LIVEdigitally

Back on the wagon/horse?

Posted on January 16, 2019 by Jeremy Toeman

Haven’t written a blog post since 2016, which is a near-eternity in the modern era. As much as there was no particular reason I stopped, man is it hard to restart. I’ve literally been wanting to write the entire time, but sitting here typing is a totally different thing. In fact I have no agenda to this post, and am treating it as a stream-of-consciousness.

That said, I have decided that I should feel comfortable putting anything I want on this blog, be it personal journey (hello!), product/technology commentary & opinions, thoughts on product management & strategy, etc. I think one central theme I’d like to write more about is innovation as a mindset. But I’ll also dabble on anything from family/living/social commentary (I pledge to keep as far away from politics as I can). Hope that works out. One of my goals is a high level of transparency, dabbling on over-sharing vs under.

I do realize how daunting it is to write. Even now I’m not 100% sure I’ll hit the Publish button. Here are some of the concerns I have:

Why bother? Seriously, there’s SO much content out there, does the world need one more thing to read? I can just keep these oh-so-witty moments to myself. But I’ll try not to!
I may fall off the horse/wagon (seriously, which is it?) again. Sometimes the hardest part of losing a good habit is the effort to just get back to where you started. And the idea of doing this haphazardly is tough for me – I prefer to get into a good routine and commit. The challenge with blogging is I either write a bunch of posts and don’t publish, or I run the risk of giving it up again. Going to have to go with the latter.
Is it worth the time? Beyond the why bother remark, if I spend, say, 15-30m per day writing, is that the “best” use of that time? Hard to say, and hard to even evaluate what that might mean. Writing along might contribute to happiness/etc, so even if nobody’s reading, the process might be worth the journey. I’ll take a shot.
Making it look good is much harder/time-consuming. Sometimes I just want to write, but “best practices” would say to edit, to find a good picture to go with the post, properly tagging the post, cross-posting to medium/linkedin/etc, etc. For now I’ll skip the “extra work” part until I am in a good rhythm with it, then re-evaluate.
Lack of interaction will be defeating. In a bit of a chicken-and-egg moment, since I haven’t been regular, I have, effectively, no readers to engage with. So I have to pre-commit to the deafening silence for now, and see what happens.
Avoiding judgment. I think the biggest concern overall is whatever personal brand-building this results in. Do I look better, or worse? Smarter, or dumber? I’ve certainly made some very wrong projections before, but a few right ones as well. And does it even really matter? Hard to tell, but I’m going to just have to jump off the diving board and see what happens.

So there we are. Welcome to 2019, and hopefully I’ll be back as soon as tomorrow, but realistically just before 2021 would be good enough for now.

11 Tips for Startups Pitching Big Companies

Posted on April 28, 2016 by Jeremy Toeman

pitch Pitching – it’s an art and a science, a love and a hate, an up and a down (wait, what? get on with it? oh, okay, sorry)…

I spent most of the past 20 years on the sell-side of things, whether to VCs, partners, customers, etc. I learned a lot. As I near my 1-year anniversary at CNET/CBS, I’m getting pitched a lot. And I’m seeing startup after startup making the same mistakes. So I wanted to reflect on and share some of the experiences I’ve had being on the “other side” of the pitch.

So, to my friends and colleagues at startups, in no particular order, here are thoughts, tips, and suggestions on how you can get better results from your efforts:

