Social TV Summit: Recap and Video Highlights

The 2011 Social TV Summit, organized by interactive industry veteran Andy Batkin and sponsored by Jack MyersMedia Business Report,represented a coming out party for a Social TV business that I project will generate $8 to $12 billion in revenues by 2020. Held at the Bel-Air Country Club on July 20, the sold-out event was streamed live at www.MediaBizBloggers.com with video clips tweeted and available for view at Snappy TV and my Twitter feed. 

As Batkin noted in his opening remarks, the key theme of the Summit was to discuss and explore how social media is affecting the way we view content, and how this trend will develop in the next five to 10 years. As I noted in my opening remarks, transformative periods like the industrialization of America just over 100 years ago, tend to last around 30 years. The first 15 years are devoted to invention, while the second are more focused on implementation. The current digital transformation started with the introduction of the Mosaic Browser in 1993, and while there will be advances in digital developments, we are now in a period of application, implementation, monetization and evaluation. Most importantly, the generation born after 1993 is using digital technologies primarily for socialization, and their influence is an unstoppable force that will impact all media, especially television.

Here are some of the highlights from the Summit, including links to short video clips.

What does it mean for content to be really social? Christy Tanner from TV Guide Digital sees a lot of content that we throw around socially on Twitter or Facebook, but she doesn't see that as truly social content.

How content itself could become more social was one of the underlying themes of the entire Summit. Adrienne McCallister from GoogleTV offered up a future where viewers could choose from thousands, even millions, of channels, including a "Channel of You" to watch and share with others.

However, the bread and butter of Social TV came down to the vision put forth by Somrat Niyogi, CEO of Miso. His model focused on the second screen experience, where a viewer uses either a tablet or smartphone to get more content in real time about what they're watching. Niyogi noted that it all comes down to whether we want to make Social TV about discovery (more related content) or simply sharing (connecting content).

But there's another very important element to Social TV that's not about discovery or sharing—it's about content's lifeline. Tunerfish CEO John McCrea pointed out that Social TV is at the forefront of how to keep content alive. It can quickly and relatively accurately connect viewers to content that they'll actually like. Tunerfish is a venture owned by Comcast.

Christy Tanner backed him up by pulling in the statistic that 66% of people share what they're watching on TV because they want to keep it on the air. From the viewer-network perspective, it's a poignant reversal of the power dynamics in the relationship.

Social TV even goes one step further because it can get viewers engaged with a program that they previously had no idea even existed. Networks are loving GetGlue and its check-in feature, which is basically a way to share what kind of content you're currently into. Networks can reward fans for checking-in by giving them premium content, which makes them feel exclusive and creates greater awareness. As the CEO of GetGlue, Alex Iskold cheerfully explained why checking-in is so magical.

Ajay Shah, CEO of TVplus, isn't looking for magic at all. Instead he's looking for that "connective tissue" between all those devices people are simultaneously using to view and find content.

Shah finally found that bridge when he noticed that TV doesn't rot your brain, but rather actually makes you think. With so many questions, people stop watching TV and instead go to their smartphone to get the answers. For Shah, this makes Social TV all about capitalizing on that curiosity, and connecting a great source of demand with a great supply.

But now here's the real question. While Jerry Maguire didn't pop out from behind the podium and run around the room yelling "Show me the money!", that was essentially on everybody's mind. How to monetize and accurately value this new platform is still a question that needs answering.

Andrew Schneider, president & co-founder of Live Gamer, and Shiv Singh, Head of Digital at PepsiCo, shared some key insights that hopefully will shed some light on how to solve the monetization issue. Gaming companies' online models are the roadmap for how to provide free content while still making money. While the gaming content itself is free, 10%-15% of users will pay for that extra item or hidden treasure, which isn't fundamentally necessary to play the game. The market for these digital goods came out to an astounding $13 billion for this year alone. As Schneider explained, this model is successful because social status plays the same role even in the digital world, and artificial scarcity can play a huge part in creating demand. Digital goods form only a tiny part of the overall gaming content, but they support the entire market and allow 90% of users to consume for free.

Singh made several very insightful points, but two of them were particularly noteworthy. First, he pointed out that no one really has any idea what the true value is of the trillions of impressions that people share, and neither does anyone really know how to measure that value. How much value does a "Like" on Facebook actually have? How do you compare impressions across platforms, such as a Facebook Like to a re-tweeted message?

Second, Singh reminded us that in the huge sea of social content and sharing, brands and networks don't really know anything about the people checking-in or sharing their content. As panel moderator Cory Bergman from Lost Remote mentioned, engagement is an entirely new metric for TV ratings. Without an engagement metric, a network wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a fan who watches a program and falls asleep, and a fan who tweets every five minutes about what they're watching. Without knowing more about the people who consume and share content, Singh bet that Social TV would only get as far as becoming a "niche, cute experimental play."

In a well-received research panel, Deb Roy ofBluefin Labs, Mark Ghuneim of Trendrr and Matt Wiggins of What's Watched shared details on how television and social engagement research are intersecting and new metrics are available that respond to Singh's concerns. Singh encouraged social content platforms to start thinking more like brands, moving away from thinking about impressions to concentrating on brand equity and health.

So where is Social TV heading? Niyogi has huge expectations for the next five years,but he also has relatively significant reservations about sharing content as well.

Maybe the most enlightening comment about the future of Social TV actually looks to the past. Terry Kawaja of Luma Partners sees Social TV as a way to bring back our natural social tendencies. Human beings are social creatures, but recently TV has pulled us apart and closed out that part of us. It's only right that human nature take its place in the digital world as well.

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