting to pretend that a startup is a bunch of Californians, with maybe the occasional English accent thrown in.)

I grew up in the 1980s, at a time when “geek” was still a put-down that carried real weight. Then a funny thing happened: People like Bill Gates (uber-geek) and Steve Wozniak (as geeky as they come) became fantastically successful. Nerds like Marc Andreessen (a geek in his youth, though now polished to a fine, MBA-like sheen of smoothness) and Jerry Yang (still a geek — just witness his awkward attempt to right Yahoo a few years ago) defined a new generation of geeks who could aspire to become titans of industry, and some of them even succeeded. By the time a couple of geeky Stanford graduate students named Larry Page and Sergey Brin came along, it seemed almost inevitable that geeks would rule the earth, or at least that majority of it controlled by the top 1 percent.

Naturally, now, everyone wants to be a geek.

So, fine. If you’re socially awkward, fascinated with Dungeons & Dragons, and have reached a high level in World of Warcraft, welcome to the club. If you want to join VentureBeat’s game of Magic: The Gathering or celebrate your latest Github commit over a round of Settlers of Catan, fine: You’re probably a geek.

But don’t hoist your Corona and tell me that geeks are “definitely the new rock stars.” Don’t show off your miniskirt and tell me that I’m intimidated because “this package doesn’t usually come with a brain.” I’m intimidated because you’re a girl, and girls make boy geeks like me nervous.

This attempt to redefine the meaning of the word geek disrespects anyone who really did get hassled for being a geek, and it misrepresents and negates the work of a culture that has contributed much to Silicon Valley and the tech world at large. And it’s not just Bravo that’s doing it: All over Silicon Valley, the bros are trying to take over with their own brand of macho startup life.

Go ahead and define your own category of cleavage-showing, perfect tousled-haircut-having, made-up, back-shaved, Pam-sprayed, toned-body entrepreneurship. But don’t tell me you’re a geek, because you’re not.

Photo: Actual photo from Bravo’s show, with photoshopped title by Tom Cheredar.

Television all-star Simon Cowell and popular musician Will.i.am will team up to create a TV show focused on finding the next big tech entrepreneur who will follow in the path of Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg.

“We’re working on a project called X Factor for tech — and it’s going to be out of this world,” Will.i.am told The Sun. “Singing and performance create a couple of jobs. But this will create lots. It’s about getting in touch with youth and giving them a platform to express themselves — whether that’s in science or mathematics.”

Cowell is best known on TV for being a producer and judge on The X Factor, American Idol, and Britain’s Got Talent. He originally had planned to make his next show one that hunted for the next big DJ, but he confirmed recently that it wasn’t going to happen.

Will.i.am has consistently made moves in the tech scene for the past few years. He is the “director of creative innovation” for Intel, and he recently crafted a cheesy song that was the first to be transmitted from Mars to Earth.

With The Social Network winning several Oscars and Bravo about to air a show about Silicon Valley, this “X Factor for tech” show could be another extension of pop culture mining tech culture for fun things to cover.

Will.i.am photo via Michael Sheehan/Flickr

Satellite TV service provider Dish Network officially debuted its new broadband Internet service dishNet today, giving U.S. consumers yet another way to gain access to the web.

The service is a result of Dish’s partnership with ViaSat, and will target customers in rural areas that don’t have access to high-speed broadband services, such as those provided by Time Warner Cable and Comcast.

The dishNet service, which will be available Oct. 1, will offer connection speeds of 5 Mbps downstream/1 Mbps upstream and a 10GB data cap per month. By itself, it will cost $40 per month, or $30 per month if you bundle it with Dish’s TV service, (a tactic that’s frequently used by big cable providers). We first heard rumblings of the dishNet Internet service last month, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Dish partnered with other companies in the future to expand its new ISP business.

And speaking of new business, Bloomberg is reporting that Dish is in talks with a handful of TV networks to provide a new TV subscription service available over the Internet. The report indicates that the bundle of channels would be much smaller than a traditional TV subscription, and cost much less. The rumored bundle is said to include only the more popular channels from media companies such as Viacom (MTV, Comedy Central), Disney/ABC (ESPN), and Scripps (HGTV, HSN, Food Network). There was no mention of whether Dish’s Blockbuster streaming service would be included as well.

A web-based TV bundle like this would be a bold move by Dish to steal current customers away from big cable companies, and attract former cable TV customers who were previously unsatisfied by high monthly bills and not enough valuable content.

If true, Dish could end up with a very consumer-friendly TV/Internet packaged plan that costs consumers less money, and it might possibly be more profitable than its standalone satellite TV service business. Of course, media companies historically have an all or nothing view on licensing agreements — meaning they demand that cable/satellite TV providers pick up several of their channels (at a higher cost) to get the ones people actually want. But that’s not the only hurdle Dish would have in offering customers a web-based TV bundle.

I’ll admit that the idea of an IP-based live TV service is a stretch, not just for Dish, but any TV service provider. Offering a highly-trafficked, continuous stream of video content is not only costly, but difficult to maintain reliably during peak viewing hours. Plus, consumers seem relatively happy with an on-demand content model, even when recently premiered episodes from major  broadcast TV station shows (NBC, Fox, ABC, etc,) have multi-week delays on availability. For instance, Hulu Plus subscriptions have grown rapidly, despite additional delay stipulations on recent content.

But regardless of how the content is delivered, there is definitely interest among consumers for a better TV service.

Photo via Dave Lindblom/Flickr

Comcast forged a new partnership with media startup Zeebox today to infuse live broadcast TV shows with a dose of interactivity.

