KIT digital sparked excitement at NAB 2012 with the unveiling of its next generation social TV solution, the KIT Social Program Guide (KIT SPG). The KIT SPG integrates users’ social networks with their service provider’s electronic program guide, allowing viewers to enjoy a full range of social TV functions, as well as change the channel, through a single intuitive interface. The solution also boasts support for cloud-based DVR functionality, seamless VOD store integration, and multiple e-commerce models and ad serving for advanced content monetization.

The KIT SPG is designed to ultimately replace the traditional on-screen electronic program guide plus TV remote control experience, while also integrating the social and second screen functionality today’s TV viewers demand. A fully functioning prototype of the KIT SPG will be unveiled at NAB 2012 and shown via an iPad application and Smart TV. Served through the KIT Video Platform backend, this white-label application can be easily customized to clients’ design and programming needs and quickly rolled out to a range of additional first and second screen devices.

“The convergence of social media with non-linear, multiscreen viewing habits is driving the future of social TV, and of television viewing more broadly. Viewers want to find, watch and share their favorite shows without having to resort to a hodgepodge of disjointed apps and devices,” said Alex Blum, Chief Operating Officer, KIT digital. “The KIT Social Program Guide will offer network operators and broadcasters the first complete, provider-based social TV solution.”

The KIT SPG enables a variety of popular user behaviors including choosing shows based on social network recommendations, interacting with friends via Twitter, Facebook or other social networks, and viewing additional information about content from sources like IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, and Wikipedia.

“The demand for a solution like the KIT SPG is here now, and the competitive advantage gained by the service provider that introduces it first will be tremendous,” Blum continued. “All signs point to unified, provider-controlled platforms that will roll up social TV functionality and overcome the biggest failures plaguing existing solutions. Apps on the market today each offer their own distinct, limited features, but none are robust or well-integrated enough to create this complete social TV experience.”

According to a 2012 Penn Schoen Berland study commissioned by The Hollywood Reporter, 66% of users regularly multitask by surfing on a social network while watching TV, 76% have commented on the show they are watching and 56% say social networks play an “important” role in their entertainment-related decisions. These numbers will only grow as consumers buy more connected devices, projected in a 2011 report by IHS/Screen Digest to reach five per typical US household by 2014.

In addition to the functionality mentioned above, the KIT SPG offers a broad range of feature options, including, but not limited to:

Social-Powered Recommendations: Viewers can use the KIT SPG to see which movies and shows their friends are watching or have recommended. They can also discover content via a unique social recommendation engine that offers up relevant content based on user input and recommendations from their social network, prior viewing habits and professional critics.

Additionally, the KIT SPG can push and pull social commentary from any third party social network, including Facebook, Twitter, and service provider-run networks. Rather than limiting users to one-way broadcasting of posts or comments as existing social TV apps do, the KIT SPG moves information in both directions, offering a much richer social experience.

Asynchronous Social Comment Review: While viewers want to be able to share comments in real-time, different viewing habits mean that friends aren’t always watching content at the same time. The KIT SPG adapts to this behavior by storing comments and posting them as the viewer watches, avoiding “spoilers” and allowing users to enjoy the experience as if they were watching along with their friends.

Multiple ID Support: TV viewing is a communal experience, and TV sets are shared within households and families. Each individual television viewer within a household, however, typically has their own network of friends and colleagues, and need to connect to those different networks easily. The KIT SPG addresses this need by supporting multiple user accounts and simultaneous access by different users, allowing everyone to have a unique and personalized second screen experience while watching the same “first screen” together.

VOD Store Integration: Video on demand integration is a key feature of the KIT SPG, allowing users to share, review, interact, get recommendations and buy content from their provider’s VOD store. Forward-thinking providers can gain an even deeper competitive advantage by integrating popular OTT networks like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon with the KIT SPG.

(MARKETWIRE via COMTEX)

The research conducted by Geek Squad amongst 1,837 respondents, also revealed that women are opting to view video content recommended to them by their friends and family on Facebook (68%) rather than from links in emails or other sites, in a bid to combat viewing SPAM, illegal or even inappropriate content on their smartphone and tablets.

Top Five Content Destinations for Female Viewers

The survey also revealed why Brits are abandoning their addiction to watching programmes on TV in favour of smartphones and tablets. Half of those surveyed are driven away from the TV set because their partners and family don’t want to watch the same programmes as them, while a small number of those surveyed confessed that they are often too embarrassed to watch particular programmes or films in front of others. On the other hand there are a growing number of social media addicts who instantly share their views in real time on certain programmes via Twitter and Facebook on their smartphones and tablets.

In contrast, men are still hogging the remote control as 80% admitted that they like nothing better than kicking back on the sofa and watching their favourite shows. Surprisingly the survey revealed that aside from watching the usual horror films (71%) and comedies (90%), men confessed that they also spend time watching romantic films and programmes (35%) and almost one in five will spend their time watching risqué content!

“It’s never been easier to watch your favourite video content on the latest mobiles and tablets, but there is still a fear amongst the general public that they will download illegal content or a virus on to their mobile. However we can advise you on the different types of security software available that can protect your mobile devices so that you can watch content knowing you are safe from viruses.” - Hollie Brown, Geek Squad Agent.

Agent Hollie Brown commented, “We’re seeing a rise in the number of women wanting to connect all their devices together and be able to watch or listen to content on all of them.  Often women want to download and watch content on the go as well as transfer downloads from their mobiles or tablets so that they can watch them on their TV at home. Our Agents are fully trained to help set up or support their clients to get their technology working just the way they want it, and linking all the different devices that can be in just one household is a common bugbear we can help sort out with minimum fuss. We work across all technology brands and operating systems so there’s pretty much no connectivity issue that we haven’t seen or fixed before. No problem is too big or small and clients know they can call on us 24/7.”

Tanya Richards, technology enthusiast and Geek Squad Client said “I guess I’m what is referred to as tech literate, but only when it comes to the basics. My daughter and I both use our smartphones a lot to keep in touch with each other and with friends on Facebook, however I am really cautious about where we download content from in case it is illegal or inappropriate for her. Agent Hollie Brown at Geek Squad was great and explained the safest way we can watch videos and listen to music on our gadgets. She advised me on the best legal sites to download content from tht were safe and not extortionately priced!”

[source: www.geeksquad.co.uk]

“Vizrt is the world leader in real-time 3D graphics, and never.no is the world leader in social TV solutions. Together we bring to the market an unmatched end-to-end solution to connect the audience directly to the action on TV,” said never.no CEO Lars Lauritzsen. “To date, our two companies have already pioneered many industry firsts (such as the Tour de France companion app). This partnership is a sign of greater things to come, and of each company’s commitment to providing the best solution for social TV.”

The partnership gives never.no access to a growing network of broadcasters that use Vizrt products, while Vizrt gains a way to provide the best social TV solutions to its graphics customers.

“Both companies have a well established international footprint, and by being able to integrate each other’s products, we can offer broadcasters an unprecedented social TV and graphics infrastructure,” said Petter Ole Jakobsen CTO Vizrt. “Television producers using the combined system can reach out to their audience via social media or companion apps triggered by actions originating from within the Vizrt tools. This means complex workflows become streamlined, and fewer operators are required. And simple elements like polls and voting results can now be displayed on live TV in beautiful real-time graphics.”

