Monday, May 28, 2012

The Latest from TechCrunch

The Latest from TechCrunch

Link to TechCrunch

Backstage at Disrupt, Cornell’s Dan Huttenlocher is Bringing Big Red to the Big Apple

Posted: 28 May 2012 08:00 AM PDT

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Editor’s Note: TechCrunch columnist Semil Shah is based in Palo Alto. You can follow him on Twitter @semil

Cornell University made big news earlier in the year when it was announced the Ivy League school, located in upstate New York, would open a technology campus in New York City. Leading the charge for Big Red will be Dan Huttenlocher, dean of computing and information science — and a former Silicon Valley entrepreneur. Dean Huttenlocher was kind enough to come backstage after his session to discuss more details about the campus and program. Cornell will build a technology campus on Roosevelt Island in New York City, which will house a full master’s program that combines academic research in computer science and engineering along with a variety of practical training programs. While the curriculum will focus mostly on software, Huttenlocher did hint at the possibility of having programs focusing on smaller-scale hardware, as well. This video would be of interest to folks who are in the New York technology community, as well as those could have some type of relationship with the campus in the future.

Surprise! Announcing The TC Mini-Meet Up In Philadelphia On June 19

Posted: 28 May 2012 07:28 AM PDT

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If you’re in the City of Brotherly Love, you’re in a for a treat. Thanks to constant entreaties by one of your own, Anthony Coombs, we’re going to hold a mini-meet up in Philly on June 19 at the Field House, 1150 Filbert St.

Please RSVP here.

As is our wont, we like to hold these on neutral ground and we’d love to sit down with you to chat about what you’re working on during the day. We’ll have very limited time, so if you’d like to sit with us, please submit a request through ohours.org. We’re holding office hours at Caribou Cafe near the venue, also on June 19, at a yet-to-be-determined time.

We’ll have more information on sponsors and hours shortly, but please mark your calendars and we’ll see you soon.

[Image: David W. Leindecker/Shutterstock]

The Authors Of Space Quest Are Back With Another Adventure

Posted: 28 May 2012 06:59 AM PDT

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If you’re an older gamer, you will remember the holy trinity of Sierra RPGs – King’s Quest, Space Quest, and Police Quest. All three of these games used something called “imagination” and “storytelling” to immerse early gamers in an Ad Lib sound card-induced gaming coma.

Now you can re-live those heady days with a new game by the makers of Space Quest, Scott Murphy and Mark Crowe (aka “The Two Guys from Andromeda”). Their new game, called SpaceVenture, is a refresh of the old Sierra series and promises spills, chills, and horrible jokes. It’s getting funded on Kickstarter as we speak.

The best part? They hired the original voice actors to spice up the game including Gary Owens, the voice of Space Ghost, and Ellen McLain who plays GlaDOS in Portal 1 and 2. Talk about your crossovers.

The game will cost $15 for early pledgers and runs on Macs, PCs, iOS, and Android. The $30 tier gets you beta access to the game and a soundtrack download.

The game is halfway to its goal with 15 days to go, so get pledging, space cadet.

Project Page

GameStop Rolls Out Android Tablets With Pre-Loaded Games To 1,600 Stores

Posted: 28 May 2012 06:49 AM PDT

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Diversification is the key to longevity. With that likely in mind, GameStop just announced widespread availability of Android tablets throughout its chain of retail stores. This comes after a 200 store trial that started last October.

These aren’t ordinary Android tablets, though. GameStop is pre-loading the Samsung, Asus, Acer, and Toshiba with extra gaming titles such as Sonic CD, Riptide, the Kongregate Arcade app and a free issue of GameStop’s gaming mag, Game Informer. Thanks to these extras and with prices that are inline with other stores, GameStop actually has a chance to capture a bit of the tablet market.

GameStop has recently been bulking up its non-game retail stock in a likely attempt to stop the bleeding. While brick and mortar locations still focus mainly on video games, the website offers headphones, tablet accessories, even refurbished iPods and iPads. The company started testing selling Android tablets last October. Today’s announcement states loud and clear that GameStop sees a future in Android tablets even if no one else does.

Fast Track To A Facebook Phone — Buy INQ Mobile?

Posted: 28 May 2012 06:21 AM PDT

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As the heat around the “Facebook Phone” story gets higher, our thoughts turn to the days a couple of years ago when it emerged Facebook had been thinking about developing an actual phone. Back then, it transpired that Facebook was working with INQ Mobile on a smartphone. The phone duly emerged – the INQ1 – and did indeed have great Facebook integration. Even if it hasn’t exactly been a smash hit, it’s fared well enough.

Indeed, HTC has also released their own "Facebook" phone, such HTC ChaCha and HTC Salsa respectively. INQ’s runs on Google's Android operating system, but with deeper Facebook integration.

When asked about the INQ phone back in 2010, Zuckerberg said it wasn’t “some massive big thing”. But quite clearly, a phone is now firmly on the agenda.

And with Facebook bringing in $16 billion from its IPO it could in theory buy Research in Motion (around $6 billion) or the ailing HTC (around $11.8 billion).