Traditional broadcast television is really good at providing a way for people to sit back and absorb what’s on a screen, but it doesn’t really allow viewers to participate in the experience — unless you count changing the channel. Zeebox, however, hopes to change that by taking advantage of smartphone and tablets (aka the “second screen experience”). While watching a live program, viewers can pull up information about the show, see related content, socialize with friends, and more.

Most people are already using their devices while watching TV, but Zeebox makes the added interaction truly supplementary.

In addition to Comcast (and it’s media company NBCUniversal), Zeebox is also partnering with premium channels HBO and Cinemax. Hundreds of TV shows appearing on these channels –  like Boardwalk Empire, The Voice, True Blood, and others — will now get an official set of second screen enhancements for iOS devices, Android devices, and the web.

And while consumers are clearly benefiting from the added supplementary material, so are the media companies. Zeebox also makes it possible to show advertisements related to specific programs and sell merchandise that appears on a show. This in turn translates to more revenue for content producers.

Founded in 2011 by former EMI executive Ernesto Schmitt and former BBC iPlayer CTO Anthony Rose, Zeebox has offices in London and New York.

If cable service providers want help revolutionizing the television industry, they definitely have funny way of asking for it.

During the Goldman Sachs Communacopia investor conference today, Time Warner Cable President Rob Marcus said his company would be interested in selling TV subscriptions using third-party technology under the right circumstances. Essentially, TWC is willing to give up control on certain aspects of the subscription experience (like the user interface) as long as it continues to deal with its customers directly.

To translate, that means TWC is open to the idea of using an independent set-top box as a replacement cable device.

Last month, rumors claimed that Apple was in discussions with TWC about a partnership allowing cable subscribers to use an Apple device to access content, as VentureBeat previously reported. The rumored Apple device allegedly would mix the innovation and developer enthusiasm of Apple’s App Store with the current pay-TV subscription cable and satellite services. However, the rumors also indicate that discussions weren’t going anywhere because Apple wanted more control than TWC was willing to give.

Having now used TWC’s user interface for a month, I can say with certainty that it prohibits me from watching a lot of cable TV content. I spend far more time on my Roku and Xbox watching Netflix and Amazon Prime than I do Time Warner’s live broadcast channels or OnDemand content.

That said, TWC’s cable TV interface is awful and should be entirely replaced. I’m guessing the company knows that, but it’s still a bit skittish when it comes to turning over the keys to its otherwise successful television subscription business.

While Marcus’ comment don’t necessarily confirm that rumors of its alleged discussions with Apple are true, it certainly adds credibility to the idea that the cable provider wants help revamping its cable television service.

At the same time, TWC could be positioning itself for offers from other set-top box/platform providers. After all, Marcus didn’t specifically mention Apple in his commentary. Roku is currently partnering with Dish Network, and Microsoft’s Xbox Live platform has deals set up with Comcast’s Xfinity TV, AT&T’s Uverse, and Verizon’s FiOS.

Via AllThingsD

Apple iTV mockup by Guilherme Schasiepen/Flickr

Amazon and NBC have been getting down to business, and the fruits of their labors are more instant video offerings for Amazon Prime customers.

In case you’ve still got cable or something (hah! you oldster), Amazon Prime’s Instant Video service is the company’s Hulu/Netflix competitor. It serves slews of movies and TV shows to paying customers, who also get e-book and free shipping perks along with discounts on many products.

As of today, NBC shows such as like Parks and Recreation, Parenthood, Friday Night Lights, Heroes, and Battlestar Galactica become part of the Prime Instant Video lineup.

“We continue to invest heavily in our content selection for Prime members and have now reached over 22,000 movies and TV episodes available instantly with unlimited streaming,” said Amazon digital video content acquisition director Brad Beale in a statement on the news.

“We are excited to be working with NBCUniversal to add their award-winning lineup of TV shows such as Parks and Recreation and Friday Night Lights to Prime Instant Video.”

Amazon’s total Instant Video library includes 120,000 titles available for rental or purchase. Prime members, who pay a flat $80 annual fee for Prime membership, are able to view more than 22,000 movies and TV episodes from the overall Instant Video library at no additional charge.

Amazon has been doing hella deals to bring more videos to Prime in particular. Back in February, the company signed on with MTV, VH1, Comedy Central, and a few others to get their popular shows onto the online video service. Discovery Channel and Animal Planet got on board the following month, with MGM and Warner Bros. following suit in June and July, respectively.

And earlier this month, Amazon launched a new iPad app for Instant Video gratification that media correspondent Tom Cheredar said would “eat [Netflix's] lunch.”

Twitter is schmoozing with Hollywood producers and network executives in an effort to get several original video series to air exclusively on its information network, said sources who spilled the beans to Adweek. Twitter declined to comment.

Specifically, an MTV-style reality series similar to The Hills or The Real World is said to be in development and may be hitting Twitter’s alternative airwaves as soon as this fall. Twitter has already shopped around the video project to advertisers, the sources said.

“Per sources, the show could live on a standalone Twitter page similar to the events page that Twitter launched in partnership with Nascar in June, although the series’ page would more closely resemble a microsite in order to feature an expanded video player,” said the report. “Another possibility is that the series would be distributed within tweets — promoted, organic, or pinned to a brand’s Twitter page — with users clicking to expand the tweet into a full-fledged video player.”