Know. Your. Target.
We had a startup in here the other day who clearly had not researched CNET. In fact, I’d wager they hadn’t even visited the site for 5 minutes. So we wasted at least 1/4 of the time with their founder taking us down utterly irrelevant paths. If you cannot tell me why you are a fit for my needs, you are wasting both of our time.
Learn the basics of how my business works
Same startup as above, literally had no idea how we make money. No idea. It’s fine if you don’t know all the nuances of my business, but at least have a rough guess. If unclear, then ask me via email before you show up, so you are ready to fit by the time we are chatting.
Understand our time, use it well
You have 30 minutes (occasionally 60) to get me hooked on whatever you’ve got. And there’s decent odds that, no matter how much I philosophically hate being late for things, I may be showing up late (apologies in advance). So you should come into the meeting knowing exactly how we’ll spend that time, what you hope to get out of it, what you hope I get out of it, etc. Granted this should be de rigeur for all meetings, but I’d recommend getting it to perfection before you show up. If we’re 8 minutes into our time and I still don’t know what you do, at all, it ain’t good.
Don’t re-use your fundraising pitch/story
I understand that having so-and-so on your board is great when you hit Sand Hill Road. Or that your CTO collaborated with whatshername on that last venture of theirs. But that’s 100% utterly irrelevant to my business needs. Further, I don’t necessarily care that the market opportunity for you is unicorn-like. Fundraising and sales/BD are similar, in that you pitch, but different, in that our needs and motivation are not shared. Bottom line: drop the SV jargon when pitching business opportunities.
Skip the Jargon; Use vocabulary that I’ll understand
And while we’re at it, think very carefully about the terminology you are using. The reality check is most business professionals are paying little-to-no attention on the nuances that impact startups, modern tech, or Silicon Valley trends. We also might not know all the acronyms related to your particular niche/industry. One of your key goals is that I can go tell your story the moment you leave my office. You want me going to my team/peers/boss explaining how much we’ll benefit because of you. So if you confuse/bewilder me with insider talk, rest assured I’ll leave the meeting confused and unable to share your vision.
Also, skip the “tech basics”
We had someone in a recent demo show us how QR codes worked. Literally pulled out their phone, took a picture, showed a website. Unless you are the QR app company, you don’t need to show us this (nor how email works, browsers, etc). Not only are you wasting your time, and effectively talking down to us, you are also creating additional risk in case something doesn’t work (because it’s a demo, something will not work). If I want to see the demo of the QR scan, I’ll ask for it. Again, don’t confuse this with not showing me your core benefits, just we can take for granted the basics of it.
Something won’t work. Be ready.
It’s awful, for both sides, when demos break. First, keep in mind that we want your demo to work out great. We want to be impressed with your tech/app/service. We might be skeptical, but are actually hoping you will help us save time/money/whatever. So if your demo craps out in the middle, that’s fine, but be instantly ready to go with either a slide/diagram/video or just even talking us through what would happen in a successful demo.
Don’t ask Mom if Dad says no!
Had someone come in, pitch, and I politely declined. A week later, one of my peers emails me about the same company. So now we’ve had oodles of wasted time, and you still are not a fit for my needs. Only now, I’m about 1000% less open to you coming back in in a few months with a new option/service. We may be a big company, but we do talk. You are welcome to ask me if I think a different department would be interested – because if I think so, I’d happily send you on that way. Remember, if you are truly solving our problems, we are truly interested in you.
Keep your videos short and/or email me videos separate to our meeting
I watched a founder push play on a YouTube demo of their tech. It was a 9 minute video. I lasted 90 seconds before I asked them to cut to the chase and email it to me later. Remember the part about using time wisely? Send me your 9 minute video to watch later, or share internally with other decision-makers. But use our in-person time for interactive discussion and to understand the opportunity. “Netflix and chill” doesn’t work out so well in the office.
Don’t Multitask
While one of the founders was sharing the vision, I was listening to the cofounder clickety-clacking on their keyboard – and rest assured they were not taking notes. I don’t think I need to say any more on this one.
Most Importantly: Be a square peg in a square hole.
Every time I hear a startup founder complain about how they keep getting bounced around departments. While its fair that sometimes this is BigCo’s fault – it’s just as much your fault. What your lesson should be from the bouncing is “you are not fitting into their process” which can easily kill a great potential deal. Some products/technologies are easy and obvious fits. Some are not. It’s your job to make your solution an obvious fit.

Easy tip here: the very first time someone bounces you, take 5 more minutes to understand the wider organization.It may well be that at company X its a marketing decision and at company Y its a product decision. But that’s a solvable problem. When I was running Dijit, it was “obvious” that TV companies could benefit from having audiences get automatic reminders to watch their shows. But it was far from obvious as to which department at each network was in charge of something like this. Social? Marketing? Reach? Audience Development? So we put in a process that had us uncover this information prior to any in-person meetings. No more bouncing.

I hope these are helpful to any startup trying to get traction – I know it’s hard. Remember to focus on the audience, share your passion, and hopefully great things will happen!

CES 2016: A New Role

Posted on January 4, 2016 by Jeremy Toeman

My first CES was in 1999, with Mediabolic (a software platform for consumer electronics devices). Unfortunately due to age and data loss, I have no real nor digital memories of that particular trip, other than “learning experience.”

For the next few years CES trips were all about networking, demos, meetings, demos, walking the show, demos, events, demos, press briefings, demos, and, of course, the occasional demo. The two key highlights of these years, in no particular order:

(1) Photobombing Snoop Dogg in 2002

and

(2) Winning Best of CES in 2004

Good times. The next two years at the show were for Sling Media, where I spent the shows demoing, networking, demoing, doing press events, demoing, in meetings, and, of course, demoing. I again won a Best of CES award at the show (in 2005, demoing at a booth the size of my desk, in a tent in the LVCC parking lot, during the rain), and I was in full love with the annual event. I even put together my first batch of “Tips for CES” posts.