About never.no
never.no’s award-winning interactive “TV. Mobile. Social. 1Framework.” technology connects fragmented media platforms across broadcast TV systems, mobile, and social media platforms — enabling real-time viewer participation, social TV, and synchronized companion apps. In operation since 1999, never.no has a global customer base including top brands such as BBC, CTVglobeMedia, Danmarks Radio, Etisalat, Music Choice, TV Norge, TV 2 Norge, TV 2 Danmark, and Viasat. More information about never.no products is available at www.never.no.

About Vizrt:
Vizrt provides real-time 3D graphics and asset management tools for the broadcast industry – from award-winning animations & maps to online publishing tools. Vizrt’s products are used by the world’s leading broadcasters and publishing houses, including: CNN, CBS, Fox, the BBC, BSkyB, ITN, ZDF, Star TV, Network 18, TV Today, CCTV, NHK, The Globe and Mail, Times Online, The Telegraph, and Welt Online.  Furthermore, many world-class production houses and corporate institutions such as the Stock Exchanges in New York and London use Vizrt systems. www.vizrt.com

Research conducted for TeleScope 2012, which looks at the UK’s TV viewing habits, suggests that the trend of commenting via a second screen about a programme, or ‘chatterboxing’, is starting to grip the nation.

“People come to Twitter to connect with what they are most interested in, and that may be a TV show, character, or live event. The public nature of the platform means that people can easily follow and join conversations about what they’re watching in real time, adding to the social experience of television viewing.” -  Rachel Bremer, Twitter UK.

A quarter of all adults (26%), and just under half (44%) of those aged under 35, say they have commented to others, online or via SMS, about a TV programme they have been watching

Chatterboxing is actually reinforcing some people’s desire to watch scheduled TV. An ICM poll suggests that a quarter (24%) of social media savvy adults, aged under 35, watch a programme live, rather than on catch up, because they enjoy being part of the related social media chatter. One in five (19%) are more likely to watch something, as it is being shown on TV, because they are worried ‘social media spoilers’ will ruin the ending.

“Wanting to communicate with others when you experience emotions such as sadness, entertainment, fear or awe is a part of the human condition. As television often prompts these feelings, it is not surprising that more of us are taking advantage of evolving technology to share our thoughts as we watch TV, even if we are home alone” - Corinne Sweet, psychologist.

Online buzz is further changing viewing behaviour by introducing us to new programmes, as one in six (17%) of those aged under 35 who use social media said they can be persuaded to watch a new TV programme if they see online chatter about it.

TeleScope also reveals the average Brit’s weekly TV diet: Consume 28 hours of TV, which includes 2.5 hours of catch-up, on the ‘traditional’ TV set. This is topped up even further because with an estimated three hours per week tuning into the small(er) screen, watching programmes on laptops, smartphones and tablets, according to ICM research commissioned by TV Licensing. In total, this could amount to watching over 31 hours per week, or more than two months per year.
The report highlights broader changes to the nation’s viewing habits, as our love affair with TV evolves in response to recent innovations in technology:

• UK households have a myriad of TV devices: The average household has 2.3 TV sets, 1.51 laptops, 0.77 smartphones and 0.33 tablets on which we watch television.
• Brits love upgrading: 37% of Brits said they would be investing in additional viewing technology in 2012.
• Watching ‘on the go’ is increasing: One in four people (25%) watched TV content on the move in 2011, via mobile viewing technologies. The figure is much higher for under 35s, as 35% watched in this way last year
• UK viewers watch in a variety of ways: For this summer’s Olympics, 88% of us are planning to watch the action on the traditional set. We are supplementing our viewing with mobile devices – 7% will watch some of the sporting events on a PC or laptop, and 1% will tune in on a smartphone and 1% on a tablet.
• Catch-up viewing is rising: While live TV is still hugely dominant, more people are creating their own TV schedules, as time-shifted viewing accounted for 9.2% of UK consumption in 2011, up from 7.1% in 2010.
• TV socialites: TV programmes bring people together physically, as well as virtually. A third of adults, aged under 35, have been to a TV-themed party in the last five years. X-Factor, World Cup 2010, Royal Wedding and Eurovision parties have proved to be among the most popular themes.

Pipa Doubtfire, Head of Revenue Management, BBC TV Licensing, said ”This year’s TeleScope report points to the fact that people are taking advantage of new technologies to ensure they can enjoy TV in more ways than ever before, whether watching on bigger sets at home, via mobile technologies on the go, or on catch-up. And, of course, the chatterboxing phenomenon is bringing a new dimension to TV as a collective, social experience.”

 “When my grandfather introduced the world’s first practical television system in 1926, few imagined that TV would become the powerful omnipresent medium it is today. Television continues to hold our attention for two reasons. Firstly because of the quality and choice of content. Secondly because a huge range of interfaces have evolved to suit every taste and lifestyle. We can easily control how and when we watch TV by creating our own TV schedules from the abundance of content available, or tuning in on-the-go via a mobile device. We have more choice than ever before, and each person, family or household has the opportunity to mould their television experience according to their personal preference.” Iain Logie Baird, grandson of the inventor of the first television set, John Logie Baird, and curator at the National Media Museum in Bradford.

 The full report can be viewed by clicking here and covers:

Kit – what viewing technology are we using?
Control – how are we choosing to watch?
Content - what are we choosing to watch?
Company – how is TV going more social?

TV Licensing have also created a stunning infographic:

UK TV viewing habits

There’s no shortage of start-up businesses offering encoding and content management solution services, but in reality, this is not the best solution to the problem. More often than not, new departments sitting alongside existing ones bring problems with isolated processes and systems, which can cause complexities and increased costs. It can work, but this hybrid set-up usually means that the new digital departments don’t have the breadth of services required; and there’s a clear difference between setting up a new department and truly understanding the full media workflow.

Media organisations will already have existing clients, infrastructures and processes in place, so a solution that fits with their current business model, limits issues with content storage and management, helps to reduce costs and also generates revenues, will of course be the most appealing. When you’re managing and preparing content directly for transmission, mistakes can’t be made and the process needs to remain seamless.

Everyone is looking for the best way to offer services that will improve their existing workflow while also providing simpler processes. As the demand for digital services has increased, itfc wanted to enhance its solutions to meet the changing landscape offering flexibility, access to content anywhere, elegant workflows compliant with industry standards and unique interfaces for our clients. Being a full-service facility, we already had the tools in place and could easily integrate the best digital services, whether encoding, QC or distribution, within our traditional media services environment. Everything needed to be part of the same integrated system.

A new concept

We had existing systems and processes at the heart of our infrastructure and we were keen to keep them there – especially since we already have a wide range of workflows operational within the systems. After deciding what we wanted to achieve, we searched for additional solutions and products from other providers to enable us to build our new offering. At the start, we wanted to add a client-facing environment with metadata exchange, more workflow control and a lot more longer-term storage. Many of the components were already in place, so we needed to design an architecture that enabled us to integrate additional equipment and software which would provide us with the flexibility to develop, adapt and satisfy demand over the next five years.

The Core content management solution was born.