However, an even cheaper option would be buy the aforementioned INQ from its holding company Hutchison Whampoa. Because it’s not the operating system Facebook needs – that can be developed – but the hardware engineering experience that INQ mobile has.

INQ is already spread across the UK, San Francisco, Europe and Asia.

And as a subsidiary of Hutchison Whampoa it has a lot of experience dealing with big software companies, creating the original Skypephone prior to the INQ1 and integrating Spotify and Foursquare into its handsets.

Admittedly, Facebook needs to make a phone that doesn’t suck. By grabbing INQ is might just have that chance.

A Bit Too Much Klout: User Says He Can Sign In To Someone Else’s Account

Posted: 28 May 2012 06:06 AM PDT

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It’s not clear if this is a one-off glitch, a signal of a bigger issue — or a way of pumping up/sabotaging Klout scores for those who care. But it’s not great news any way you spin it, if it’s true: a Klout user has gotten in touch to say that when he accesses the social influence ratings service, he is getting signed in to Klout not as himself but as someone else.

Using an HTC Sensation device running the Ice Cream Sandwich version of Android, IT consultant Halil Kabaca,of Istanbul, Turkey-based Novarum Consulting, tells us that when he goes on to Klout via the phone’s mobile browser, he is being signed in automatically as someone completely different — someone he doesn’t know at all who happens to work for Adobe in business development (see screenshots of Kabaca’s and the other guy’s profiles after the break).

It appears that Kabaca has full access to the other guy’s account, including direct messages, the ability to add influencers, and change all other account information. The access, he says, only happens on mobile, and not on his PC.

Kabaca tells us he uses Klout almost every day from his phone and this is the first time he has seen this happen. “Even if it’s a minor bug, it is very discouraging to use the service,” he said.

As of this writing he says he can still access the other user’s profile, “And I am wondering if anyone is seeing mine.”

Even if this is a one-off glitch, the news is not brilliant, as it comes at the same time that Klout has been sharpening its focus on mobile. In February, it acquired mobile/location startup Blockboard to enhance its mobile services; in April, it released a new iPhone app; and earlier this month, it kicked off with some eye-catching promotions — Perks in Klout-world — with companies to show off how effective those new mobile products can be. A recent one we covered was Klout’s link-up with Cathay Pacific, where users with high Klout scores could flash their status, via the mobile app, to get access to Cathay Pacific’s executive lounge in San Francisco Airport.

Because of the emphasis on sharing information about yourself, social networks — more than other internet services — have been served a pretty big dose of privacy scrutiny. Klout is no different. In November the site was criticized for how it created shadow profiles of people who are not even users.

Klout is not the only social media site that has suddenly seen identity loopholes appear. In March, Twitter had to take TweetDeck offline after one user suddenly found he had access to hundreds of accounts, both on Twitter and Facebook, using the client.

We have contacted Klout, and the other user, to see if they can comment on this development and will update as we learn more.

Update: The other user has come back to us to confirm that his account has been changed around by someone — with a new contact email (the one put in by Kabaca to test the loophole).

EU Privacy Directive: Why All The Fuss? Just Be Open With Users

Posted: 28 May 2012 05:45 AM PDT

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EU Cookie legislation is now in force across Europe, but in a last minute change on Friday, the UK’s information commissioner amended the way it will be implemented in the UK. It’s now the case that sites will only have to obtain ‘implied consent’ from users not explicit consent. This is much friendlier for businesses but means the UK is now out of the step with the EU on privacy online and the transparency of cookies. In the middle of a recession, UK businesses probably won’t lose too much sleep. This is a much more pragmatic approach and most websites have yet to even comply with the legislation.

In this guest post, Mark Macdonald, of Skimlinks argues sites should still consider being up-front with users about their use of cookies.

The grassroots of the internet are a force to be reckoned with. With national and international legislation threatening their online way of life, the denizens of 4Chan and Reddit can be relied upon to make life a misery for those US politicians proposing mis-construed acts. We saw it with SOPA and PIPA. They’re holding off ratification of ACTA for the time being, and CISPA is taking a beating.

But where were they three years ago when the EU first debated its e-Privacy Directive?

The directive passed into UK law a year ago 'on-the-nod', i.e. without any debate in Parliament, and was intended to protect users’ privacy by forcing sites to seek consent when placing certain cookies. This week marks the end of a year-long grace period during which website owners were issued confusing guidelines [PDF] from the enforcing body, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

You’ve probably heard all about how the ICO enforced its own guidelines and killed its traffic, plenty has been said about how the law is pretty much unenforceable, and I previously wrote, perhaps prematurely, about how the fundamental technologies that fund free content on the web were threatened.

Maybe I missed the point. There’s no doubt that our legislators are behind the technological curve, and crass law writing can be massively damaging, but likewise an honest communication about how your site operates is essential to building a trusting, and valuable, user base.