Rich Buchanan (RIP) setting up the CES 2006 Sling Media booth

From 2007-2011, my attendance of the show shifted, from being at a company (doing demos), to running booths and media events for multiple companies, all clients of Stage Two (the product and marketing consultancy I ran with Adam Burg for 4 years). Instead of doing insane amounts of demos, I helped orchestrate numerous other products and launches at the show. Our presence included: Bug Labs (won another Best of CES award!), Boxee, Splashtop, TuneUp Media, PogoPlug, Magisto, Sphero (pre-BB8!), and others. The experience was quite different, still very cool. More CES survival tips. Some highlight moments:

He said some wonderful things

Team Stage Two

Yada Yada Yada

It’s a Loose (Digital) Seal

Trifecta!

From 2012-2014, my role at CES shifted yet again, this time as CEO of Dijit Media. Over these years I spent a collective 15 or so minutes actually on the show floor, the rest of the time in meetings. 7am to 7pm, then social events with partners, vendors, customers, etc. A very different kind of exhausting, but still loving the CES!

Huge Limo Ride

What Happens In Vegas… ?

Look ma, a Xyboard!

And now as the year kicks off, I prep to fly into Las Vegas and descend upon the madness of #CES2016. Only this time I’m doing it with CNET, the largest tech media company at the show! In fact, this year I’ve worked with my stellar team to get our dedicated CES section into great shape. While I know it’s going to be crazy busy, it’s also oddly calming to have most of my CES work already “in the can” (as they say “in the biz”).

I have no idea what this experience will be like, but I’m extremely honored and excited to be a part of it!

Everything I Learned (So Far) Working For a Huge Company

Posted on December 15, 2015 by Jeremy Toeman

More people work on the same floor as me than at any individual company I’ve worked at before. More people work for CNET than the cumulative sum of all my prior endeavors. To say my (not-so) new job is a different environment would be quite the understatement. And while I haven’t managed to get back on the blogging train, I can say, in a nutshell, I’m loving it.

It seems this journey of “startup to big company guy, and happy” is the less-common one these days. But last week I hit the six month mark, and thought it was a good time to reflect and share my learnings and observations thus far.

Bureaucracy: Not Actually Everywhere
Probably my #1 fear going into joining CBS (parent company of CBS Interactive, parent company of CNET, etc) was the notion that I’d have to put in triple the work to get the same kind of output. TPS reports, etc. And sure, there are approval processes for many things, but I’ve yet to find something radically get in my way of doing my job.
Startup Thinking is Alive and Well
Growth Hacking? A/B Testing? Cohorts? Check Check Check – we’ve got em. Fail fast? On it. Basically there’s a tremendous energy to go out, solve problems, build great products, etc. I think the biggest difference is the reality check of being a very established company that makes a lot of money, which leads me to…
Mo (Any) Money, More Problems
Because so much of the things that happen at CNET already work, and work well, it can be challenging at times to want to push the envelope. I recently conducted an A/B test on a thing, and I had to face the challenge of knowing that, regardless of outcome, it could impact revenue/profits. Which makes me think much harder about when and where are the right times to do a test, what are the business / product / user consequences, etc. I don’t think of this as a bad thing (at all), but adds a new dimension to a lot of decision making.
Status Quo is an Enemy
The other hidden challenge in a successful company is people get set into routines, and there’s not enough “Why?” being asked. Which leads to all sorts of nuanced inefficiencies in how we do things, such as the “too many people in too many meetings without clear agendas, goals, etc” types of problems. But there’s an upside…
Change is Very Possible
The upside is a lot of openness to improving process, eliminating redundancies, speeding up flow, and more, across the organization. I obviously am not speaking to all big companies at this point, but at CBSi there’s a clear and obvious desire to improve anywhere and anytime. I believe the management here is very well-attuned to not resting on laurels, and instead aggressively chartering a path forward.
A Different Kind of Busy
I fundamentally believe most people at most jobs are pretty busy – I’ve never considered myself not busy in the past. But my job now has me ending the day feeling like I actually do a lot more than I have in many previous roles. Not sure if this is simply a matter of the increased scale of the product itself, or bigger org, or what, but instead of avoiding afternoon caffeine for insomnia issues, now I’m seeking it out to recharge the batteries to get through the day (in a good way). It’s a hard nuance to describe, as I don’t feel negatively “worn down” from work, but more like I’ve just expended a lot of energy to get a lot of things done. Also, I’m having a much harder time keeping my inbox in my comfort zone, though I’m still not drowning.
Having Resources is Awesome
At a startup, if you want to to analyze stats, or run a usertesting analysis, or plan a CES visit, or any other project that isn’t necessarily core to you, but isn’t core to anyone else either, pretty much you just roll up the sleeves and get it done. Having teams of people, who are experts at what they do, available to get things accomplished, is just amazing. Not only do I use my time more effectively, the work itself is done at a very high quality.
Welcome to the Show
Between products like the Slingbox, Dropcam, Boxee, VUDU, NextGuide, and others, I’ve built a lot of things that a lot of people have used – which is nice. But at CNET I’m running a website that measures up in the billions of things. Most of America has visited CNET at some point this year. It’s insane. That rush I used to get watching a new site launch is just dwarfed by the scale here. And it’s a blast, as a product guy it’s as if I’ve been given the world’s largest toy to go play with. And that’s exactly what I’m doing. It’s also kind of fun to be able to say you work for the biggest tech site in the world!

