As I started writing down my thoughts on how I spent my Christmas vacation, this headline was added to my newsfeed. Netflix and LG are teaming up to build another set-top box designed to bring web video to the livingroom.
Joining the ranks of Slingbox, AppleTV and others, the duo intend to let subscribers watch movies streamed directly from the Web to their TVs. What does this have to do with my vacation?
I spent a large amount of time doing just that. Watching movies (and the first season of Heroes) on my television, in my living room, through my surround sound receiver, using Netflix’s “Watch Instantly” feature. And it didn’t cost me $299 or $399 for a box. In fact, all I used was my plain old video card that didn’t cost me anything ($50 w/ $50 rebate nVidia 7600).
Now not everyone has a PC that is close enough to their TV or receiver to pull this off. But for roughly the same price as one of these boxes, you can have a HTPC (home theater PC), not just for streaming, but for your edited home movies, other video content you’ve downloaded, and still have plenty of hard drive space for backing up your entire MP3 collection, and listening to your favorite tunes in the whole house as well.
I compared episodes of Heroes streamed from Netflix with those available from NBC’s site and found the quality to be significantly better at full screen with Netflix. Additionally, content from Netflix is ad-free, thanks to my monthly subscription. This proved to be a benefit of course, but slightly differently than I expected.
The ad experience on NBC - large format, interactive rich media - automatically takes their player out of “full screen mode,” as well as requiring user input to resume. Without a wireless mouse, that means getting up off the sofa to maximize your browser and player, as well as clicking “continue” to get back to your program.
Real convergence, which the consumer electronics industry has been touting for years, doesn’t occur until you can truly lean back and enjoy the experience with a minimum of additional accessories required. While hardly a big deal, this was the first time that I’ve compared identical content in both a “lean forward” and “lean back” experience and discovered, specifically, how differences in the ad experience (not just the quality of the stream) impacts the overall experience.
I also began to question the value of “engagement” as a metric for measuring ad effectiveness within long-form content. For 30-seconds, I was forced into a “Punch the Monkey” style advergame from a leading cell phone provider. Yes, while watching Heroes on my PC, I threw some of those snowballs at my opponent while I waited for the countdown to hit ‘0,’ but when I watched on the “big screen,” I would have preferred a straight forward mid-roll ad. Something that didn’t require me to get off the sofa. Besides, does playing a branded advergame that is forced upon you for 30-seconds really mean anything when it comes to choosing a cell phone provider? I’d like to know how many of those impressions spent more than the required :30 seconds with the brand.
But I digress. With all of the choices available on how to consume your video content, there is going to be a tremendous battle over delivery and monetization strategies. My conclusion is nothing original. Content is still king. The challenge will be for the distributors and syndicators who will need to detect not just what platform you are on (PC vs. Set-top vs. mobile vs. small screen vs. big screen) and deliver the best ad experience possible. The big winner is the user, who has more than enough choices on when, where and how to watch.