A challenging yet desired effect

The first key phase of the project was already underway with our investment in Amberfin’s iCR 5000 workstations. These dramatically increased our ingest capacity and helped improve our other digital services such as transcoding and QC. In addition we purchased access to the application programming interface (API) and data dictionaries for our other media management applications.

The second phase involved finding a longer-term archive solution which would be large enough to cater to our storage needs. We chose Quantum’s Scalar i6000, a data-tape library robot which consists of expandable cabinets with a maximum system capacity of over 7000 terabytes of uncompressed data. We currently have about 500TB of LTO5 tapes loaded up and the space to add lots more. For the i6000 to integrate into our existing structure, we needed a hierarchical solution that could work within our existing infrastructure and control the data-tape library efficiently. For this we implemented Front Porch Digital’s DIVArchive content storage management system. An additional advantage of DIVArchive is that it can be controlled by more than one application, which opens up some clever and flexible options.

The final key component was Active Endpoints’® ActiveVOS™ software. As a standards-based business process management system for facilitating workflows, ActiveVOS™ was able to sit at the heart of the new infrastructure enabling us to offer rapid customisation of client-specific workflows – something that would have been uneconomical to develop with a traditional architecture. As a result our clients can now easily initiate workflows within itfc on their own via web services and customised web interfaces.

A considerable challenge was getting all the components to work well together. Components needed to communicate with each other, but as some of the APIs and interfaces weren’t fully developed, we had a lot of customising to do so that each component could ‘talk’ to the others via the Core management solution. Undertaking our own in-house research and development has taken time, but it’s been worth it. Because we’ve developed the solution from the ground up, we understand all the elements and ways we can further improve and adapt it for the future. We made sure we used the components in the most efficient way by ensuring everything was cross-connected, making it all more powerful and effective.

Working this way has been an advantage for us because we can easily adapt it in-house to ensure things will work in the way we envisage and we can customise quickly and seamlessly at a client’s request. We’ve made the Core work for us and for our clients and, by doing so, we’ve improved efficiency and lowered the cost base.

Our Core content management solution is not only integrated with our systems and processes, but can easily communicate with any customer system using industry standard IT services. It allows for a two-way dialogue, so that transactional as well as analytical information can be accessed from within a client’s existing systems allowing their in-house teams to manage new and existing lines of business.

But the modular approach we’ve taken means that it’s definitely not an all-or-nothing offering.   Our clients can select and buy just the services which will enable them to grow their business. If integration into their systems is not what they are looking for, we provide a web interface which can drive all aspects of the Core content management solution and can be customised to the client’s needs.

Forward thinking

Like any progressive company, we always want to be one step ahead, making sure we have the right components in place so we’re ‘future-proofing’ our business. Working with key manufacturers and choosing the right products has enhanced our offering and we’re able to allow our clients to evolve their businesses. We’re still developing the solution and we’ve since completed further API development; by the end of 2011 we had increased our Final Cut Pro capacity from 8 to 12 units. With the rise in HD content, we also needed to access high bandwidth HD streams, which meant putting in more storage capacity to reflect the demands of our Final Cut editing infrastructure. This new enhancement involved GB Labs’ Space central storage product, providing us with an Ethernet-based solution – essential in enabling flexible working with multiple sources. Using it, along with additional RAID units, has given us a total of 100TB of usable and accessible disc space. We used our existing network cabling without having to install any new software or client adaptor cards.

A sound investment

With our tailor-made offering, we’re much more able to offer solutions suited to client requirements. The system is now in use for clients such as ITV, London Films and Allegro Films.

Linking together our existing infrastructure has helped us save money without having to buy a lot of new kit. We can broaden the scope of our services while remaining competitive, and our digital Core has grown organically into a truly flexible and cost-effective offering.

At itfc, we provide a range of content preparation and media management services across some of the biggest brands in the broadcast, cinema and corporate sectors and produce thousands of hours of material annually. We deliver multi-platform digital workflows, subtitling, audio description, post production, encoding and transcoding, tape legacy services and data/tape archiving and storage in accordance with client standards. In August 2010, itfc became part of the Deluxe Entertainment Services Group, a leading provider of entertainment industry services and technology to major Hollywood Studios and clients around the world.

Previous research on social television has focused on defining social television in the broad sense — any technology that supports social practices (Harboe, 2009). Thus, earlier research of social television viewing look at two elements — television content as a conversation trigger and television as a medium that physically connects two or more people into a confined space (Morrison and Krugman, 2001).

Social network sites (SNSs), however, allow television viewers to once again enjoy the communal experience of group viewing without being physically together. This study looks at a new practice of television viewing that combines these two elements: viewers are sharing their viewing experiences real–time through computer–mediated communication, which creates a pseudo–communal viewing experience even though they are not collocated.

Examining messages on Twitter, a popular social network site, this study applies a uses and gratifications framework to explore what types of messages people share with others while they are watching television and how those messages correspond to the context of the program they are watching. We propose that this AEIO (Attention, Emotion, Information, Opinion) model is an analytical model for mapping type and flow of content on social media message streams.

The evolving role of television

Television has had a profound influence on our daily routines since the 1950s (Marling, 1996). In post–World War II America, television was considered a new commodity that joined families together, shaping the middle–class suburbia ideal (Spigel, 1992). Studies conducted in late 1940s and early 1950s showed that Americans believed television would revive domestic life by keeping the family at home and even curing marital problems (Bogart, 1956).

As more people could afford television sets, however, studies began showing how television viewing was moving from a communal to individual experience. According to Nielsen’s 2009Television Audience Report, only 11 percent of the average U.S. home had three or more television sets in 1975, but 54 percent of homes had three or more TVs in 2009. Likewise, in 1975, 57 percent of homes had one television, but in 2009, the percentage dropped to 18 percent.

Much of the research over the past 20 years on the effects of television viewing has focused on negative effects. The prevalence of television and the impact of its content have raised many alarming messages from the scholarly community. Television has been blamed to foster disengagement from reality and cognitive disorder (Gerbner, et al., 1986; Signorielli, et al., 1995; Newhagen and Reeves, 1992). Academics have also described television viewing as a “fundamentally isolating experience — one that gives the illusion of contact with the world while discouraging actual human contact” (Hoynes, 1994) — as well as an experience that fosters disengagement from reality and threatens formation of self–identity due to the lack of social interaction (Davis, 2000).

Putnam (1995a) pointed out that advanced technology enables individual tastes to be satisfied more fully but “at the cost of the social gratification associated with more primitive forms of entertainment.” He blamed American television for the erosion of social capital and civic engagement (Putnam, 1995b), reasoning that television viewing causes less face–to–face connections with other people. These face–to–face connections are the basis of trust in a community, which in turn builds social capital. Based on analysis of the General Social Survey data from 1974–94, he pointed out that television viewing was strongly and negatively related to social trust, group membership, and voting turnout [1].

Putnam was certainly not alone in his ideas. Bugeja (2005) expressed concerns about how media and technology created a social gap, eroding our sense of community and creating an “interpersonal divide.” Putnam’s arguments that were later echoed in studies of Internet and mobile phones (Kraut, et al., 1998; Nie, 2001).