Advertisers love playing the data game, and will continue to find ways to target their audience with or without cookie legislation. Use of server-side pixels allows for cookieless tracking, and definitions of 1st and 3rd party cookies are increasingly blurred by ad networks to sidestep some interpretations of the laws. Our lawmakers won’t catch up with this stampede of innovation, so it falls to us, the innovators, to implement technologies responsibly and hold ourselves accountable.

The politicians in Washington and Brussels may not have a clue what they’re talking about, but the spirit of respectful user interaction may not be so misplaced.

Monitoring customer behaviour and habit is nothing new. The supermarkets have been collating your data through loyalty card programs since the early eighties, building customer profiles and using this data to ‘enhance the shopping experience’. It’s a pretty honest understanding though: you give me discounts on goods or services, and I’ll let you build a profile to establish how much cat litter I can handle.

This kind of mutual understanding should form the very minimum of an unwritten contract between site owners and users. Am I saying that your grandfather understands the extremes of data crunching each time he swipes a loyalty card? Certainly not, but there’s a policy of providing clear disclosure to customers in order to maintain their hard-earned trust. That policy must be replicated on the web in some fashion.

In an ever more socialized web, readership and user engagement are a site’s biggest asset. It’s that user engagement that drives Facebook’s inflated stock price, and Pinterest’s huge funding rounds.

It’s also user engagement that drives value for advertisers in the long run. Supportive communities understand that making money from a site need not impact on their enjoyment of the site, and will respect advertising technologies that they are informed about.

So what changes? In all honesty, nothing much. Most of the UK's governmental sites aren't going to be compliant today.

At Skimlinks, we made some recommendations to all our publishers but the ICO have indicated to us that they're not going to be prosecuting sites unless they appear to intentionally avoid compliance.

The ICO aren't likely to come after you this week, but users deserve to be treated with respect anyway. It’s not hard to do either. Disclosure should be a given. If you run a site or web service, tell people what technologies you’re using, and make sure you have clear links to any appropriate opt-outs. Likewise, act as an agent for your users and demand that 3rd party technologies give you a clear indication of what data they collect, and how it is used.

Don’t do it for the legislators. Do it because we’re all users, and it’s what we’d all expect.

But finally here’s a bonus video on why the EU cookie law should just die:

Protip: Do Not Post A Pic Of A Pile Of Cash To Facebook

Posted: 28 May 2012 05:43 AM PDT

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As tempting as it might seem, please do not upload a picture of a bunch of cash and then upload it to a social network. That’s just dumb. But that’s also what one 17-year-old Australian girl did only to have two robbers armed with a knife and a club show up at her house.

The story goes that a 17-year-old girl was helping her grandma. Likely somewhere in between vacuuming and feather dusting, the two started counting money, and, as we all know, the elderly tend to keep a good sum of cash on hand. Apparently the 17-year-old snapped a picture of the pile which was likely fanned-out in the traditional gangster style. This girl then uploaded the picture to Facebook.

The picture of the undisclosed amount apparently attracted the attention of two robbers looking to make some quick cash. The two showed up at the girl’s house, however, the mother informed these men that the daughter no longer lived there. The two men searched the house anyway, leaving with what the BBC describes as “a small amount of cash and a small number of personal objects.” No-one was injured.

Let this be a lesson to everyone. There is such a thing as sharing too much. As tempting as it might be to show off your new BMW, flat screen TV, or even puppy, sharing this information on Facebook is essentially akin to posting the same information on your grocery store’s public bulletin board. But for the love of Mark Zuckerburg, do not share a picture of a pile of cash — especially if said pile isn’t even your money.

Yandex.Factory Seed Funding Bears Fruit: SocialMart Launches Social Shopping With Yandex.Market

Posted: 28 May 2012 03:01 AM PDT

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It’s not a given that a leader in search can successfully pivot into other areas like social media — just ask Google — but a new service launching in Russia today, from that country’s search leader Yandex, shows one route a company with a lot of smarts can take to make sure they remain a central player in the social game. Today sees the launch of SocialMart, a social shopping startup financed by Yandex (through its seed-funding program Yandex.Factory), and powered by Yandex (via Yandex.Market), but is not Yandex itself.

Both Yandex and SocialMart are banking on the fact that the rising popularity of ecommerce in Russia is inevitably going to cross over with the equally popular trend of social networking: up to now, those twains have not met, unlike in other markets, where services like Mertado (now part of Groupon), Sneakpeeq, and Fab have been running away with the “social shopping” banner, picking up users and funding in the process.

Yandex says that its Market is already the country’s largest comparison shopping service, containing 33 million offers from 9,500 online shops. Its monthly audience in March 2012 was over 14.2 million, according to market researchers TNS. This launch with SocialMart marks the first time that the Market API has been used by any company — and, Yandex claims, the country’s first social shopping service overall.

There are already some big players in both ecommerce and social media in Russia that may also try to get in on this game: Sites like private buying club KupiVIP and “Russia’s Amazon” Ozon have made big advances in the country, now the biggest Internet market in Europe at 53 million users, with an ecommerce market projected to be worth $30 billion by 2020. Meanwhile, the country’s leading social networking site Vkontakte has around 110 million users, 70 percent in Russia, and is looking to grow beyond those borders.