But Twitter making broadcast-style content sounds like a stretch, especially given that audiences tune in to Twitter to chime in on reality series, not watch them. The report also seemingly contradicts a recent comment Twitter CEO Dick Costolo made to reporters about the company having zero interest in being in the content business.

While not a content maker per se, Twitter, as we’ve seen, will do everything in its power to keep people consuming tweets, and the media contained within those tweets, on its platform. This amounts to Twitter cozying up to friends in the media business.

Twitter has formed relationships with Nascar and ESPN to engage hybrid viewing audiences around sporting events, and the information network has partnered with NBC Olympics to make Twitter the center of all Games-related news and commentary. We would expect exactly the same from Twitter on the video series front, which means content created by media partners that’s optimized to flow and spread through Twitter’s network.

Photo credit: Shutterstock

If you haven’t heard the rumors about Apple’s television by now, you’ve been living under a sad, lonely rock. The company is now reportedly releasing a software developer kit (SDK) for the rumored talking box to create the real TV game changer: apps.

Apple is holding its annual world wide developer conference (WWDC) next week and is expected to announced, or at least hint at, the “iTV.” While the television itself will almost certainly not make an appearance, it looks like the operating system may. BGR‘s sources say the rumored SDK would allow software developers to create apps for a new OS made specifically for Apple’s ventures into television, including its current Apple TV.

While Apple may not have come up with the idea of an application for mobile devices, the company has helped turn mobile app developing into an industry of its own. Any Apple television would be incomplete without this touch. Like the phone, an app platform would let anyone release tools to customize the viewing experience.

It is also rumored that Apple’s television will support Siri, the voice-assistant on iPhone 4S models. This opens the door for hand-free channel surfing and potentially control over apps. Unfortunately, if this report is true, developers still won’t have access to Siri, as there is no official application programming interface available for it yet.

BGR’s sources say the SDK will probably show up in Apple TV first, but will be HDTV-ready.

via BGR; Apple iTV mockup image by Guilherme Schasiepen

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It’s a bird, it’s a plane! No, it’s an Apple iTV prototype! A Cult of Mac source claims to have seen the rumored Apple television and says it looks just like the Thunderbolt display, but bigger.

According to this source, the television is equipped with two pivotal elements that will put Apple’s mark on the device: iSight and Apple’s voice-controlled assistant Siri. The iSight camera will be used for making Facetime calls, while Siri could represent an evolution of remote controls from handheld devices to built-in voice-enabled software. The television is also “much larger” than the Thunderbolt display, according to the source, though specific sizing details are not available.

It has been long-expected that Apple would release a television using Siri, though the company has not yet graduated the software off of its latest smartphone. As for Facetime, the source says the camera has the ability to follow you around the room, as well as zoom in on your face so you won’t have to sit right next to the screen for the person to see you clearly. Whether or not it will be able to detect and follow more than one person is unknown.

Rumors about an Apple television have been swirling for months. Analyst Peter Misek said he spotted television parts slowly being shipped to Apple’s manufacturers on a recent visit to Asia. He believes the television could debut as soon as this summer, though that target seems unrealistic now. Others say Apple has been in talks with Epix, a movie channel backed by three major studios, for a streaming deal that Netflix currently monopolizes.

Cult of Mac warns that the source is “well placed,” but the tips don’t always pan out. The source often gets early access to prototypes, which Apple may not use in the final product.

via Cult of Mac; Mockup images via Dan Draper

After announcing that it’s jumping into the Google TV fray at CES in January, an LG executive said today that it will begin building and shipping the sets later this month. But, with Google TV’s lukewarm welcome by consumers, and a non-existent Apple television set grabbing headlines, will LG fare better than Google’s first round of partners?

Ro Seogho, an executive vice president in LG’s TV business, told Reuters that the company will start building the Google TV sets on May 17, and that consumers will be able to buy the sets starting the week of May 21.

Google TV launched in late 2010 as Google’s attempt to bring web video to TVs. The Android powered-platform brings Google search, web browsing, and most recently apps, to your television screen. But despite plenty of promise, it failed to take off initially due to sluggish speeds and lack of support from TV networks. Logitech famously gave up on Google TV last year after blaming it for a $100 million loss.

LG isn’t offering up any other details, like screen size or pricing. But from the report, I gather that Seogho isn’t referring to the “Nexus” Google TV set LG was rumored to be working on (which would run a much newer version of Google TV than existing devices). Without that Nexus designation, though, there doesn’t seem to be much to differentiate LG’s sets from Google TV products already available from Sony and Logitech.

I’m also not sure why LG is in such a rush to bring GTV sets to market. Google TV hasn’t been updated since last Fall (though that update offered some significant improvements), and it doesn’t give LG much time to promote the new sets. Wouldn’t the No. 2 television maker in the world have something to say about a significant new product line?

It could be that Google has a big Google TV update that it’s going to debut with LG’s sets, or LG is just bringing the sets to market without much effort to fulfill a contractual obligation.

At CES,  we also learned that new Google TV sets would be coming from Samsung, Vizio, and Sony.

With the advent of numerous over the top (OTT) platforms, which bring online video directly into the living room, pay-TV operators face new competition — competition from hot startups like Hulu, Netflix, and Roku.

In way, OTT video represents the first real threat to the traditional pay-TV model. But in many more ways, it’s also the traditional TV industry’s biggest opportunity yet.

Multi-channel pay-TV rose to prominence in the 1980s and has grown steadily all over the world. The business model of a fixed monthly fee for a tiered package of TV channels has proven more resilient than anyone could have imagined.