Technology, however, is a double–edged sword, and while we do not want to argue that it can create an individual experience, we also want to point out that it can also be a social experience. The Internet supports interactions with a greater number of people who are spatially dispersed (Boase and Wellman, 2004) and social network sites, in particular, enable people to communicate with extended networks (Haythornthwaite, 2005).

Also, the concept of television has been evolved. Television is no longer a rectangular “box” that plays video images transmitted through airborne broadcasting waves: although there is a considerable population that watches TV from the comfort of the couch, an increasing number of people are watching television on their computers through Internet connection or on mobile devices. Now, viewers have the option to watch any time they want, anywhere they want. According to Nielsen’s 2009 Three Screen Report, 131 million Americans watch video on the Internet, a 13 percent increase from 2008, and 13.4 million Americans watch videos on mobile phones, a 4.9 percent increase from the previous year. These new forms of viewing are heavily linked with social media, which extends the viewing experience, enabling a viewer to engage in conversation or other forms of interaction with his or her social networks.

Overview of social television systems

Studies conducted in the past decade that examine the social aspects of television define social television as a technical construct — a machine that facilitates interactivity. The studies are mainly based on experiments conducted in lab settings with prototypes that were created for the purpose of experimentation. Companies and academic institutes created their own interactive television systems; some of which include 2BeOn at the University of Aveiro (Abreu, et al., 2001), Amigo TV at Alcatel (Coppens, et al., 2004), Media Center Buddies at Microsoft Labs (Regan and Todd, 2004), ConnecTV at TNO (Boertjes, et al., 2008), and STV at Motorola (Harboe, et al., 2008). Other studies have looked at the mechanics of shared viewing (Ducheneaut, et al., 2008) in a simulated environment, seeing differences between viewers who were watching in the same location and viewers watching from different locations but were connected with live audio. None of the systems used in these experiments are available to the public.

One of the reasons researchers created these hypothetical settings was due to the fact that interactive features embedded into television sets have not been commercially successful. For a long time, companies tried to tie in interactive features to the medium itself and failed. Time Warner experimented and failed in the 1970s with an interactive cable system called Qube (Wolf and Latane, 1981); another similar attempt in the early 1990s was also unsuccessful. In 1980, Zenith launched Spacephone, a high–end television model that enabled users to talk on the telephone through their television set (Harboe, 2009). Users could make phone calls with their remote control and watch television while talking, but the product was not successful and discontinued after a few years. America On–Line (AOL) launched AOLTV in 2000, which enabled users to surf the Internet, read e–mail, and chat while watching television on the same screen (Harboe, 2009). The service, however fell off the market in 2002.

Although early efforts at creating interactive television sets were made in the United States, commercial interactive television viewing services started gaining momentum at the turn of the century in Asia and Europe along with mainstream adoption of the Internet, blossoming in countries that quickly achieved nationwide broadband coverage. In Europe, many countries launched SMS TV Chat around 2000 (Harboe, 2009). This service allowed people to chat like they would in an online chat room using their cell phones to post messages; the messages would then appear on the television set. The service was hugely popular, although it was flawed in that the messages were displayed in the same interface as the program being broadcast — if the volume of messages went up, it would be difficult to view the actual program.

In the United States, commercial interactive TV services did not catch on until very recently. In 2006, ABC.com was the first network Web site to offer full–length episodes online for free, to be followed quickly by other networks such as CBS, Fox, and joint ventures such as Hulu. These services enabled viewers to comment on programs while they were watching them. Although television discussion forums had existed for a long time on the Internet, these sites were unique in that the discussion could take place on the same page as the video. In 2009, networks have also begun to support live streaming services and synchronous messaging. The U.S. Open, for example hosted live videos of the tournament on its Web site for the first time in 2009. Viewers could watch the video and engage in live chatting. In late 2009, TV.com introduced chatting services so that people watching the same program can engage in synchronous messaging. However, live content that is available at the same time as the original network airing is still extremely limited within the United States.

Sharing viewing experiences via social network sites

Although companies have been slow to provide television sets that facilitate conversation, television viewers have found ways to engage in conversation by repurposing social network sites. Social network sites are Web–based services that allow individuals to construct a public or semi–public profile, create a list of others users with whom they share a connection, and view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system (boyd and Ellison, 2008). Services such as MySpace and Facebook allow people to share favorite TV show lists; new applications introduced in the second half of 2009 enable users to watch streaming videos within the sites. There are also 3D virtual worlds such as Second Life and YouTube3D where users can actually create an avatar and “sit with” other users in a rendered environment to view live multimedia as well. These 3D venues, however, are not mainstream.

Among social network sites, Twitter is a microblogging service launched by a San Francisco–based start–up in 2006 that allows registered users to publish short messages. Twitter poses the question: “What’s happening?” and allows users to answer this question, but users do not always post messages that are answers to this question [Before November 2009, Twitter’s question was “What are you doing?”].

Research questions

We used a uses and gratifications (U&G) perspective as a theoretical framework to guide our research questions. This approach looks at media use as a choice that consumers (users) make to fulfill certain individual needs (see Katz, et al., 1974). Katz, et al. (1973) explain U&G as a cyclical function, where individual needs and socio–psychological factors create different expectations, which leads to different patterns of use and ultimately different gratifications, which then feeds back into individual needs. Much of the television research using U&G, however, has focused the first two functions, looking at how motivations and individual psychological factors lead to different usage (e.g., Rubin, 1983; Rubin, et al., 1985).

While not designed as a television discussion forum service per se, Twitter is an ideal venue to view how people express their uses and gratifications of their television viewing behavior. If we were to examine messages that were posted during the time when the television program is first aired, we could get a glimpse into what immediate reactions of audiences, which may reflect the nature of their use and perhaps even their short–term gratifications. At the same time, Twitter itself is a media, so the gratifications of television may be the motivation that influences the use of Twitter. To our knowledge, there are no studies that examine this chain effect of media use from a U&G perspective.

Twitter users have developed methods of directing messages at specific users and developing mechanisms to search for messages of similar topics. We noticed that television programs were often a Trending Topic on Twitter; Trending Topic is a service that Twitter offers, showing current popular topics on Twitter. The fact that the Trending Topic on a specific television program occurred at the time of its network airing gave us anecdotal evidence that people were Tweeting while they were watching the television program, or if they were not watching it, at least communicating about the program while others are watching it. Trying to examine the uses and gratifications of viewers, we formed the following research question:

This research question would give us an idea of how people are expressing themselves or what they are doing in reaction to the content that they are viewing. However, the different typologies alone are not indicative of whether or not the messages are a direct response, reaction, or reflection of the actual program content. That led us to our second research question:

Our third research question examines whether or not people who post message on Twitter are just posting or actually interacting with other people. Desire for social interaction has been identified across literature of numerous different types of media as one of the major motivations to use the media (e.g., Joinson, 2008; Papacharissi and Rubin, 2000; Rubin, 1983). However, in terms of television viewing, are these social motivations fulfilled by watching television or in subsequent discussions?