There does seem to be an appetite for social shopping. Research from Nielsen notes  that in a recent online survey, 86 percent of consumers said they trusted buying recommendations from friends and family — some 31 percent more than those that just relied on consumer reviews.

Under its original name of Social Market, SocialMart in June 2011 got a small round of seed funding (in the tens of thousands of dollars, Yandex tells me), as part of the Yandex.Factory investment program. One year on, SocialMart, underpinned by data from Yandex.Market, is now offering users a variety of social features to customize their shopping experience: for example, users ask for and give opinions on products, run polls and get reputation points for their influence.

SocialMart is currently available as an app on Facebook and the country’s number-one social networking site, Vkontakte, and for now it only focuses on the Russian market.

Investing and partnering in a project like this is not just about Yandex looking for social cred. Yandex will take affiliate commissions on web calls and website click-throughs generated through the service — a Yandex person declined to tell me exactly what the value of that commission will be.

Yandex says that its Factory seed-investment program has had applications from about 2,000 startups since launching last year.

It’ll Be A Miracle If The Facebook Phone Doesn’t Suck

Posted: 27 May 2012 10:47 PM PDT

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Here we go again: Facebook is apparently trying for the third time to get its phone project off the ground — snatching up iOS design and engineering talent left and right Nick Bilton is hearing.

We’re hearing (and seeing) similar regarding iOS talent, but with one caveat: Word on the street is that few mobile design whizzes actually want to work at Facebook, but everyone has their price, and post-IPO Mark Zuckerberg is willing to pay that price, whatever it is.

Does Facebook need a phone? Whatever the answer to that question is, the more important item is that it THINKS it needs a phone, most likely because it’s still lacking a clear mobile strategy with regards to revenue.

The platform wars have created the following paradox; in order to compete with Facebook, Google attempts to build a social network, In order to compete with Google, Facebook attempts to build a phone — both diverging away from their core competency in their efforts. I’ve never tried to build a phone, so I’m not going to begrudge anyone their ambitions, but a majority of industry insiders I’ve spoken to today have been super skeptical about the viability of a Facebook phone, some even coming right out and saying, “It’ll be a miracle if this doesn’t suck.”

Making phone hardware is hard work, much harder than anything Facebook has ever attempted in the past. The company as we have seen thrives on an iterative culture of hackathons where projects are completed over night. A low margin/high volume business like phone hardware, as Bret Taylor’s mobile and platform team seems to be painfully and publicly learning, takes years to do correctly.

And there is a huge risk that they will fail again.

This kind of project, as others have speculated, requires the kind of execution Facebook isn’t known for, and the company will most likely have to work with a third-party in order to actually ship. Some have suggested that it buy a beleaguered hardware startup like RIM or a stalwart like HTC because the kind of long-term focus required here is just not endemic to Facebook company culture.

Basically, there are a million ways this project will fail, and just one way it will work: Facebook ostensibly could succeed by tapping into the opening in the mobile market where people want an alternative to poorly designed Android phones — targeting people who would buy something other than an iPhone if the price point was $150 less and the design were at least a little bit more ambitious than what is currently available on Android. Picture a Lumia that’s one big Facebook app if you need a visual.

It’ll be a miracle if Facebook manages to come up with a finished product that’s designed and priced for everyone, captures at least 15% of the smart phone market, and becomes a direct competitor to Google. But stranger things have happened.

A Facebook phone seems inevitable. Mobile advancements like Apple’s iMessage, iOS Twitter integration and whatever Google is doing with Google+ mean that its status as the predominant interpersonal communications platform is being threatened. But it won’t introduce a phone until it absolutely thinks it has to, so the question becomes “How soon until it (thinks it) has to?” And “Will it be ready?”

Wherever the Facebook Mobile team is tonight, they should take the Microsoft Kin’s failure as a cautionary tale: Stay away from poor device design and arcane social plugins and focus on your strengths, bringing mainstay apps like Instagram, Messenger, Camera, Events and Facebook Games front and center. And be a great phone first and foremost; the Facebook part should come second.

Video Highlights From Disrupt NY 2012 – Day 3 [TCTV]

Posted: 27 May 2012 09:15 PM PDT

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In the last of our series of posts featuring daily videos from Disrupt NY, Day 3′s highlight was the final round of the Startup Battlefield presentations and the passing of the cup to the new winner UberConference. Wednesday also featured an entertaining hardware panel, an inspirational tech talk from the White House, and new beer that’s caught the interest of tech investors.

Day 3 highlights are below, but you can view Day 1 and Day 2 videos here and here.

Check out these posts from Wednesday to dig deeper:

Please Don’t Ruin The Second Screen

Posted: 27 May 2012 05:30 PM PDT

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Editor’s note:Somrat Niyogi is the CEO of Miso.

There are advantages and disadvantages of being one of the earlier companies in a very early market. While new companies get to watch, observe, and create their own insights based on product features incumbents develop, we get to constantly introspect on "what has worked" based on real data, real feedback, and being out in the market talking to partners.