Over the years, providers of multi-channel TV have become very profitable companies, enjoying almost the same kind of monopoly as telecom operators enjoyed in the past. It is clear that most pay-TV operators would like the industry to remain in the comfortable state of the last 20 years, with steady growth and healthy profits.

But with high speed broadband Internet finally available for most consumers, there are more options than ever to find content.

Consumers download movies and TV shows from the Internet, legally or illegally, while new OTT video on demand (VOD) offerings like Netflix and Amazon have grown their subscriber base significantly. It is these alternatives to pay-TV that have caused analysts to predict doom for operators due to consumer so-called cord cutting.

Yet despite the proliferation of these alternative services, over the past 10 years cord cutting has barely made a dent in major operators’ top line revenues.

Cord shaving rather than cord cutting

The real risk for operators is not that the mass market will cut the cord entirely, but rather that they will downgrade to a lower priced tier, thereby reducing operator profit margins.

This trend of declining average revenue per user (ARPU) will be the main driver of innovation over the next couple of years, both for the networks and the operators.

By seeing consumers slowly but surely consuming more of the content via alternative distributors, operators feel threatened even if the changes so far have been small. Consumers see the value with more choice, better availability, and high usability. As long as the operators cannot offer something similar, the gradual loss of revenues will continue.

The transformation of the TV industry will be slow

The television industry is a cautious industry. Technology shifts have traditionally happened on time scales of 10-15 years rather than the 1-2 years that we have become accustomed to with Internet and mobile.

The immense capital expenditures from replacing and deploying new set-top boxes is a gaiting factor to operator innovation. Operators are reluctant to spend capital on rolling out next generation boxes, which are needed to provide a significantly new consumer experience.

Also, operators are wary of making risky upgrades to a legacy technology solution that has worked for many years.

Furthermore, consumers keep TV equipment in use for a longer period of time than they do with PCs and mobile equipment. Consumers also tend to be more loyal to TV channels than they are to Internet websites. The entire value chain from advertisers and content providers to networks and operators are happy with the current structure and are not in a hurry to roll out new changes.

And finally, content distribution agreements are typically 4-5 years, which slows the rollout of new innovative offerings.

Over the next couple years, operators and networks will focus on innovation using complementing services that take advantage of OTT infrastructure. Complementing applications will offer consumers access to content and features, which enhance value, but will not replace the standard multi-channel tiered package, consumers get today.

These applications improve loyalty and retain the current business structure rather than complete disruption, and this is the area where the pay-TV industry will invest over the next few years.

International case studies: Telstra and Viasat

Two of our pay-TV customers have fully embraced the OTT opportunity and have launched attractive services to their customers on their respective markets with slightly different strategies.

Telstra is the leading telco in Australia. It has launched a pay-TV offering via the T-Box. To give additional value to its broadband Internet subscribers, it has launched a multi-channel pay-TV (Big Pond TV) and full VOD offering (Big Pond Movies) across Australia.

By using OTT devices such as tablets, Smart TVs, and game consoles, Telstra has managed to reach its entire consumer base without the need for an additional set-top box. This will build loyalty for the broadband Internet customers and also create natural upsell possibilities for additional services.

Viasat is the leading pay-TV operator in Scandinavia, historically mainly with a direct-to-home satellite dish offering. In 2011, Viasat relaunched its Viaplay offering across a number of OTT devices.

The real innovation is that consumers can subscribe to the OTT offering without having a standard set-top box, pay-TV subscription.

This will be slightly cannibalizing, but it opens up a new market which cannot be reached with a direct-to-home offering. Viastat is now competing head-to-head with cable operators and telcos in parts of the market where they have never been able to compete before.

OTT is an opportunity for operators

Pay-TV operators, with their strong subscriber relationships, technology infrastructure ,and content portfolio, will benefit from distribution via OTT devices.

With the big brand names and ample cash flow, they can easily equip themselves with the most innovative OTT offerings and create loyalty among existing subscribers and potentially an efficient way to acquire new subscribers. The opportunity for pay-TV operators to take the lead in the OTT market is huge.

Michael Lantz is CEO an co-founder of Accedo, a provider of enabling platforms for apps and app stores for IPTV and Smart TV. David Adams is Accedo’s vice president for corporate development.

Image courtesy of Yuri Arcurs

After paving the way for Internet-based TV networks, Revision3 might finally be catching some attention from well-established cable television companies.

The startup is rumored to be in discussions with The Discovery Channel about a possible acquisition, reports TechCrunch. Revision3 has spent the past few weeks working on the deal, which values the startup between $30 million to $40 million. The report also indicates that a sale could be finalized by the end of the week.

Revision3 declined comment to VentureBeat regarding the potential sale.

The web-based TV network produces a variety of original shows about technology, comedy, pop culture, video games, music, and more. Some of its most popular shows include EpicMealTime, Diggnation, Tekzilla, Destructoid, and Totally Rad Show. The network is available across a plethora of digital platforms (e.g. Roku, Boxee, Zune, Tivo, Yahoo’s Connected TV Platform, Google TV, iOS, Android, and an HTML5-optimized video player). Those shows are mainly produced in Revision3′s studio, with videos that get distributed to several different platforms (YouTube, Facebook, AOL, Yahoo, iTunes, etc.) that generate revenue from a mix of advertising and in-show sponsorships.

The company’s programming brings in about 100 million monthly video views — with yearly audience numbers comparable to traditional cable TV networks, as VentureBeat reported back in January. And while Revision3 didn’t reveal its financial records for 2011, it did state that ad revenue was up by 53 percent compared to the previous year.

