Live Video Game Streaming is the new Sports and Television rolled into one

In the early 1700s, Gin consumption in London went through the roof, with the advent of the Industrial Age.
In the late 1900s, people started watching Television, on an average 20 hours per week, with the advent of the Information Age.
Today, live video streaming is watched by 100 million unique viewers, each month, with each person watching an average 106 minutes daily, in Twitch, as billions of people in the planet are being connected digitally.
While Clay Shirky and others, would argue how this is a bad trend for Society using his cognitive surplus lens, I was more interested in the question:
Why would someone spend hours and hours watching other people play video games?

Jimmy Kimmel who was not born digital like me, compares this trend to “going to a restaurant and having someone eat your food for you” and was met with a barrage of angry responses, including the above sensible one.
“Think of eSports as a professional sport league for video games. It has become one of the fastest growing sports in the world.” According to NewZoo, the eSports Global Audience is projected to exceed 427 million by 2019. These pro-gamers amaze their fans with their awe-inspiring moves just like professional athletes.” writes Christopher Dawson of CNN.
Ok. It is the new Sports.
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From the 1960s till today, Television is the most popular and watched medium on the Planet, despite the Internet and Blockbuster movies.
When my daughter who was born digital (and pretty good in academics), would spend hours and hours watching Minecraft YouTube videos and moved to watching live games on Twitch, I got seriously worried.
My daughter chuckled as she pointed out how cool it was to interact not just with others, but with the streamer who is playing the game.
There are approximately 60 genres and sub-genres of video games, from action to Horror and it is evolving into new genres, unimagined before.
I am imagining, one day I would be able to interact with Dr. Gregory House, as he plays in House X and interacts to my question live on this media, with the response, “I was right”.
How cool, that experience would be? We are just at the beginning of this new Art.
Of course, with any new affordance, one needs to have self-control. Just like we did not become a species of gin drinking drunkards, we will learn the discipline.
When I mentioned on passing to my daughter, I might have seen a certain redhead while visiting an SFO office. She squealed in delight and had an expression of reverence. “Ah! You saw Aureylian!!! Really….”.

That was exactly the feeling I had, when I met with the great John Hagel couple of years back.

The tale of the Two Televisions

When Television was first introduced, it unsurprisingly resembled the Radio. It took a while, until TV started exploiting the visual nature of the medium.

As we watch TV whenever we want to and in any device, experts talked about the emergence of a converged omni-platform Television experience.

But, instead of converging, there seems to be indications of divergence i.e., into two televisions, i.e., Weekly TV, also known as the Linear TV and the new streaming TV or the Holiday TV aka Binge TV.

Netflix, which is becoming more and more like HBO these days, as content owners no longer undervalue their catalog and Amazon, who integrated the premium channels into their Streaming Partners program, lead the Holiday TV camp.

The Networks, have the unique opportunity to play in both Weekly TV and Holiday TV.

The MVPDs are at an inflection point, to retain the Weekly TV. If they got their act together, they have the unique opportunity to transform into a video experience provider which will remove the discovery pain, experience and engagement of subscribers.

Here are characteristics of the "Two Televisions":

Live TV Nano Sharing and the art of Consumer Scale

I wrote a post on Nano sharing about 5 years back. It seems to have finally come of age, for Television.

Whipclip, with its unicorn-like valuation, ushers in, the brave new era of TV clip sharing, one more time! But will it deliver?

One can share clips of the favorite moments, of their favorite TV Show, on Live TV, with a mobile app.

Sounds great in theory. But, will it cross the chasm and propel forward, in a "consumer scale" adoption trajectory.

Fred Wilson says, "Mobile does not reward feature richness. It rewards small, application specific, feature light services".

While you are watching Television, you sure could multi-task, like messaging a buddy, but would you be able to talk on the phone, while watching your favorite TV Show simultaneously?

No. It is impossible to do another "foreground task", while watching Television and enjoy both.

The Clip Sharing app makers out there, don't get this and provide a beautiful and easy-to-use editing interface to share your favorite clip and expect it to  follow a "Consumer Scale" adoption trajectory.

What? You are expecting me to mute Television and share the present moment, while I miss the next great moment. Or have an earphone ready to review the clip which is going to be shared. 

No way, this model will become consumer scale. Some are quick, to point out the distinction between clip curators and clip watchers. 

But, clip curators, as long as they are amateurs, would not want to review clips either, while enjoying live television.

The simplistic solution of "One Touch Sharing" would not work, without understanding the contextual difficulties of determining what portion of the clip that you are watching and what moment precisely, you are interested in sharing. 

That is the $100 M question.

These are very hard problems, which can be solved algorithmically though. The Victor who would achieve a "consumer scale" adoption trajectory is not the app with the "rich features" but the one, with "algorithmic clip sharing" solving the pivotal problem of determining, what precisely the user wants to share, making the sharing process super simple.

Bring it on. 

Image Courtesy: Five ways to build a $100 M Business

From Television to Tele-Nimus-Vision

Today, TV Shows are consumed increasingly in multiple devices, ranging from Television sets, to Tablets, PC/laptops and the Smartphone, rather than just the Television set.