So, for the myriads of examples people have about how much inertia, slow-moving, politicalness and other challenges the aircraft carriers face, I’m thrilled that I’ve instead found myself at a gigantic speedboat. I’ve had a ton of fun with tweaks all across CNET.com itself, not to mention spearheading some new storytelling formats (like we used on our amazing Q&A with John Boyega from the new Star Wars movie), building new interactivity into our annual Holiday Gift Guide, some major new things for CNET in 2016 (our CES coverage is going to be insane), and my one more thing: the right-around-the-corner launch of our new amazing auto site: Roadshow.

And I’m Back…

Posted on June 8, 2015 by Jeremy Toeman

backbaby Remember that time when I implied I was going on some kind of long break and/or walkabout? Yeah, well, that’s over, because today I’m joining CBS Interactive to run Product for CNET! #Awesome

As I pondered my next steps in my life/career, I spent some time reflecting on where I’ve come, what I’ve learned, and the road ahead. Of my 20 years in the workforce…

I’ve spent 10 running my own ventures, 10 working for other people
- 14 years working with less than 10 people
- 19 years working with less than 100 people
- 8 years consulting
- 12 years in entertainment/media
- 11 years in consumer electronics
I’ve founded the following startups
- Focus Consulting (1996, sold in 1998)
- Palmtastik (1997, closed in 1999)
- Mediabolic (1999, sold to Rovi in 2006)
- Stage Two Consulting (2006, sold in 2011)
- Legacy Locker (2008, sold to PasswordBox in 2013, sold to Intel in 2014)
- Nudgemail (2010, still running)
- Dijit Media (re-founded in 2012, sold to Viggle in 2014)
I was one of the very first employees at Sling Media (VP Products, sold to DISH in 2007)
I’ve spent all but 7 years directly responsible for cash flow, payroll, etc

So when it was time to consider, “what’s next???” the first major decision I had to make was – startup or not? And as I reviewed the above list, and realized how much more I have yet to learn, I decided that “not startup” was the right answer for me. So then what?

What DO I want to learn/do? In no particular order, here’s what matters most to me (not including some basic Maslow-ish needs of remaining local to SF, working with amazing teams, etc):

I want to continue working in a Product role/capacity – I really enjoy building stuff (probably why I kept all my Lego bricks from my childhood)
I want to continue working in a consumer/media segment – My lofty goal of “make tech easier for my mom to use” remains.
I want to work on products that are used by *huge* quantities of people – I’ve built products in use by the low millions – I want to up the ante and take on a bigger challenge.
I want to work with teams where I can learn new skills, as well as continue mentoring people who work for me – never stop learning!

I first met Jim Lanzone (CEO/President of CBS Interactive) when he was gearing up to launch Clicker. Two things created an instant bond: our mutual abilities to quote Fletch, and our love and belief in making great products. Over the years we’ve stayed in close touch, and had a bimonthlyish lunch during which we’d kvetch, talk shop, talk kids, talk movies, talk industry, etc. And literally every time I walked out of his office I’d always have learned something new. When I emailed to Jim I was looking for my next thing, I was back in his office that day, to come hear about some perfect role he had for me. And keeping a long story medium, he was right.

I’m very excited about this next journey, and thanks for all the well wishes over the past few weeks. Only bummer was making literally zero progress on Orphan Black, but it’s still in the queue!

Time For a Change

Posted on May 15, 2015 by Jeremy Toeman

Change!