If an acquisition does happen, Revision3 would become the first Internet-based network owned by The Discovery Channel, which also owns TLC, Animal Planet, Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN), The Military Channel, and Science Channel.

Honestly, I think the $40 million price range for Revision3 is a steal, considering what a traditional television-based media company would gain. Revision3 has successfully built a model that distributes its programing across all of the important streaming video platforms/devices. It’s also figured out how to make money through all of these channels. Not only could the The Discovery Channel utilize this model for its own programming, but it would also be gaining a stable of fresh TV personalities who are familiar with less traditional production practices.

I doubt we’d see a cable channel version of Revision3, but certainly some of the network’s shows could cross over into some of Discovery’s preexisting channels. For instance, instead of playing an eight-hour block of “How it’s Made” on the Science Channel, we could get a dose of tech news and reviews.

The tablet’s ability to deliver content has been considered a threat to PC and cable companies, but new data shows 85 percent of people using their tablets while watching the television, according to a report by Forrester.

The tablet is replacing laptops as second-screen devices, since we can do many of same tasks on tablets that we do on computers, including buying things, reading the news, and checking e-mail. Apple chief executive Tim Cook recently said the tablet will eventually cannibalize the PC. Sarah Rotman Epps, an analyst with Forrester, agreed and called tablets “couch computers” in her report. Given the many different avenues for streaming video, the natural conclusion is that tablets will eventually kill off the TV too, but Epps says tablets actually complement the TV watching experience.

As mentioned, 85 percent of tablet owners use the device while watching TV. Nielsen also says that 30 percent of tablet use happens while watching the television. TV companies are creating companion applications to engage viewers on a deeper level during their favorite shows. Even cable companies are creating their own video-streaming apps in an effort to get in front of the cord cutting trend — severing ties with cable operators in favor of services like Hulu Plus. Comcast’s Xfinity app is an example of this.

But tablets may still eat into part of the TV market. According to Epps, people are replacing smaller TVs with tablets in rooms such as the kitchen and bathroom. Thirty-two percent of tablet owners will not buy a 24-inch TV or smaller since purchasing their new, mobile device. But the same does not go for larger televisions.

“The reality is that consumers with tablets think their tablets are even smarter, and at least some of the time prefer to watch the content from their small device on the big screen,” said Epps.

Girl watching movie image via Shutterstock

Randi Zuckerberg is one of the biggest names connected to Silicon Valley, a Bravo reality show centering around the world of technology startups in and around the San Francisco Bay Area.

And last night, Ms. Zuckerberg took to the web to defend her involvement in the series and explain why she thinks the show is a good idea.

The concept and the stars of the show have been roundly criticized in recent days by many members of the tech community, from bloggers to ego-driven entrepreneurs — and a lot of that criticism smacks of jealousy or just plain snobbery, with tech insiders giving Bravo, Zuckerberg, et al. the “how dare they” treatment for “selling out” or not including big enough names.

“I completely understand that there will be skepticism and detractors,” Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post Friday evening. “But I think this show comes at an important time.”

Zuckerberg herself was deeply involved in some of Facebook’s most formative years, particularly as it moved from a youth-dominated social network to its current position as one of the most powerful tech companies on the planet. Due to her familial connection to the company (Randi is Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s sister), she says she has “[struggled] to have people view my successes as my own.”

As a result, she wrote, “I respect that the people cast in this show are all trying to make something of themselves. Some are newcomers to Silicon Valley. Some were anonymous cogs within bigger companies who chose to leave and create their own path. While you may not know them yet and while they may not be involved with Pinterest, AirBnB, Dropbox, Square or one of the other hot companies of the moment, it certainly doesn’t make their journey any less authentic or worth following.”

So much for criticisms about the star caliber of the series’ main characters, including The Next Web video guru Hermione Way, former Googler David Murray, and a handful of startup founders.

Zuckerberg also addresses the “sellout” criticism, writing, “Given the current economic climate, I think it’s really positive that mainstream media is celebrating the entrepreneurial spirit and portraying people who pursue innovation and startups as being aspirational for the general public.”

Zuckerberg is acting as executive producer for Silicon Valley, and she describes her position as an advisory role.

Roku’s product chief, Tom Markworth, sat down with VentureBeat at South By Southwest to show off the company’s latest, as-yet-unreleased bit of hardware: the streaming stick.

These teeny, weeny gadgets will connect smart TVs to a plethora of over-the-top content, and they’ll do so with Roku’s trademark ease of use and affordability. Markworth also talks about the entertainment/technology relationship, especially with regard to Roku’s interesting and still developing relationships with cable companies and content creators.

We’ve still got more video interviews from SXSW, unbelievable though it may seem, so don’t touch that button.

Anthony Wood (pictured) is Roku’s CEO, and at his house (he’s married with three kids), each person gets seven hours of TV each week — all sans cable, natch.

The family gets its fix primarily from Amazon’s pay-per-view video selection, he said, and hours are logged on a per-person basis using the BOB screen time manager.

But there is some cheating in the system; when his wife sits down for Modern Family, for example, a few others will join the viewing party without having to log in themselves, meaning most family members get more than seven hours of TV per week.

It’s a small infraction, and Wood seems generally nonplussed. The important part is the way his family gets their TV fix — via the web and a small set of services and hardware that are severing ties between consumers and cable companies.

In an exclusive interview with VentureBeat yesterday, Wood talked at length about his company, their competitors, the changing entertainment industry, and where we’re all headed over the next couple years — including Roku.