However, TV Shows are exactly the same in each of these devices and do not exploit the unique characteristics of these devices.

When Television started, its programming were simply radio programs reformatted for television. It wasn’t until the 1950s, that they figured out, how to exploit the visual medium.

Similarly, we are in the cusp of a omni platform TV show experience. In order to predict how the omni-platform

experience would shape up, we need to look at the different devices, from a video perspective.

The Television set is largely a family device, where long-form videos are watched passively at home, programmed by the Television Networks.

Tablets and PC/laptops are both interactive personal devices, where both short form and mid-form videos are watched in a semi-active fashion, i.e., by both searching and social media, primarily at home.

The Smartphone is a personal device, where short videos are watched passively, programmed largely by Social Media, while on-the-go.

The main change in the television set, would be the Remote Control. It would become more user-friendly, to match the similar expectations of todays’ mobile devices.

Social Television came before its time. Interactive Television, as well, came before its time, to the wrong device. Now with OTT possibilities, it is going to be reborn especially for the Tablets and PC/laptops, to exploit the interactive nature of these devices. Co-watching the same TV Show, with others who are not in the same place, regardless of whether it is on-demand or live, would become the norm. Another feature would be that, users would provide “hot links”, for all things, people, clothes and other objects of interest on the screen, for others. One could enable/disable a chat mode along with enabling/disabling display of “hot links”.

Smart phones would have the ability to skim TV shows, to catch-up and refresh TV shows. Thus, just like TV branched off, from Radio, TV would evolve into an omni platform, I call it the “Tele-Nimus-Vision”, nimus being a latin word for interact.

Who is going to execute the “Tele-Nimus-Vision” among the virtual MVPDs? Sony, Verizon, Dish or is it a hot new startup?

The "However much" Video Watching Pattern

We could watch TV Shows whenever aka Tivo, whatever aka VOD, wherever, in your living room or outside home, however, with your TV, laptop, Tablets or Phones.

Netflix ushered in the Binge TV Show watching trend, when people started to watch multiple episodes of "House of Cards", in one sitting.

When Television was first introduced, its programs unsurprisingly resembled the Radio Show format. Similarly, at the present time, TV shows watched in the TV has the same experience as watching in other devices, such as the Tablet and Phone.

In the coming years, some say, we are headed to a omni-platform experience, just like TV emerged away from Radio.

I see the emergence of such a omni-platform experience clearly. For instance, mobile devices are not naturally conducive for Binge-watching. 

Skimo is natural for "catching up" TV shows in your mobile device especially using your phone.

So, we choose a device based on "however much" we would like to watch, a summary of an episode or an entire season of a TV Show, in one sitting.

Thus, the omni-platform experience, would likely be shaped by this "however much" trend.

Get back the Keys to your digital life

Is your home's front door keys, always available, to all your extended family and 'friends', that you haven't met in years?   No.

Does your Kindergarten classmate, who you barely meet in person, come in to your house, when you are away and peruse your photo albums and home video, just because they are bored? Probably not.

But, that is exactly, what is happening in our digital lives. When we share pictures and video to our "friends", it is available to them forever, to do whatever they want, whenever they want and we rely on their honor code, rather than on an explicit social contract.

"Why should people 'own' my video or photo?  asks Saranya. Why can't I share access to my photos and videos, when I want to, to whom I want to and for how long?"

That question set me thinking. If you are buying a TV Show in iTunes, you don't 'own' the content, you are merely given access to watch it, in the ways, that they support.... and you cannot download a YouTube Video without violating terms of use.

If that is the case with corporations, why should we hand our, keys to our digital life, to all our 'friends', giving them unlimited access and license. This is precisely the root cause of the "Randi Zuckerberg" incident.

When you create a 20 minute video of your kids' birthday party, let a program magically create a summary of that video and share a minute video synopsis in Facebook, to your friends, accessible during that week/day and not forever. But, your mom could access the complete video, whenever she wants to, from your Dropbox.

Share access to the Video/Photo, not the Video/Photo itself. Let Social media, give back the keys, to our digital life, so that we not only control access as to who gets in, but when they get in and for how long?

Urgent Now for Entertainment

Over lunch, I was narrating to a buddy, a hilarious episode of a show, that I watched on TV, the previous night.

I went on and on about,  how hilarious  the episode was...how the "gang" tries desperately... going through sewage... pretending to be a boat tour guide...just to watch a movie.

My friend could not wait and his hands went instinctually to the Mobile and he started his Google Search. After some time, he watched a youtube promo.

The TV Show promo says "Kitten Mittens"and my friend looks at me quizzically.

"No, the episode I am talking about is fantastic. It is nothing like this commercial. Go home and watch it on Hulu or Netflix."

While it is possible to Google Now for information, there is no affordance to "sample" video here and now, so that people can get introduced to awesome shows, catch up on past episodes, re-watch interesting portions of the "Soup Nazi".

...until now.