Today is my last day at Viggle, and it was a heck of an amazing journey. A quick look back:

The early days

While it’s still a vivid, present memory for me, it was almost 4 years ago that I joined Dijit Media, as head of products. Over the next 6 months we watched the company’s first app, the Dijit Remote, grow and evolve, while planning the “next big vision” for our startup. While initially the company focused on solving the challenge of “Control” in home entertainment, we realized there were even bigger opportunities on the horizon. In the Winter of 2012 we rebooted (aka “pivoted”) the company to focus on solving “Discovery” instead, raised new funding, and I moved into the CEO role.

Launching NextGuide

Over the following few months, the team got heads-down, huddled, hacked, and had fun with alliteration, until we launched NextGuide, which we called a “hyper-personalized TV discovery experience” – optimized for the iPad. The vision at the time was to solve for “what should I watch next?” – tons of research has shown that for the most part TV viewers sit down with clear intent for a specific show, but highly infrequently with a followup show in mind (though this is clearly changing in the OTT/binge-viewing era).

The app did quite well at launch, and we grew and evolved it over the coming months. Fundamentally we knew we were solving a real problem and building a product people really liked to use. We launched an iPhone and a Web-based version as well, each of which were fine-tuned for their respective environments. Further, I continued fundraising from esteemed Angel investors like Dan Robichaud and Martin-Luc Archimbault (of the “Montreal/Silicon Valley mafia”) as well as firms such as Alsop-Louie Partners and Menlo Ventures. We even acquired another startup, GoMiso, along the way.

Partnering with Hollywood for TV Reminders

One of the more popular features in NextGuide was the ability to set reminders to get notifications when a show has new episodes on live TV (or Netflix, Hulu, etc). During a team brainstorm one random day, we evolved the idea into “what if we partnered with TV networks to let them serve reminders to their audiences?” and with that, the NextGuide TV Reminder Button was born. Again, an amazing team effort later and not only did we have a working product, but partnerships with major TV networks!

Over the following months, we entered trials with almost every US-based network, and saw the feature soar in popularity. After all, as our logic went, why wouldn’t a network want to remind their audiences about their TV shows? This turned out to be a critical differentiator for the company, as we found a real solution to a commonly held problem by the networks. Further, by supporting major streaming services we were operating from a position where we could actually help the TV industry evolve from its broadcast/analog/nebulous data origins into the OTT/digital/big data future. Oh, and it worked – really well.

Viggle Acquisition and Journey

In late December 2013, while actively raising a fairly large Series A fundraising round, we entered partnership/acquisition discussions with New York-based Viggle, Inc. Dijit had a great team, solid product and features, and good customer acquisition. Viggle had a huge user base, active revenue, and tons of resources. Also, the technology Dijit built was not yet present in the Viggle app, and was highly complementary to the experience. The fit was obvious.

Post-acquisition the combined teams got to work and began cross-implementing technology and features. We added a “Celebrity Alert” feature to the company’s Wetpaint website. We included NextGuide “show pages” into the Viggle mobile app. We added Viggle Points to the NextGuide website. And much more. #synergy

Personally, I moved into the SVP of Products role, running strategy and innovation, as well as all West Coast operations. I had the opportunity to work with the NYC-based product and engineering team, as well as the highly skilled management team. In all my experiences this was my first getting real exposure to mobile advertising, learning about rewards systems, running remote personnel, and much more.

Moving on

It’s been a great journey. And as all journeys go, they eventually come to an end. So today’s my last day at Viggle, and I’m leaving my team in great hands. No regrets.

As for what’s next? More on that as I sort it out, but here are my priorities right off the bat (in no particular order):

Family time
Get outside – do some hiking & camping
Binge watch Orphan Black (this is important!)
Build something and/or rebuild my garage workshop area

I may blog and tweet a lot. I may go silent and introspective for a bit. I honestly have no idea – I haven’t had any official career “gap” since leaving Mediabolic and joining Sling Media (during that gap I got married and had a honeymoon, so not sure I can top that). I’ll be sad to leave this amazing team behind, but looking forward to see where the next journey takes me.

25 Apple Watch Impressions, Wants, and Thoughts

Posted on May 1, 2015 by Jeremy Toeman

Screenshot from my Watch of me using Watch to take picture from iPhone. Whoa. Meta.