The second screen space is going to be a multi-billion dollar market. Just last week, Tim Cook announced that 67M iPads were sold in less than two years. It took more than 24 years to sell that many Macs.  With the growing trend of second screen activity (i.e. using tablets while you watch TV), there is bound to be major disruption in the TV industry.

The second screen affects the entire TV ecosystem

Networks and Advertisers

TV Networks are paying attention to this space because it's their business that is being affected the most. They buy shows and sell TV advertising against those shows. In the next month's upfronts, it's estimated over $9.2B of advertising will be committed to TV.

Of course, TV has been and will continue to be a huge reach play for advertisers, especially given the 300M people who watch TV every day in the US. But with the growing trend of time-shifted TV viewing and two-screen behavior, advertisers need to think differently. People aren't paying 100% attention to these TV shows in the way that they used to, so brands are starting to pay attention to make sure their ad dollars are more effective.

Now, networks are tasked with finding solutions and advertisers are starting to seek solutions themselves. For example, Chevy built their own app for Super Bowl. Coca-Cola built their own second screen advertising experience with the Polar Bears. Verizon was a major sponsor of The X-Factor app by Fox. Advertisers are even going directly to the production companies with the question: Mr. Production Studio Head, how are you using the second screen for your shows?

Production Companies

And that brings us to production companies, who have built shows in a specific way for decades. Showrunners, executive producers, and writers have only thought about what appears on the TV screen when they create their shows. For the most part, the big 55-inch TV screen will still be the primary medium, and the show structure will still be an episode with a beginning, a middle, and an end.

These shows are meant to capture the hearts and minds of millions of people so they will tune-in week after week, which means greater attention from audiences. But with the second screen becoming a major part of the TV viewing experience and the pressure from the networks and advertisers both to tap into this audience, it is no longer a one-screen world. It's a two-screen world.

The way television shows have been created for decades will change because advertisers and networks will be collaborating with the creative executives to address the second screen. Can you imagine a world where every show that you watch has a second screen experience to go along with it?  It's coming.

Operators

Despite all the "cord-cutting" talk that we hear about, there really isn't a lot of cord-cutting happening anytime soon. Why? It's the TV Circle of Life.

It works like this: networks collect big checks from the operators, production companies collect big checks from the networks, and operators collect big checks from people like you and me. There is a lot of talk about new direct to consumer experiences (such as HBO GO, where you can watch HBO shows anywhere) and it's definitely interesting, and it is coming…but it's going to take a very very long time. Why? Because operators write checks.

HBO gets paid from the operators, and it is too risky to go direct to consumers because HBO has a business to run. They can't jeopardize the distribution of their content from operators like Comcast, DIRECTV, DISH, Time Warner Cable, etc.

Of course, operators are seeing the same opportunities as networks and production companies. They are also identifying new opportunities to add value to their subscription base, new opportunities for leverage in their network negotiations, and yes, new potential for better and more personalized advertising experiences.

TV Manufacturers

What about Samsung, Sony, LG – the TV manufacturers?  Several new innovative companies are focused on making TVs smarter by embedding automatic content recognition (ACR) in the TV so the TV is no longer a dumb device. What this means is that in the future, we can have Bluetooth-like experiences with our TV.

You come home and turn on your TV, and your phone knows the TV is on and knows what's playing. This enables a new level of seamless communication and messaging. Profit margins of televisions are getting slimmer and slimmer, so TV manufacturers are trying to create new revenue streams, such as more targeted advertising on TV, content for their TVs, and yes, soon we'll see TVs powering the second screen experience.

But the biggest question that companies in the TV space are asking is: where is all the value? How can we extract new revenue streams? How can I make sure our existing business continues to grow? After all, this is an industry with a total of $200B in revenue.

So what's happening now? Everybody, and their mom, is jumping into the second screen space.

It's too easy to develop a second screen app

Yup, you heard me. It's too easy. Take three engineers from a top-tier school and after writing some Objective-C and doing some simplistic design…there you go, app is launched. Since we started Miso, there have been more than 100 second screen apps developed (and this doesn't even include the one-off iPhone apps that have been created by the networks).

This notion of simplicity is not just a problem in the second screen market – it's a problem in any market. We've obviously seen it in photo sharing (we know who has won that game) but in the second screen space the problem is magnified and you know who loses: YOU.

As a viewer, you're constantly given mixed messages: Download this app, now download this other app, and now go back to the other app, and by the way, this second screen thing is only available for about 10% of the shows you watch.

The experience of downloading an app for every single TV show is poor. Don't get me wrong, there is a time and place where this could work, such as huge tentpole shows like the Oscars or the Emmys. Even so, look at The Super Bowl. I think I could have downloaded at least 15 apps just to experience that one-time event.

Several second screen startups, including ourselves, are trying to aggregate experiences. But a single app to rule them all is tough. If there is any second screen company out there that thinks they have the answer, talk to me first. Email me at somrat@gomiso.com.