We also noticed that many people were using hashtags, links, and other linguistic mechanisms to relay their message and that many were posting their Tweets through mobile devices. This led us to our final research question:

Data and methods

We analyzed messages on Twitter, which are called Tweets, for two programs that were televised nationwide in the United States — a live political event and an entertainment/show event. The political event was President Barack Obama’s live speech at the White House announcing his acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize (NPP) on 9 October 2009. The speech was not prescheduled and interrupted major network programming. The second event was an entertainment event: the 7 October airing of an episode of ABC’s So You Think You Can Dance (SYTYCD), a reality/show program similar to the American Idol series where a panel of judges holds dance auditions nationwide and narrow down contestants who have to perform different dance styles with different partners each week to prove their skill and versatility. The episode was a regional audition taking place in Las Vegas.

Although we understand that many people do not watch television programs real–time, we chose to analyze only the messages that were posted during the broadcast time in order to determine if the messages corresponded to the context of the event and to look at messages that were intended to be posted at that specific time. We used Eastern Standard Time (EST) because it was the first airing of the program, in the case of SYTYCD. One hour after the episode airs on EST, it delivers the same content for Central Time Zone viewers. We wouldn’t be able to determine, then, whether or not the tweets were coming from live viewers in Central Time Zone, or viewers in EST who wanted to discuss about the show after they viewed it. The Obama speech was a live broadcast, thus we did not have time zone problems.

These two programs were chosen because of the difference in their content and the fact that the subject matter is stimulating and has potential for discussion. Both programs had very vibrant Tweets while they were being televised. During the Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, “President Obama” and “NPP” were Trending Topics on Twitter. SYTYCD was also a Trending Topic at the time the program was televised.

We did not know, however, the algorithm in which Twitter selected messages for its Trending Topics, so we used Twitter’s search API. We used the key words “Obama,” “Nobel,” “NPP,” and “SYTYCD” as key words in Twitter’s search API to filter related messages. Messages posted on Twitter that contained these keywords were documented real–time since the Twitter API has limitations on how far back one could collect data. Screenshots were also taken as a backup measure. We began collecting messages several minutes before the actual event, during the event, and several minutes after the event. All messages that were posted during the program that contained these keywords we designated were collected. We only archived messages that were in English and were completely open to the public, regardless of whether or not the viewer has a Twitter account. We felt comfortable using this data because messages posted on a public Internet forum are deliberately intended for public viewing and when creating a Twitter account, Twitter users acknowledge that their information may be viewed by third parties. We didn’t think a consent form was necessary because we weren’t doing harm to individual users or the social group as a whole (Eysenbach and Till, 2001) and Twitter has very low levels of “perceived privacy” (King, 1996) due to its high number of users.

Our unit of analysis was one Tweet. A Tweet is a message that is 140 characters or less. Tweets may range from one word to incomplete phrases, hyperlinks, emoticons, complete sentences, and combinations of these elements. The messages were then coded for the time it was posted, number of hashtags, and type of message.

To see whether the messages were independent Tweets or interactive discussions, we adapted Henri’s (1992) concept of interactivity. Henri’s model consists of three steps: communication of information, response to this information, and a second response to the first information. She then identified messages as “explicit interaction,” “implicit interaction” and “independent statement.” We found it difficult, however, to assess implicit interactions. An explicit interaction is an obvious two–way communication whereas implicit interaction is one that contains content generated by someone else but does not attribute it. Therefore we decided to categorize messages according to the directionality and target audience. That gave us three types: (1) messages that were sent to an at–large audience; (2) messages that were directed at a specific user; and, (3) messages directed at a specific user that were reciprocated.

In Twitter, users can choose to direct a message at a specific user by adding “@” in front of the recipient’s username (Honeycutt and Herring, 2009). For instance, if Apple wanted to respond to a message posted by Banana, the message would be something like: “@Banana I totally agree with you.” The use of “@” however does not indicate that a discussion took place. For instance, Apple may send Banana a message, but Banana may not respond. We therefore counted how many messages contained “@” but noted whether they were one–directional messages were reciprocated ones.

Re–tweets are messages that duplicate a message another person has written. These messages are identified by “RT @ID of original message.” For instance, “RT @arcticpenguin I love school” indicates that a user with the ID of “arcticpenguin” posted “I love school” and that another person is re–posting this message. Re–tweets were coded as being mutually exclusive from “@” messages because the messages are a repeat of the person identified in the message, not directed at the person identified in the message.

Hashtags are words that are preceded with the “#” sign. Twitter users use hashtags to make searching for relevant topics easier. For instance, using the word “lost” to search for messages about the television program “Lost” would be a bad search mechanism because the search engine would bring up all messages that included the word “lost.” Using “#Lost” instead of “Lost” enables people to create specific threads of conversation.

Messages were also coded for the type of medium used to post — at the end of the Tweet, Twitter provides the name of the platform that was used to post the message. We then categorized these into three types — Web, text message via cell phone, or mobile phone application. Applications that were available on two platforms were noted as such.

Tweet Types — Forming an AEIO matrix

Past studies of conversations that groups have while watching television categorized those conversations into five types: content–based, context–based, logistical, non sequitur, and phatic (Ducheneaut, et al., 2008). This typology, however, could not be applied to Twitter messages because the message posters were not collocated and any non sequitur messages (messages that have no relation to the television program whatsoever) would not show up in our keyword search. We wanted to create a typology that would explain all types of messages on social media message streams regardless of the context of the person posting the message.

A large portion of our research involved developing a Matrix that would categorize the types of content to address RQ1 (What types of messages are people posting while watching TV?). We decided to analyze the type of content depending on two criteria: whether the message is subjective or objective, and whether the message is inbound (about oneself/the Tweeter) or outbound (not about oneself — in the case of television, this would be about the television program). This created a 2 x 2 table resulting in four different types of messages: Attention–seeking (an objective message about oneself), Information (an objective message about the program), Emotion (a subjective message about oneself), and Opinion (a subjective message about the program).

Computer–mediated communication notes the importance of social messages (Rice and Love, 1987), which can be defined as a “statement or part of a statement not related to the formal content of subject matter” (Henri, 1992). This was our basis for creating the dichotomy of inbound and outbound.

To reduce ambiguity, we created a strict protocol that included a list of key words or phrases that we would assign to the different categories. Emotional content, for instance, contained verbs such as “love, hate, hope, excited, congratulations … .” Messages that could be seen as “information” but were written entirely in capital letters, with multiple explanation marks, or emoticons were also categorized as emotional content. Attention–seeking messages contained phrases such as “I wonder …” and questions explicitly soliciting response such as “Do you think …,” “Can anyone tell me …?” Information content consisted of dry, objective content about the program (“Obama is delivering a speech.”) but also included posts that had links to articles or blogs. In the case of links to blogs, the blog may be an opinion, but the act of the Tweeter in sharing the information of the site categorized that as “information” in our protocol. A link was not considered as being the primary message unless the entire message only consisted of a link.

Although most Tweets clearly fell into one category, there were a few that dealt with multiple ideas. These were coded for the most salient message. For instance, “Obama is giving a speech. I agree with what he says,” could be Information (Obama is giving a speech) or Opinion (I agree with what he says), but as the former is being presented as contextual (dependent) information for the latter, the main message was coded as Opinion. We did not separate this message and make it two messages because we wanted to see the frequency patterns of types of message, and assigning two types to one message would not create distinct patterns.

