Video Breakthroughs

It seems that technology triggers are often accompanied by the hype of future potential benefits, while the real value is elusive and slower to appear than industry journalists, analysts, or pundits would like, but I am going to lay out 10 scenarios that will develop in this still nascent industry during 2013 :

1.  The "digital land grab" continues, marked by consolidation, failure, and improved user experiences.

2.  Social feeds will be a feature, not the experience.

3.  "Discovery" will become a household word.

4.  Tablet and smartphone usage reports will become about activities related to the TV.

5.  Studios and networks save money, apps grow in 2 directions.

6.  Gamification will begin to lose favor with the press and consumers, only to begin to add value again towards the end of 2013.

7.  Amazon and Ebay will engage in a battle for the Second Screener's M-Commerce.

8.  Cloud-based digital lockers will finally be taken seriously by consumers and the rest of the ecosystem.

9.  Device makers will jump into second screen with both feet.

10.  ACR and the battle of the digital video ecosystems.

As LG launches the first next-generation Google TV sets, how well is Google positioned for the future of television?

The Internet giant has a longstanding strategy to extend its domain from PCs to other devices, particularly mobiles and also TV sets. For television, this would bring both its search service and YouTube’s content to smart TVs and thereby grow new revenue streams from the main screen in consumers’ homes.

Television sets powered by the Google Android operating system give the company a new distribution channel, in addition to mobile, for premium content from its Google Play apps and entertainment store (formerly Android Market).

Two other elements to the strategy are developing professional-quality content for YouTube and attracting more users to the Google+ social network, which is being enhanced with a video chat and broadcasting feature, Google Hangouts.

When vendors and industry executives go to a show like CES, none of them seem to be satisfied to talk about what they are doing now. Almost always, they want to talk about the future and something more exciting and for this year, it’s all about 4K. All week we’ve seen companies talking about the role HEVC plays with 4K, improved compression, higher-quality video and hardware devices that will be able to decode and playback 4K content. While it all sounds exciting, the reality is, no one is discussing the business models around 4K streaming and the fact that for most, the economics of delivering 4K content don’t work.