Developing a single second screen app that can deliver value for all types of TV programming is incredibly tough. It's incredibly tough because every show is different and every genre has its own unique challenges. Dramas are different than reality shows, which are vastly different from news programs. And let's not even talk about sports – that's its own beast in itself.

Long story short, it's hard to get the perfect second screen experience for everybody. Is it social, is it about content, is it loyalty?  Is it all of the above? Even if you were to do all of the above, how do you get people to remember your app exists when people watch TV? How do you sustain audience while someone watches TV?

There is a growing trend of start-ups that are building "white-label" platforms for the networks to build one-off iPhone apps for their TV shows. While I believe there is a place for the top 5-10% of all TV programming, this doesn't scale for all TV shows. I love Modern Family, Big Bang Theory, and Dexter, but downloading an app for each of those shows seems too heavy. Even if there was an app for every show, users will not adopt all of these apps.

For new shows especially, it's hard to push a new app for something new and unknown versus shows in their second or later season. Apps for every show would also be a poor choice for the overall larger market. Every app may have its own user authentication, it's hard to bring your friends on board, and while content may be unique to that one app, as soon as you change the channel…you have to find a new app.

The question ultimately is: which experience is the most meaningful for me, the most personalized for me, and is available consistently every time I watch TV?

Users need aggregation and and utility

Aggregation keeps things simple

The reason why people sign-up for paid subscriptions versus buying TV shows one at a time on Amazon.com is because there is value in aggregation.  With paid subscriptions, you have one place to go to when you want to watch TV.  As my friend Jeremy would say, TV is about escape.  As a paid TV subscriber, I can browse aimlessly, find a show, change the channel, go back to the original channel and so on. While there might be challenges with aspects of the experience, ultimately, aggregation is valuable because it simplifies the way you discover and experience a TV show.

And simplicity is key. Aggregation is not just valuable on the first screen, but also the second screen. One place you tune-in to while you watch TV.

Apps with Utility Have a First Mover Advantage

While companies like ourselves are building interactive platforms, one thing is missing that sets us and any second screen app back: utility. No matter how we look at it – some things won't change.  You need to turn on the TV, find what to watch, change the channel or access your DVR.

As aggregators of content, paid TV providers and TV manufacturers are in a unique position to add a lot of value to the consumer by building more meaningful utility into their second screen experiences. We're already seeing this today from a few paid TV providers. There are second screen apps that have basic programming guides, remote control functions, the ability to set your DVR, and the ability to stream and watch shows right from the app itself.

Utility. It's utility that is the first driver of the second screen – but what's next? So you use the remote control on your iPad, what happens after that?

This is space rife with opportunity. In the same way I can watch Modern Family on any TV via any operator, can I get a second screen experience for any show via one device?

Imagine that no matter what you watch, you can get complementary experience. Best of all, even if you switch channels, you are still using a single app. Sounds pretty ideal right?

Here is where we are…there is a war for control

Everyone, and I mean everyone, is competing for attention on the second screen. The entire ecosystem is striving to aggregate audience for the second screen to sell new, personalized, and meaningful types of ad units.

Networks are the most aggressive in trying to control the second screen space because they have access to "exclusive" content, talent, and the scripts themselves while startups are trying to crack the code via social and community-driven efforts. Networks are in a tough position because they are ultimately serving the TV viewer, but at the same time they are trying to control their viewership audience. They want everyone to have a great experience for Modern Family no matter where they flock, but they ideally want those viewers to flock to ABC. This is why they develop their own apps and partner with social TV partners.

Operators haven't made any moves to control the second screen experience in their apps, but over the next 18 months we will see some action from several paid TV providers. Those that don't implement a second screen solution for their subscribers will be forced to by the ecosystem that feeds it – networks, advertisers, production companies – and miss out on valuable revenue streams.

As for TV manufacturers, if it's true that broadcasters and programmers (i.e. NBC, ABC) want to go do direct-to-consumer via Smart TVs, why couldn't TV manufacturers partake in the advertising revenue upside?

So, the question in the long run is: who is going to own the second screen?

In short: it's unclear. With startups and networks creating their own apps, operators entering the game soon, and TV manufacturers developing new hardware, it'll be interesting to see who pulls ahead.

The future we need: sharing, learning, and standardization.

If utility is the first key to the second screen experience, then operators and TV manufacturers are in a good place to win. But only if they can deliver more value than the utility itself. Operators, given their competitive nature, may want to pick their own solution. They can develop in-house by taking what is available out there (e.g. hashtagged tweets OR cast photos from IMDb). But there is much more to the second screen than the standard fare.

The networks have the ability to provide richer information such as behind-the-scenes content, commentary, or access to talent. They can even go one-step further for episodic content where the second screen is used to deepen the storyline, and it can be a new format for storytelling. If deeper content delivers the most value to the second screen interactive experience, how will the networks syndicate all this content to the companies that want access to it – namely operators, TV manufacturers, or even startups that are building second screen apps?

There needs to be standardization. There needs to be pipes that power the second screen economy.