Findings

A total of 1,307 messages were analyzed for President Obama’s Nobel Prize speech. We had two coders that had a Cohen’s Kappa of .95. Conflicting items were reviewed together to reach an agreement. We started collecting the messages for the Obama speech 11 minutes before it started and ended collection three minutes after it finished. Obama messages were almost equally distributed between inbound and outbound messages, but showed a strong orientation towards subjective messages (61.1 percent) over objective messages (38.9 percent). There were more outbound (61.7 percent) than inbound (38.3 percent) messages. Attention–seeking messages were 15.53 percent, Emotion messages were 22.8 percent, Information messages were 23.3 percent, and Opinion messages were 38.3 percent.

A total of 1,012 messages were collected for So You Think You Can Dance (SYTYCD). Two coders had an inter–coder reliability of above .85 (Cohen’s Kappa) for every variable. Conflicting items were reviewed together to reach an agreement. This program also showed more subjective (60.7 percent) messages over objective (39.3 percent) messages, but slightly more inbound messages (50.9 percent) than outbound messages (49.1 percent). Attention messages (22.1 percent) for SYTYCD were noticeably higher than the percentage of attention messages in Obama messages (16 percent). Emotion messages were 28.7 percent, Information messages were 17.2 percent and Opinion messages were strongest at 31.9 percent. (see Figure 1) These are some examples of the messages in each of the categories:

Figure 1: Comparison of AEIO ratio in Obama and SYTYCD.

Type frequencies

To address RQ2 (Do types of messages correspond to real–time context of the program?), we mapped out how many messages of each type were posted in the given timeframe to examine whether the message patterns correlated to the content of the program. The Obama speech, being only seven minutes long, was analyzed by the minute. SYTYCD was analyzed in increments of four minutes.

The graph (see Figure 2) indicates the overall flow of messages; we can easily identify opinion messages as being the most salient. It also shows the traffic of messages at a given time. There was a brief lull just before Obama’s speech started at 11:16 a.m. and peaked at 11:18 after he said he would accept the award as a “as a call to action”. Some messages that were posted at this time were:

Figure 2: Time–mapping of AEIO for Obama.

The second peak came when he finished his speech at 11:23 a.m., when attention, emotion, and opinion messages shot up again.

For SYTYCD, we saw a spike in information messages before the program began airing at 8 p.m. EST, followed by attention messages where viewers were publishing to the world that they were about to watch the program (see Figure 3):

Figure 3: Time–mapping of AEIO for SYTYCD.

In the case of SYTYCD, the fluctuation of AEIO messages correlated with commercials. For instance, we saw a surge of emotion, attention, and opinion messages and a drop in information messages at approximately 8:23, 8:33, 8:42, and 8:49 which were commercial breaks.

Viewers also shared live updates (information) about the content of the program. At 8:30 we see a high peak in opinion and emotion, which was when one dancer had to be led off the stage bleeding due to an accident. Opinion and emotion messages also went up when the judges were making decisions about whether or not a contestant would make it to the next level. The peak that we see at 8:48 was right after Ryan, one of the contestants, was voted out of the competition.

Mobility

Mobility was a high component in our television tweets, supporting recent reports by the Pew Internet and American Life Project that Twitter users are a “mobile bunch” — a group that is more likely to be using wireless technologies (Lenhart and Fox, 2009). In Obama, we saw that 29 percent of users used mobile devices to post their message. The top eight mobile applications that were used were: Echofon, UberTwitter, Tweetie, Txt (text messaging), Mobile Web (for smart phones), Twitterrific, and Twitter Berry. Tweetdeck, an application for both desktop and mobile, was categorized as non–mobile devices, so the percentage of mobile users may have been even bigger.

SYTYCD Tweeters showed a higher mobile rate of 39 percent. Again, Tweetdeck was categorized as non–mobile devices, so the percentage of mobile users may be even bigger. Some explanatiosn for the higher mobile use for SYTYCD could be that the average age of viewers is lower or that users tweet from their couch. Another explanation could be that given that the Obama speech was delivered on a weekday during the day, many people were watching from their office and thus being at their desk warranted less use of mobile technology.

Utility

Television viewers were not very interactive: interactive tweets made up of less than four percent. The mapping of hashtags, links, and re–tweets according to time showed similar frequency patterns to the patterns of the message types (see Figure 4 and Figure 5). The use of hashtags suggests that people want to share their message with a group of people who have the same interest.

Figure 4: Time–mapping of links, hashtags, and re–tweets for Obama.

Figure 5: Time–mapping of links, hashtags, and re–tweets for SYTYCD.

Discussion and conclusion

Social media is recreating a pseudo “group viewing” experience of television. Tweets indicate that people are using Twitter to express themselves. Although television viewers aren’t communicating directly with each other while they are viewing, the use of hashtags and re–tweets suggests that although users aren’t directly interacting with specific individuals, they want to be part of a larger group.

This study was mainly exploratory in trying to look at what type of messages people post on Twitter when they are watching television. Using a uses and gratifications framework, we conceptualized Tweets as both a means of gratification (for television) as well as a type of use (for Twitter). Based on two axes of subjectivity/ objectivity and inbound (about oneself)/ outbound (about the TV program), we were able to create a matrix that categorized messages into four types: Attention, Emotion, Information and Opinion. We found that the frequencies of the message types strongly correlated with the content of the program. This does not indicate a causal relationship because there are so many other variables that could affect the type of messages people posted, but has strong implication that people post in reaction to what they see. Of particular note, we saw very little time lapse between a situation that occurred on television and a message responding to that situation, suggesting that some people Tweet without giving much thought to what they are Tweeting about. People were also Tweeting more during commercial breaks. One explanation could be that the storyline tends to get more dramatic just before the commercial break, which causes people to engage in livelier discussion. Another explanation could be that viewers are bored and Tweet to pass time. Future studies should look more closely at motivations of Tweeting.

The frequencies of the messages may also reflect to some extent individual engagement in program content. For instance, after Obama concluded his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, emotional and attention messages decreased while opinion messages steeply increased. This could imply that after a political event, people engage in more opinionated discussion. In the case of SYTYCD, messages sharply decreased after the program.

We found that utility was very important in social media messages. People were using various linguistic and technical tools to convey their message. For instance, hashtags, links, re–tweets, and “@” messages all served as tools that people used to interact with each other. Mobile phones also served as an important utility; at least 30 percent of Twitter uses were tweeting from a mobile device.

Limitations

We cannot claim that the messages we sampled were those of people who were actually watching the program; however, the contents of the tweets were fairly specific and given that the data was collected real–time, it was unlikely that comments that was directly related to specific content on TV were being made by those who were not watching. Still, this limitation should be taken into consideration in designing future studies.

It would also be interesting to see whether or not the type of messages people post on Twitter could be used to evaluate television programs, or predict the program’s ratings. From the diversity and frankness of the messages that we saw, television producers could at least use Twitter as means of quick feedback. Although how representative those messages would be of the general viewer audience is questionable, one could certainly gauge an idea of what enthusiasts of the program are feeling. By looking at the quantity of posts at a given time (which is very easy to measure) and then analyzing the qualitative content of the posts that happen during a surge of tweets, one could start to see patterns of what viewers are interested in. 