Buying the Apple Watch on day one for me was the precise opposite of buying an iPad – I had absolutely no idea why I was buying it, but figured I’d either like/love it, or return/eBay it – in other words, no downside. One week into using it, and I’m well into Like, but not yet at Love. I’d hold the core Watch functionality at 50% accountable for the Like, 30% for Apple apps, and 20% for third-party apps. Or, as I see it, as long as better apps come along, which is inevitable, I may soon Love the Watch. And astute readers know that I must end this post with “only time will tell” – apologies.

If you want to learn more about the Watch, or read countless “must-get” App lists, I’m sure you can figure that out. I’m focusing specifically on my personal impressions and experiences. Here they are, in no particular order.

1. Having the Watch is relaxing.

I put this first, as it’s the most important thing about the Watch. My iPhone now spends about 90% more time in my pocket, I don’t leave it out on tables or my desk, it’s just away. I can deal with at least 2/3 of my notifications through my Watch, and they go away. Further, I feel less urges to glance at my phone – ever. Considering how much I find notifications distracting and frustrating, yet utterly necessary in modern life, the Watch is a clear win on the claim of helping you deal with the basics of modern interruptions.

2. There are some useless apps:

For non-Apple Watch owners, know this: 100% of your regular Notifications will appear on the Watch. So much like how annoying apps that just show you the content of a blog can be, Watch apps that just show you something you’d get via Notifications are pretty silly at this point. Perhaps my feelings on this will change with more than a week’s exposure, but I’m seeing a lot of things I don’t need to see.

3. There is a lot more iPhone co-dependency than I thought/expected

The Watch doesn’t talk to any other of my Apple products – so notifications from iPad/Macbook don’t hit my wrist. It’s specifically an extension of the iPhone. Further, there are many Watch apps, including those from Apple, which require significant phone-based interactions to work. This isn’t a good/bad thing, but it’s an important mindset.

Letterpad game

Post-Shazaming a song

4. Prediction: App Management is going to become a problem

Installing Apps happens via your iPhone, where you manually, on an app-by-app basis, “install” them to your Watch. It’s seamless and elegant. Or it is as long as I still have less than 50 apps with Watch functionality. When this hits 100+ apps, it’s going to be a nuisance. Ditto for “navigating” apps on the Watch.

Installing an app on the Watch

5. The Digital Crown is awesome, intuitive, and I love using it. And I forget about it a lot.

It’s smooth and elegant, and whenever I remember to use it, it works exactly as I’d hope/expect it to. But most of the time I forget it’s there, as I’m soooo used to everything being touch-based. Not that it should work different on the Watch, but it’s a “Getting Used to it” curve.

6. Some very clever app examples.

There really aren’t a ton at this stage, but the “promise of what’s to come” is already clearly in the air. Here are my standouts:

a) Uber

Perfect use of Watch. Either Summon your Uber, or see Current Status of Uber. A+ implementation.

b) Apple Maps

Browsing, Searching, Contacts’ addresses, and everything you might want. Well done.

c) Apple Maps Navigation mode

Having the Watch vibrate right when I need to turn is amazingly helpful. Possibly the most useful specific feature on the Watch overall.

d) Charles Schwab

Pulls in my portfolio with quick at-a-glance info. Not particularly better than Apple’s own Stocks, but it’s my personal/actual portfolio, so no manual changes necessary.

This is Apple Stocks – also nicely done, just showing for comparison.

“Force Push” in Schwab app enables a 1-click to start a trade, which you complete on the Phone. Perfect use of “get a notification, trigger an action.”

e) Transit

Real-time, geo-located public transportation. So much better than pulling out the iPhone for same info.

Also able to pull up most recently booked trip on your iPhone

One caveat re Transit – I think it’s just a bug, but I’ve found it just doesn’t always update properly, and sometimes I’m at the office and it still thinks I’m at home.

f) SPG

Upcoming Reservations, Points/Status, and keyless entry!

g) Yelp

Find restaurants near you in seconds. And it works. And they keep it simple.

h) Circa

Candidly I don’t use Circa as much as Zite for my news reader, but their integration of recent headlines is perfectly done. Haven’t tried Flipboard yet.

i) Mailchimp

I really like the at-a-glance look at email campaign statuses. Another example of a non-ambitious, useful little app. That said, I doubt I’ll actually use it much, as I rarely just want to look at campaigns from such a high-level.

j) Wunderlist

If you are already a Wunderlist user, their Watch extension works exactly right. Quick glances, ability to mark things done, etc.

7. There’s also a lot of “still waiting for the a-ha moment” apps.

I have to imagine as an app developer with no prior history of the Watch that it’s a very difficult thing to have projected the how of people using it. So I think there’s a lot of “1.0 efforts” that will get better over time, but for now leave me a little “huh?”