Operators can obviously create tools for networks to get the "deeper content", but if every operator develops their own tools, will the networks use every single one? If you were an executive at NBC or Fox and either DIRECTV, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, or DISH came to you with their own tools, would you use them?  Maybe…if they write a big enough check. But this won't scale.

It's possible that there will be a breakthrough startup that will become the "Facebook of the Second Screen" where all companies standardize on that single solution. But this will take time, given the way the TV ecosystem works.

Ultimately, the TV ecosystem needs to come together. People are on Facebook and Twitter and playing Angry Birds while watching TV… and this is detrimental for the entire TV business! TV ad dollars will be migrated unless we, as part of the TV industry, address the larger problem: attention. Attention is being diverted away from the production companies' shows and networks' ads, away from the TV, to something else – the second screen.

To share insights and learnings is key to the longer term success of the second screen. As an industry we need to put more emphasis on user research – understanding "what do people want as they watch TV?" What kind of experiences scale for different types of TV shows?

The war to capture people's attention on the second screen is more fragmented than ever, and unless we come together the fragmentation will continue. There seems to be a need for standards on how content gets authored, published and syndicated on the second screen. Otherwise, the casualty in all this is the average TV viewer.

We need to, most importantly, figure out what YOU, the viewer, wants. To succeed, we need to all come together, share our learnings, try new things…or we all lose.

How The Future of Mobile Lies in the Developing World

Posted: 27 May 2012 02:26 PM PDT

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Editor's note: This guest post is written by Erica Kochi, the co-lead of Tech Innovation at UNICEF. Her team started UNICEF's open source RapidSMS platform which has been adopted in developing countries worldwide. She co-teaches a class "Design for Unicef" in NYU's ITP Program, and has lectured at Harvard, Yale, and Columbia University on leveraging technology and design to improve international development. All these views are her own.

In less than three decades, the mobile phone has gone from being a status symbol to being a ubiquitous technology that facilitates almost every interaction in our daily lives. One month after the world's population topped 7 billion in October 2011, the GSM Association announced that mobile SIM cards had reached 6 billion. A 2009 study in India illustrated that every 10 percent increase in mobile penetration leads to a 1.2 percent increase in GDP.

Yet patterns of mobile phone use in developing countries are vastly different from what you see on the streets of New York, San Francisco, and Berlin. This is a market underserved by technologists and startups. This is where the majority of future growth lies, and Silicon Valley has yet to realize the huge economic opportunities for network operators, handset developers, and mobile startups. Where are these opportunities?

Developing Countries are Powering the Growth

China and India account for the majority of new mobile connections, and in developing countries mobile saturation hasn't yet hit and is still experiencing double-digit growth.

This rapid growth most recently driven from the developing world is surprising when you consider that for the average mobile user, procuring the device costs a few months' salary. Sustaining this connection generates tremendous value and meets many user needs as they continue to invest often over 10 percent of their monthly income in staying connected.

The explosive growth of mobile in developing countries over the past five years is what prompted us at UNICEF to leverage mobile to strengthen our programmes in 190 countries and territories. Many of UNICEF's programmes now use mobiles for a variety of purposes. One program ensures that infants are tested for HIV and put on treatment if necessary. Another gathers direct feedback from communities on everything from water sanitation to access to essential medication.

Creativity Despite No Data

For those in Silicon Valley, it's hard to imagine that 70 percent of all handset shipments are feature phones. Most of these phones go to developing countries. The vast majority of the world, especially in low income and rural areas, is still living the mobile revolution through the constraints of voice, SMS and asynchronous connection.

These connectivity constraints fuel tremendous creativity. For many communities, simple voice and text connections have brought about revolutions in access to financial, health, agricultural and education services and opportunities for employment.  For example, many farmers in rural areas in Africa and Asia use SMS services to to find out the daily prices of prices of agricultural commodities. This information allows them to improve their bargaining position when taking their goods to market, and also allows them to switch between end markets.

Another successful example in this space is UNICEF's RapidSMS initiative: a scalable SMS-based open-source framework for dynamic data collection, logistics coordination and communication. UNICEF currently supports governments across six countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and over 200,000 RapidSMS users in some of the most underserved and rural communities. Frontline health workers who each serve hundreds of women and children make up many of these users. Success in this space is quantified by time, money and lives saved. It is widely used by governments and the international development community, and has also taken off in business communities. For example, in Ghana, a local entrepreneur uses RapidSMS to monitor the sales of cook stoves around the country.

Airtime is Cash

In many countries where the majority of people are unbanked, airtime has become another form of currency. Imagine you need to get a small amount of money to your sister who lives in a village that's ten hours drive away. The easiest way for you to do that is to buy some airtime, but instead of topping up your own prepaid mobile service you top up hers. For a small fee, she can now go and cash out this airtime with an agent that sells airtime.

M-PESA, a project out of Kenya that was initially set up to distribute micro-loans to and collect payments from the poorest rural communities of Kenya, has now become a large-scale multi-country mobile cash transfer system run by Safaricom in East Africa and Roshan in Afghanistan.