About the authors

D. Yvette Wohn is a Ph.D. student at Michigan State University in Media and Information Studies. She is interested in new media effects, with a specific interest in prosocial outcomes of social networks. Other projects include socio–economic behavior in virtual worlds and media continuance.
E–mail: yvettewohn [at] gmail [dot] com

Eun–Kyung Na is a Ph.D. candidate at Keio University and associate at Samsung Electronics’ Media Solution Center. She is interested in social media content and business implications.
E–mail: naccy80 [at] gmail [dot] com

Acknowledgements

Thanks to First Monday’s anonymous reviewers and session participants of the International Communication Association’s 2010 conference in Singapore for constructive feedback.

Note

1. Putnam, 1995b, p. 678.

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“Tweeting about TV” by D. Yvette Wohn and Eun–Kyung Na is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial–ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Tweeting about TV: Sharing television viewing experiences via social media message streams
by D. Yvette Wohn and Eun–Kyung Na.
First Monday, Volume 16, Number 3 – 7 March 2011

http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/viewArticle/3368/2779

Smart TV is a new growth opportunity for digital.  A TV is the ultimate shared device for watching videos and viewing large images from the comfort of the living room, rather than hunched over a 15” laptop. Certain types of content are best viewed on a TV and there are already several million smart TV’s in the UK – globally, the market is forecast to reach 119m smart TVs by 2014.

Smart TV’s have internet access, allowing consumers to use their TVs as a portal for online services. These TV’s allow email and web surfing, and support social networks and applications like Twitter and Netflix, making the TV more useful, and responsive to consumers’ wants and needs. As personal media is increasingly stored in the cloud, enabling consumers to stream their chosen media at their convenience becomes ever more important.

Audience patterns are already changing, as people spend less time watching scheduled TV and more time watching catch-up and other non-scheduled services. TV channels are beginning to offer shows on smart TV, and its growth is set to upset traditional broadcast business models, as the TV becomes more of a home media hub. With connection rates hovering around 60% of connected TV’s sold, there are however challenges for brands.

Like mobile, there are a multitude of platforms and the complexity of the market has been slowing brand adoption. In mobile, brands could be paralysed trying to prioritise iPhone, Android, Windows, Blackberry or Nokia. Similarly in TV the challenge lies in deciding between Samsung, LG, Philips, Sharp, Opera and Google TV.

TV App Agency’s new technology Engine provides a solution to this problem – the engine allows developers to create TV apps for many different TV platforms from a single source of code. The engine is offered as a cloud-based software as a service application.

The TV App Agency Engine shifts the challenge for brands from the technology to the content, providing a unique opportunity for brands to launch their own TV channel. Instead of paying rent to a TV or satellite broadcaster, you can create your own channel and launch it in the app store of a smart TV.  Most importantly, as the Engine provides a cross-platform compiler, it can be done for a reasonable price while offering maximum reach across smart TV platforms.

It follows from the introduction of the first Digital Video Recorder (DVR) in 1999 through to the arrival of online video and from where consumers are now obtaining their digital video content.

Social media has redefine how we communicate. Now it is transforming the television viewing experience with the rise of Social TV and platforms to support it such as Zeebox.

To prepare for this study, Forrester conducted phone interviews with executives at 12 leading digital agencies. The interviews covered each company’s use of rich digital media, the challenges and benefits companies were experiencing from using it to address client needs, and what the executives thought the future of the rich digital media landscape looked like.

Key Findings

Forrester’s study yielded the following key findings with respect to the use of rich digital media:

• Advertisers are turning to more engaging forms of rich digital media to deliver against consumer expectations.
• Rich digital media drives engagement with nonlinear interactive storytelling and custom experiences.
• Agencies with in-house digital media capabilities and expertise have competitive advantages.
• Agencies plan to expand digital media production capabilities to prepare for future growth.

For Advertisers, Engaging  Consumers Online is Harder Than Ever

Consumers today are comparing content on the Web with the latest Hollywood blockbuster, console game, or television show. As a culture, we want to be entertained and expect the content we consume on the Web to be something of value, such as a custom digital experience or an offer tailored to a specific interest. It takes much more to garner the attention of a potential or existing customer, and that creates a challenge for advertisers. A vice president at one of the participating agencies described it this way: “Advertisers are operating in a highly competitive marketplace, where consumers are reading less [and] comparing more, and the typical web article or content is not being read. Being able to communicate product benefits in a succinct and engaging way is crucial.” The bar has been raised for engaging consumers online because:

• The Web is cluttered with content. Consumers face a tidal wave of content that is competing for their valuable attention online. Within the next five years, US advertisers will spend $77 billion annually on email, display, mobile, search, and social to try to engage these consumers online, so clearly advertisers are facing an increasingly cluttered online advertising landscape (see Figure 1).1 Websites are filled with advertising, videos, text, and social media messages. To beat the clutter and engage with increasingly overwhelmed audiences, advertisers are turning to rich digital media.
• Consumers are accessing content across multiple devices. More than half of the 177 million US adults who are online have two or more different types of devices connected to the Internet, and one-third have at least four.2 There is a wealth of opportunity for advertisers to engage consumers across multiple devices. However, it requires brands to be present across multiple touchpoints. One agency is focusing its connected device strategy on delivering “all the content you need to make an intelligent decision on the screen at one time.”
• TV and film keep raising the bar for consumer expectations of digital media. All of the agencies interviewed for this study attribute the growing demand for rich digital media to feature films, gaming, and television. “Clients point to examples in movies and television and ask us to create a similar experience for their brands,” said one agency. In addition, movies like Avatar and Toy Story deliver engaging viewing experiences that heighten consumers’ overall expectations of digital media. Creative and engineering talents — in-house and consultative — with motion-picture and television experience are highly sought after for projects by agencies.

Interactive Marketing Spend Will Net Near $77 Billion By 2016

Advertisers Are Embracing Rich Digital Media

Rich digital media helps advertisers to break through the clutter of the Web. As one executive creative director at a leading agency declared: “Being able to show different ways for consumers to engage with products, [and] letting them understand what differentiates [their products] from the rest of the market, is crucial. And just calling that out via text boxes really doesn’t work. Consumers are so much more aware now; they can get as much text as they want from blogs and reviews.”
Every agency interviewed for this study confirms that rich digital media creates more engaging experiences online, compared with other media. “balancing art with science and function with entertainment.” This type of media empowers advertisers to tell richer brand stories, drive deeper engagement, and ignite conversations on social channels like YouTube and Facebook. It enables more online exploration that leads to enhanced experiences that consumers can customize and personalize. These experiences increase fundamental engagement metrics like time on site and lower metrics like bounce rates.