“Forcing change”

“The Internet is clearly going to revolutionize the way we get video,” Wood begins by stating the obvious. Both he and I (a happy Roku user) know that the online TV revolution is well underway. Wood sees the evolution nearing its completion relatively quickly. “I think over the next four years, most Americans are going to get their video over the Internet,” he said.

Even old-guard cable networks like HBO are rolling out online subscriptions; Wood points out that web incumbent Netflix has called out HBO Go, an online companion to the channel’s traditional subscription, its biggest competitior.

“There’s a lot of change coming; a lot of stress for the industry as it figures out how to move to this new world,” Wood continues. In a way, he sees the pressure the music industry faced ten years ago being echoed in today’s video wars; the only reason this battle is being staged ten years later is that we consumers now have the bandwidth to get what we want from almost all forms of media, not just small MP3 files.

Still, most of those heading up content creation for film and television don’t see the Internet as a primary means for getting and consuming video content. “The content owners view TV as their traditional market,” said Wood. “They view watching on your laptop or phone as a second, incremental market.” Because of this worldview, he said content creators will give Internet-enabled viewing rights to PCs a lot easier (and cheaper) than rights for Internet-connected TVs. Cable operators still see the television set as their proprietary domain.

And if you’ve ever wondered why, for example, you can watch some Hulu Plus shows on your laptop but not on your TV, this is the crux of that issue. Every few years, content creators and cable operators renegotiate the rates that the operators pay to license the content. And if, for example, ABC let Hulu give its users the ability to watch Pretty Little Liars on Internet-connected TVs, the cable operators “will use that fact to pay less during the next negotiations,” said Wood. “Or they’ll take [the content creator] from channel two and put in on channel 638.”

Still, in spite of this seeming stranglehold, Wood said, “The Internet is forcing change. Why is HBO Go around? It’s because of companies like Netflix… and the incumbents realize they have to do a lot more to compete. It’s forcing them to give consumers more choice.”

After all, for every roadblock cable operators create, creative consumers find a way around it. Whether it’s torrenting content we can’t buy online or setting up our home media servers to stream web content to our TVs, sisters (and brothers) are doin’ it for themselves. And sometimes, when we realize we’re doin’ more for ourselves than the cable and satellite companies are doing for us, we simply cut the cord.

But most of us still maintain some relationship with a tradition TV provider — for now. “We survey our customers, and we ask them what they did with their cable package after they about a Roku,” said Wood. “Around 40 percent cut back or cancel cable, and that’s split half and half,” in other words, 20 percent cancelled and 20 percent reduced their service. “And that number is pretty consistent, so the majority of Roku customers have cable or satellite, and Roku is additive. It’s an extra source of content.”

But that supplement is rapidly trending toward becoming the norm. “It used to be people watched around four hours a week on Roku,” said Wood. “Now, they’re watching 12. I think in four years, it’ll reach 30 hours, and most people today watch 35 hours each week.”

The cable connection

But cable networks and providers don’t want to get cut out of the deal completely, so they’re attempting to keep pace with consumer-driven change and innovation.

“The big trend that’s happening now — a lot faster than I thought it would — is that the cable networks and operators are embracing the Internet and doing authenticated packages,” said Wood, citing HBO Go as an example. This service, while it still requires you to be a traditional HBO cable subscriber, allows you to have access to Internet content with on-demand features and the like.

“Over the next year, all the major cable networks and operators will be on Roku,” said Wood. “The next step after that, sometime this year, will be a company that offers an over-the-top cable package… And then, all hell’s gonna break loose.”

But Wood doesn’t see à la carte service for cable content coming any time soon; the traditional system of bundles has too much money and legacy tied up with content to ravel that quickly. “I think what you’ll see is fraying of the bundles, different packages with less content bundled, different kinds of packages, some à la carte products, and a much better experience,” he said. “There are also companies looking at doing these virtual cable packages… they’ll charge a monthly fee.”

He continued to explain, “In the next couple years, a lot of customers are still going to buy a cable package from a cable operator, but you probably won’t get your box from the cable operator anymore… and then you’ll be able to sign up for a whole bunch of video options on that box. And it won’t be controlled by your cable company.”

Don’t feel too bad for the cable operators, though. Wood said they’ll continue to make money on their highest profit margin item: high-speed Internet and related products and services.

As far as fraying the cable bundle, Wood sees premium content channels such as HBO and Showtime being unbundled first. “But look at ESPN,” he pointed out. “It’s owned by Disney, Which owns about seven different cable networks. And those guys, I don’t think they have any plans to let you buy ESPN without buying the whole package.”

Another interesting challenge is sports. TV content for sports programming is often signed over to networks like ESPN for hefty licensing fees. “They paid billions of dollars for those rights, and they want to make sure they get paid for that content,” said Wood. “The industry knows they need to start offering their content over the Internet, but they don’t want to cannibalize their exsiting business.”

And while most of the major sports networks (except NFL) are on Roku right now, Wood said they’re all out-of-market because of the aforementioned licensing deals. For sports fans, he concluded, “It’ll come down to getting your local station or ESPN over the Internet.”

Apple and Google: The competition

“Our target audience is people who watch TV,” said Wood, outlaying the major difference between the $50 Roku box and the hundreds-of-dollars competition.

“It needs to work for everyone. The most common mistake tech companies make with TV is they make it too complicated.”

In fact, Wood continues, bang for the buck and drop-dead simplicity are two of the company’s core principles, the third being providing great content.