For many governments mobile money is a conundrum. They like that their citizens can access financial services that could significantly improve their lives. On the flip side, it can mean that mobile network operators and other mobile money service providers now operate and benefit from the revenue that normally would go to the central bank?

Challenges remain. The price points of using these services are still out of reach for the poorest communities. There are often too few agents to cash out airtime. People often don't understand or trust non-traditional forms of financial services.

Yet this creates a huge business opportunity. Even with all the network operators in this space, there are possibilities for a multitude of services that leverage mobile payments. To be able to successfully develop in this space, we need to better examine how people interact with money across the world and build applications that are flexible enough to be customized and be relevant to different cultural patterns.

In San Francisco you might pay your cab driver through his Square reader, but in Nairobi you'll send him some airtime.

A Phone for the Developing World

iPhones don't stand a chance due to their inflexibility and high price points. As it stands, the operating system for the developing world smartphone will be Android. However, even the flagship Samsung Galaxy Nexus isn't the ideal phone. The ideal smartphone will be:

1. Cheap. Last year, Huawei in partnership with Safaricom unveiled an $80 Android phone in Kenya where 40 percent of the population lives on less than $2 a day. At this year's Mobile World Congress the CEO's of Bharti Airtel, Telefonica Latin America and VimpelCom came out together and stated that $50 is the magic price point for smartphones to become more widely affordable in emerging economies.

2. Rugged and simple. The Nokia 1100 series is the most popular phone in the world. It is dust proof, water resistant, rugged, has a simple menu system, few separate parts and has a flashlight. Every town across the developing world has a local repair shop with spare parts for simple Nokias. When I travel to the developing world, I rely on my trusty Nokia 1100, not my iPhone. Smartphones are delicate creatures that don't stand up to the daily wear and tear of people's lives.

3. Battery life of a week. Recharging your phone every night is not an option if you live in a rural village without electricity. At one of UNICEF's projects in rural Senegal, I encountered a village entrepreneur who started a business where he would collect everyone's cell phones and for a small fee, bike to an electrified village a few hours away, then bike back with phones at full charge.

People in these countries spend a lot of money to keep their phones charged. Developing a phone whose battery lasts for a week would unlock smartphones to a large market segment.

Apps Optimized for Data Use

Data is as expensive in developing as in developed countries. Data is unlikely to fall in price as quickly as smartphones, so even when handsets get cheap enough for an average user in a developing country, they still won't be able to afford run many of the apps that make up the smartphone experience. There will be demand for apps – be it banking, weather, chat, social, and market information – but for them to take off it's crucial that they use as little bandwidth as possible. One feature to emulate is Android's Data Usage screen which allows you to set limits for data usage and makes it clear how much data you've used.

Call to Arms

The continued double digit growth of mobile in developing countries represents a tremendous business opportunity. While companies in Silicon Valley fight over trying to develop the top app in a certain category, huge untapped potential still remains in the developing world. Working in this space will require businesses to be able to think through the design of their applications from a different viewpoint. Their end users will have different motivations, experiences, needs and constraints. While handset manufacturers will need to build a phone whose battery lasts, app developers will need to build appropriate apps that use little bandwidth.

Photos under creative commons sharealike license by Merrick Schaefer, UNICEF; Jan Chipchase, frog; and Terra Weikel, UNICEF.

Video Highlights From Disrupt NY 2012 – Day 2 [TCTV]

Posted: 27 May 2012 01:00 PM PDT

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Continuing our trio of daily video highlights from Disrupt NY, Day 2 of the conference featured talks with Andreesen Horowitz’s Jeff Jordan, Sequoia’s Roelof Botha, and SV Angel’s Ron Conway. We also asked our Aol CEO Tim Armstrong some tough questions. Tuesday’s Battlefield competition included a startup trying to disrupt the dry cleaning business, a new way for musicians to collaborate and a neat 3D Modeling program in your browser.

Day 2 highlights can be viewed below. You can check out Day 1 highlights here and a Day 3 highlight post is coming soon.

More information about Tuesday’s highlights can be found in this articles:

Video Highlights From Disrupt NY 2012 – Day 1 [TCTV]

Posted: 27 May 2012 10:00 AM PDT

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Did you miss some of our NY Disrupt conference this week? Or want to watch it again? TechCrunch Disrupt and our Hackathon provided more than 30 hours of demos, interviews, panel discussions, and Battlefield competition. Sure, you can spend the holiday weekend watching all of it. But, we’ve also put together daily video highlights that we will be publishing in a trio of posts today.

The player below shows some of the favorite moments from Monday, Day 1 of the conference, including some surprises from VC Fred Wilson, Fab.com and Tumblr. Monday’s Battlefield presentations included the first public preview from the Disrupt Cup winner and runner-up.

For more context, here are some of the posts from Monday:

Hackathon

All our Hackathon videos from Sunday can be found here.

Disrupt Music

Can’t get that Disrupt music out of your head? You can listen to and download the tracks below:

Our music was provided by New Zealand-based Smith and Keats.

Disrupt Photos

You can find hundreds of photos from the event at the TechCrunch Flickr Photostream.
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