Also, I think there’s a lot of apps that just didn’t need full extensions to the Watch, where a basic Push Notification does the job. Some examples:

a) Calm

So it’s like the built-in timer, but with nicer background? Am I supposed to stare at this? Because if so, I’m not feeling Calmer…

b) Mint

Granted I haven’t seen any real improvements to Mint since their acquisition, but this is a real throwaway. Poorly implemented, confusing to set up, and questionable value proposition. Would be better as simple push notifications.

c) Apple Store

Haven’t yet figured out why I need this app. Maybe I just don’t buy enough products?

d) Starbucks

Maybe when any Starbucks actually put Apple Pay terminals in place I’ll love this, but until then, it’s pretty useless.

e) Twitter

Twitter seems to make a lot of people’s “top Apps for Watch” list. For me it’s a pretty mediocre experience, with hard-to-read individual Tweets (often cut off before 140 characters), impossible to Tweet usefully (no links, hashtags, @replies, etc). Twitter on Watch seems like just a bridge too far for an already difficult-to-use Twitter experience.

f) Skype

I honestly don’t know what I was/should’ve been expecting here, but Skype on your Watch without even support for audio-only calls is pretty weak.

There’s oodles more, including some native apps, that could do a lot better, but again, 1.0.

8. Siri is making a lot more sense, and it’s working really well.

I’ve always enjoyed Siri, even as a fairly infrequent user, I thought it was a great foray into trying to make computing more invisible. On the Watch, though, I use it a lot, and find it works better than I expect – particularly for texting folks.

9. Evernote and Uber are the kind of apps that will lead to Love

Evernote on my wrist is nice for quickly searching for important info. But it’s much much cooler as a record a memo feature. My only wish would be recording audio memos – something I’m shocked isn’t default functionality between the Watch and iPhone.

Uber, however, may be the most perfectly designed Watch app out there. Launch the app, and within a few seconds the familiar “get an Uber” button appears. Perfect, as I don’t care about my Profile or Invite a Friend or the few other things Uber can do in the iPhone app. Then, with an Uber en route, I get the visible countdown and map/status until the driver’s arrived. Them, while driving, I see the map of where we’re going. It’s just perfectly done.

10. Photos is far more compelling than I’d have projected

I was pretty skeptical of any use of Photos on the Watch – considering how small they are. But I really enjoy having my Favorites album synched – it’s visually very attractive, a great reminder of using the Digital Crown, and a nice/comfortable feeling.

11. Force Touch is a great experience concept.

Your fingers have a tremendous amount of nerve endings and are incredibly sensitive “devices”. So having the “push a little harder to cause an action” is welcome, easy, and intuitive, and I’d hope to see it come to other touch-input products in the near-term.

12. I’m more impressed with battery life than I was expecting

I find I only need to charge it every other night – which, as a non-Watch-owning friend pointed out to me is quite frequent from a watch perspective. But considering the expectations were set around charging it nightly, I’m pretty happy so far.

13. The Remote and Navigation are the best apps from Apple

Beyond basic notifications, the apps I use the most proactively are Remote and Nav. For Remote, it just works really well, and I frequently misplace my Apple TV remote as it is. For Nav, the physical reinforcement of “turn soon” works great in areas where you really need your GPS – especially those “do I turn here or the next block???” moments.

14. I haven’t gotten my head around Activity yet

I like getting told to stand up once an hour – and generally I’m doing whatever it tells me to. And I like seeing the steps, and calorie count, etc. I don’t know if it does (or doesn’t) motivate me, and I don’t trust the accuracy (not that I distrust the effort/intent, just that I doubt all fitness tracking at present). Maybe I just don’t care much about quantified self – I feel pretty good with unquantified me.

15. I want more extension-of-my-iPhone functionality

My Watch should tell me when my iPhone is low on power or fully charged, and should give me the option to show iPhone battery life in the Watch Face. Ditto for cell signal/wifi connection. In both cases (power/network), these are essential pieces of information for actually using my Watch, and should be available at a glance.

16. Want. More. Faces.

17. The Watch could be a bit smarter.

It’s super-easy to add Timer or Stopwatch to the Faces. But if I don’t have it on, and I do have a timer going, shouldn’t this be a “trumping” level of visibility? I really like using timers in general (17 minutes of intermission between periods), but feel this should be perennially visible when active.

18. The Watch-to-Watch functionality is cool, but too hard to get using.

There’s literally no way for me to determine which of my contacts has a Watch, which really tears apart the concept of how cool the “send a gesture/tap” to a friend features are (and they are cool). Shouldn’t something in my iCloud ecosystem help me figure out who these potentially wonderful people are, and even where?