Due to its affordability, Wood said of the Roku box, “We outsell Apple TVs in the U.S…. We compete with them, they’re a streaming box, but the similarities end there. [Apple TV] is an accessory for the iPad and iTunes. Roku has over 400 channels, and none of that is on Apple TV.” Referencing AirPlay and the walled garden Apple has created for streaming media and hardware, Wood said, “Our focus is to be the non-Apple alternative.”

As for Google TV, Wood said the reason not many have been sold is one of simplicity. “It’s hard to use, and there isn’t a lot of content. …I think [Google] fundamentally believes TV should be about search and activity, and I don’t think that’s true.”

He adds, “Also, the content companies don’t really like Google; there’s a lot of conflict there.” Conflict might be an understatement. Google and content creators stood on opposite sides of SOPA/PIPA, the legislation that emphasized the deep rift between Hollywood and Silicon Valley. And over and over again, content creators have asked Google to take a stronger stance against film and television piracy, never with satisfying conclusions.

With piracy as the main point of contention — and one that’s keeping consumers from enjoying a fruitful collaboration between the entertainment and tech communities — than no party is closer to the center of that debate than Google. All this makes imagining happy partnerships between content companies and the search giant a near impossibility, at least for now.

Where Roku is going next

Currently, Roku has sold more than 2.5 million of its boxes. In 2011, sales tripled, and half those sales occured during the holiday season, when the company made a huge marketing push. Overall, said Wood, “Sales are huge, we’re getting 132 percent year-over-year growth on average.”

Wood said the company expects to sell 19 million boxes over the next three to four years. But for 2012, Wood said smart TVs are going to be the next focus for Roku. At CES, the company unveiled its streaming sticks, thumb-sided drives for MHL ports, which Wood said should be part of all new TV sets within four years.

“If you look at the way people view streamed video content, the majority of it is on game consoles,” said Wood. “But the percentage of hours on consoles is declining, and the percentage on Roku and smart TVs is growing.”

Smart TVs, he admitted, are currently a very small part of the overall market, but, he continued, “It’s a market that we want to make sure we’re participating in.” And the streaming stick, while it is a stand-alone product, is “more of a strategy for us,” he said. “We did a deal with Insignia, and we’ll be doing bundles with them. We have deals with other major TV OEMs we haven’t announced yet.”

In addition to the streaming stick and adding more authenticated channels like HBO Go, Roku will be concentrating in 2012 on bringing more games to its newly launched gaming platform.

And yes, Roku-interface haters, Wood said drastic improvements to the user interface are coming this year. “Now that we’ve got 400 channels, and more channels coming, we want to make finding and searching for channels easier, too,” he said.

Now, all Roku has to do is break into profitable territory — an as-yet-unreached goal for the company, which has been pouring money into product development and marketing.

“If you think of the range of new connected devices, at one end you have Apple. They make almost all their money on hardware,” Wood said. “And on the other end, you have companies like Amazon that sell their hardware at cost but make most of their money from content. We’re more toward the Amazon end. We make some of our money from the hardware… but we get revenue share. We did about $100 million in sales last year, but we’re still not profitable. We’ll prbably turn a profit sometime in 2013.”

Of course, with sales and revenue share from current products alone, Wood said the company could be profitable right now if it wanted to. “But theres still so much to invest in, so many opportunities.”

The company filed for a video franchise license in the city last week, the New York Post reports, a move that could give Google permission to broadcast content to televisions.

A Google pay-TV solution would give the company yet another source for advertising revenue. And unlike the current iteration of Google TV, which works in conjunction with your existing TV service, Google would have complete control of TV content (assuming it can bring aboard content partners).

We first caught wind of Google’s pay-TV ambitions in November, when the Wall Street Journal reported that the company was in talks with media executives from companies such as Time Warner, Disney, and Discovery. The service would run on Google’s high-speed fiber Internet service that’s now being tested in Kansas City, MO, and Kansas City, KS.

The pay-TV service could launch within the next few months, a media executive involved in negotiations told the Wall Street Journal. When asked for comment, a Google spokesperson told the WSJ, “We’re still exploring what product offerings will be available when we launch Google Fiber.”

If Google does move forward with a pay-TV service, don’t expect it to look anything like existing cable or satellite offerings. With its fiber network, Google has the potential to offer an a la carte service that lets consumers choose the channels they want. Expect on-demand services to be heavily integrated as well, just like Verizon’s FiOS TV service. And you can bet that Google will make it dead simple to watch TV on your computers, smartphones, and tablets.

A rule change, supported by the cable companies, is currently being considered by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that would enable the encryption of basic tier cable. A decision could be made in just a few weeks time.

The change would force consumers who currently connect their television sets directly to cable lines for free or low-cost basic-tier cable to use a set-top box (typically provided by cable companies for a monthly fee) for the same access.

“In the late eighties and early nineties, increasing numbers of cable systems started to encrypt their signals, and the rule was adopted to allow people to at least access some programming without renting a converter box,” said John Bergmayer, senior staff attorney at open Internet advocate group Public Knowledge.

Depending on how the proposed change is enacted, low-income consumers could be hit with fees for services that were previously available to them free of charge. Public Knowledge, which initially came out in support of the proposed change because the FCC has already been issuing waivers on a system-by-system basis since 2009, has petitioned the FCC to allow for a transition period and require cable companies to provide low-capability set-top boxes free of charge to prevent “bill shock.”

But the group eventually stumbled upon a harmful side-effect of the new legislation that could wipe out innovation in the TV sector, and is now asking the FCC to seek further information.