How Advertisers Are Using Rich Digital Media Today to Drive Engagement

Rich digital media has a wide variety of applications. Our study found that agencies use it in the following ways:

• Virtual photography. Advancements in technology allow agencies to use digital models and computer- generated images (CGI) to replace the expensive process of photographing real objects or environments. One agency explained, “I can save time and a tremendous amount of money by using CGI and digital models.” CGI also provides the benefit of being more flexible and adaptable to cross-platform applications.
• Animation and motion graphics. By animating elements, advertisers can bring stories to life. For example, “Sometimes you want someone to jump or make a car spin,” explains one interviewee. “So we will take a static model and apply all the kinetics, animations, and physics on top to make it look real.”
• Interactive display. Interactive touchscreen displays are appearing more frequently in retail outlets and public places like bus shelters in San Francisco and subways in South Korea. It allows advertisers to engage audiences at point of sale and out of home. While this exemplifies a growing global trend, there are many other use cases for interactive display online such as rich media banner ads on a website.
• Product demos. Agencies use rich digital media to create immersive product demonstrations for manufacturers and retailers. These demos tell a much richer story about the product and illustrate key differentiations from competing products in the market. For example, one agency used 3D technology to showcase the uniqueness and design of an athletic shoe by allowing consumers to interactively spin it and see it from all angles.
• Game-like experiences. More than 340 million people play social games monthly, and gamification — the application of game mechanics to nongame play — is being leveraged by advertisers to drive deeper engagement on web and mobile properties.3 Agencies can use rich digital media to enhance the game-like online behavior.
• Social media drivers. With rich digital media, consumers can customize and personalize content, share their experience online, and spark conversations on social channels like Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook. “If you create something of value for the consumer, the consumer will share it,” affirmed an interviewee for the study.
• Online and mobile advertising. Rich digital media is rapidly pervading online advertising on the Web, as more advertisers want to stand out in a crowded web environment. Video advertising is the fastest- growing segment within online advertising, and publishers are opening up new online ad formats enabling much richer experiences and page takeovers. With the ubiquity of mobile and the soaring growth of tablet devices, online and mobile advertising has advanced to a newer, more exciting level — one that leverages inherent features on the device such as flicking, sharing, or swiping that yield high engagement.
•  Video production. Rich digital media allows advertisers to deliver very high-quality content across a variety of platforms. Video is no longer a “lean back” passive experience but can be incorporated into the core of interactive experiences to engage audiences, aided by the rapid growth of online video advertising.

Forrester asked each agency interviewed for this study to describe how rich digital media creates more immersive and engaging experiences online. “Rich digital media is the way we tell stories,” one agency stated. “And that’s how we are able to capture consumers’ imaginations.” In summary of the qualitative data for this study, rich digital media drives more online engagement with:

• Nonlinear interactive storytelling. Rich digital media enables advertisers to tell better brand stories and give consumers more control over their experience. Consumers can interact with content, choose their own path, and create their own adventure.
• Personal and customized experiences. Consumer engagement can be driven by empowering the user to personalize and customize their experience. “Leading global brands request it,” one agency shared. “They want the user to control and own the experience.”
• Expressive and creative visual elements. Rich digital media allows artists, advertisers, and designers to be more creative and expressive, which creates a more entertaining experience for consumers. Leveraging gestural user interfaces like flicks and swipes, which are now commonly used on mobile and touchscreen devices, also helps to drive engagement.

In-House Capabilities Produce Lucrative Business Benefits for Agencies

Every agency interviewed for this study has rich digital media production capabilities in-house to a certain capacity, and all of them attribute having these capabilities to giving them an advantage in a competitive marketplace. Moreover, all of them plan on increasing their capabilities in the future to meet increasing demand. It is advantageous for agencies to invest in in-house resources because:

• It reduces cost. All of the agencies interviewed for this study reported lower costs of production due to in- house resources including talent. Agencies don’t have to outsource to specialty agencies that charge a premium.
• It produces better content, more quickly. When asked if keeping the technology in-house helped produce content better and more quickly, one creative director responded, “Absolutely, by the fact that creative and production are highly interacting with each other and closing any communication gaps.” Production teams are also able to ideate and iterate much faster — increasing the team’s overall flexibility and agility.
• Creative and technology are more integrated and more powerful. “You can’t get the right level of collaboration and iteration you need when you outsource projects in this field,” asserts an agency. In- house capabilities enable creative teams with a clear sense of the storyline to work next to production specialists with a deep knowledge of the technology and marry their two skill sets to tell a more powerful brand story.
• It’s profitable. Digital services are a fast-growing profit center. The agencies all stated that these capabilities give them a competitive advantage, which helps them attract and grow new and existing business. And digital advertising is showing particularly strong growth for agencies, increasing 16.3% in 2010, compared with 7.7% growth for the advertising industry overall.4

Agencies Predict More Demand In The Future, Investing Accordingly

“I can tell you that the more work we do [in rich digital media], the more calls we get from clients and prospects wanting to produce these types of experiences for their audiences.” The agencies interviewed for this study are increasing their offerings in rich digital media because they all anticipate the landscape to continue to grow. Demand for rich digital media will continue to grow due to the following factors:

• Continued consumer demand. “At the root, consumers and users want to be entertained or have something that’s useful. If you do either of those two, you have their eyes and ears. Consumers compare an experience online to a game they just played on PlayStation 3, and everyone holds web experiences to the highest standard because they compare the Web with TV, film, and games,” summarizes a Europe-based agency. Consumers’ high standards and future innovations in motion pictures and television will continue to increase consumer expectations of content on the Web and create increasing demand.
• Opportunities for deeper engagement. Research for this study undoubtedly concludes that rich digital media drives higher engagement online, and agencies are embracing the technology as a direct result. Nonlinear storytelling, game-like mechanics, personalization, and shareability across a consumer’s social graph help advertisers break through the clutter and drive powerful experiences online.
• More in-market competition. The majority of rich digital media was once exclusively produced by specialty agencies. Today, more in-market competition is increasing, as more agencies invest in their own capabilities to meet demand from consumers, gain a competitive advantage, and obtain inherent business benefits.
• More talent. More design schools are providing access to new technologies and are teaching more courses in rich digital media. While agencies continue to invest in training their existing teams, young talent is entering the market with more advanced skill sets to hit the ground running and make more immediate contributions.
• Proliferation of devices that creates additional opportunities. Smartphone and tablet adoption creates new opportunities for advertisers to reach consumers with rich digital media. With technology iterating and innovating so rapidly, processing power will increase and allow advertisers to continue to push the envelope as broadband becomes ubiquitous.

For the full key recommendations see the complete report by Forrester Research.

1 By 2016, US advertisers will spend $77 billion on email, display, mobile, search, and social to try to engage consumers online. Source: “US Interactive Marketing Forecast, 2011 To 2016,” Forrester Research, Inc., August 24, 2011.
2 More than half of the 177 million US adults who are online have two or more different types of devices connected to the Internet, and one-third have at least four. Source: “Welcome To The Multidevice, Multiconnection World,” Forrester Research, Inc., January 25, 2011.
3 More than 340 million people play social games monthly. Source: Appdata (http://www.appdata.com/).
4 Source: Bradley Johnson, “Agency Report: US Agency Revenue Jumped 7.7% in 2010,” Advertising Age, April 25, 2011.
To prepare for this study, Forrester conducted phone interviews with executives at 12 leading digital agencies. The interviews covered each company’s use of rich digital media, the challenges and benefits companies were experiencing from using it to address client needs, and what the executives thought the future of the rich digital media landscape looked like. Respondents were from the US, UK and Sweden. The study began in July 2011 and completed in October, 2011.

© 2011, Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited. For additional information, go to www.forrester.com.