“We think it’s worthwhile to make sure that the FCC doesn’t do a rule change that has negative consequences that they didn’t foresee,” Bergmayer told VentureBeat. The FCC, he said, has previously come out in support of innovation and competition around entertainment devices, but the rule-making should jeopardize the well-being of the startups bringing these very same devices to market.

Boxee, one such startup, makes a set-top box for watching Internet content on television sets. The company recently released a Live TV stick that acts as a high-powered HD antenna and provides streamers with access to local stations. The offering is the most compelling release yet for would-be cord cutters and thus a threat to the cable companies. But should the FCC eliminate unencrypted access to basic tier capable, Boxee’s Live TV stick would be useless for 40 percent of owners, and its business would be at risk.

As such, the startup, which only recently found out about the proposed change, presented concerns and research to the FCC on February 1. Boxee told that the FCC that permitting encryption would force millions of consumers to rent set-top boxes, harm startups in the space, and stifle competition in the marketplace. It also proposed the adoption of IP-based standards as an alternative solution.

Now, Boxee is asking its supporters to send notes to the FCC, and Public Knowledge is lending its support to the comparably little New York-based company as it goes to head-to-head with cable companies.

Unfortunately, the gossip on the street, Bergmayer said, is that the FCC could issue a ruling in a few weeks. The organization hopes that the FCC will keep the docket open long enough to make a more informed decision.

Photo credit: TV image/Shutterstock

Connected TV was front and center at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this month: Panasonic, LG, and Sharp all shone spotlights on Internet-enabled televisions, along with just about every other TV manufacturer. MySpace even decided to resurrect itself at CES as a social-TV experience. With all of the articles, press events, parties, celebrity sightings and sheer volume of tech TV news, the full picture of “connected TV” could be easy to miss.

But now, after the dust of CES has settled and the hangovers have worn off, it is clear that connected TV, while not a new phenomenon, is poised to make major headway as 2012 progresses. Here are five pieces of the puzzle that are worth keeping an eye on this year.

Do I know you?

Personalization is the future of “smart” media. It’s not just about hooking up TVs to the Internet. It’s about delivering the right content to the right screen at the right time. Expect to see content that understands who we are and where we are. If the “where” is a bus stop or a train headed to work, our devices will know that we don’t want to watch “The Godfather.” Based on our past viewing history, we’ll get served up sports highlights or a goofy YouTube clip to pass the commute time nicely. Dijit, for example, has started working on social content recommendations and integrating the viewing experience with personal social graphs. Expect smart video to learn who you are, what your routine is, and what you should be watching.

Size matters

We’re not talking about the size of the screen in your family room, either. Truly personalized video requires “big data” architecture and real-time analytics. Networks, broadcast channels, studios and cable providers will need tools that can mine through massive amounts of data and and translate that into actionable insights. Personalization is a growing trend across a number of sectors (even in law enforcement). Video publishers will gain accurate business intelligence from comprehensive analytics that go beyond market samples, charts and graphs to help maximize revenue and guide strategic ad placement.

The paradox of choice

All of the news from CES lends credibility to the obvious: We’re about to see a lot more content in many more places. And while unlimited choice across a myriad of devices sounds great in theory, it can overwhelm viewers to the point of paralysis. Personalized media knows what you like to watch and lets you know what you should be watching. Hulu handing viewers the power to choose which ads they want to watch is an early step in that direction. But the need for manual input is still very crude, not to mention extremely expensive for advertisers.

Let’s get our story straight

We’ll need to agree on some common terminology. Television over Internet Protocol has been referred to as “connected TV,” “smart TV,” even “cloud TV.” It shows a young, somewhat fragmented industry that has some maturing to do. And while developing a standard lexicon isn’t top priority, it is important that we figure out what connected TV really is — the enablement of great, TV-quality experience delivered over IP.

Connected TV is primed for prime time

Study after study shows that connected TV is no longer an early-adopter phenomenon. According to the 2011 Consumer Usage Report published by Nielsen, nearly a quarter of people indicated plans to purchase a connected TV, while 17 percent already own one. In fact, the term “online video” is headed toward extinction. Most can agree that in the future, most, if not all video content will be consumed over IP.

But that doesn’t mean they are willing to “rough it” online. Not surprisingly, our VideoMind Video Index Report found that people are viewing more long-form content on big screens. As more viewers access their favorite shows and movies online, expect more content to follow the eyeballs. With new offerings from established firms like Google and start-ups like Simple.TV, expect an online television landscape that looks a lot like TV as we know it today, only with a far greater emphasis on viewer choice, interactivity and social engagement.

Connected TV is not new, but the influx of investment — time, money, publicity and products — is pushing video toward a critical evolutionary stage. Most TVs sold today offer some means of connectivity. According to our Video Index Report, video played on connected TV devices and game consoles grew more than 200 percent in Q3 2011 alone. Advanced Television writes that 80 percent of all television units shipped in 2015 will be connected. Add BluRay players and gaming consoles to the mix and it’s clear that we’ve reached an inflection point that will see the real winners in the market decided over the next 12-24 months.

A co-founder of online video service provider Ooyala, Bismarck Lepe now drives the company’s product vision as president of products. As Ooyala’s founding CEO, Bismarck raised the company’s early funding and signed many of the company’s first media partnerships. Bismarck was previously a senior product manager for Google, where he managed the early growth of AdSense display and video advertising and launched more than 25 different Google AdSense products.

Top photo: LG’s booth at CES 2012. Photo by Dylan Tweney/VentureBeat.com