19. No more Phantom Ringing Upper Thigh

I’ve stated several times how calming the Watch is – but one especially pleasant side effect is I never “wonder” if I got a notification anymore. Phantom Wrist doesn’t appear to be a thing, and I already have stopped expecting it elsewhere.

20. Phone calls sound surprisingly good

Not sure where the mic is on it (and frankly, I don’t care), but I’ve had a few calls on it without the other party even thinking they were on speakerphone, let along Dick Tracy style. I’ve also noticed that if I take calls on it in windy environments, it actually outperforms the iPhone for avoiding wind tunnel conversation effect.

21. It’s not 100% calibrated

I definitely find times when I “pull up” the Watch, only to see a blank screen. And even a shake or two might still leave it blank. Further, sometimes I just have my arm at an angle and the Watch seems to think I’ve “noticed” a notification. I assume this will improve over time.

22. I don’t feel as lame as I’d think using the Watch

Whether it’s taking a call, replying to a quick text, or looking at a notification, it feels much more natural than I’d expect. That said, I’ve caught myself several times in the “I should really just pull out my iPhone” phase of things. Curious to see how this calibrates over time for me personally.

23. Others get very excited to see it.

Was at my bank a few days back, I think I sold 3-4 of them in the span of 2 minutes just by answering a text. There’s something that’s gotten people really excited here. Again, not sure how this plays out in the long term.

24. I want more in-iOs integration

On my iPhone, a calendar location is instantly linked to launching Maps. Not true on Watch – but I don’t see why not. When I scan an email on my Watch, all links have been stripped. Why not just give me the chance to pull it up in Safari on my iPhone, I can look at it later. It could even go into Reading List automatically. There’s a lot of these little “in between” moments that I think could be improved over time.

25. It’s still a keeper

I can’t project 3 months out, once the fascination has worn off. But as of now, I have no desire to return it, I enjoy wearing it from morning til night (I don’t bring any “connected” products into my bedroom/sleepytime places), and I feel it’s a general improvement to digital living. Or is that living digitally?

Will I say the same in a year? Well, as forewarned many words ago – only time will tell.

YouTube Kids Review – and 10 Ways to Improve it

Posted on April 10, 2015 by Jeremy Toeman

We finally got around to downloading the iPad YouTube Kids app, now that more than half of my children can do things like spell words mostly correctly. And since there’s a bit of a family-wide addiction to Plants vs Zombies (1 and 2), they’ve been watching some gameplay video. Which got me realizing that a 6-year-old should not, at all, accidentally watch most of the results of “zombie” in a YouTube search. Enter YouTube Kids.

Here’s the family consensus of the strengths of the app:

YouTube Kids does an excellent job filtering out anything age-inappropriate. In fact I put a dedicated effort trying to “trick” it with any means possible, and I couldn’t find a video that I considered PG-13, scary/gory, adult-themed, etc. Searching for “zombies” pretty much only showed animated results:
On a very special Thomas the Train, …

and a search for “game of thrones” showed mostly music videos, Minecraft interpretations, and other “safe” versions:

Good thing nobody has any free time to do anything creative anymore…

Nothing else that I threw at it, from curse words to Skinemax-level “soft” words, came back with results. I even tried using horror movies, explosions, Michael Bay, etc:

I hear Night of the Living Pharmacist has some pretty creepy moments

Considering this is probably the single most important role the app has, I’d call it a win if your goal is to let your kids autonomously search for videos about topics that interest them.
It’s exceptionally easy to find copyrighted materials. A search for Shaun the Sheep (family favorite) instantly provided full episodes:
It’s Shaun the Sheep!

And pretty much any search for “title of movie full movie” presented exactly that (including Frozen, Lion King, He-Man, etc):

The illegal copy never really bothered me anyway

Interestingly I couldn’t find PG-13 level movies, so Harry Potter was absent, though the Harry Potter Lego Version was all over the place.
Exploring and discovering learning/educational content actually is interesting. There’s tons of solid channels available, from LEGO to National Geographic and more.

I’d certainly call this an acceptable experience, but I’m nowhere near calling it Great. Which is disappointing, because I think it could, and should, be great. It unfortunately falls into the category of what we call “babysitter apps” – which are exactly the ones we try to avoid. We just prefer the apps that really engage our children, or that we want to use along with them. And from our perspective it falls short.

So here’s how I’d improve the YouTube Kids app:

Actually age-restrict Settings. Here’s what it looks like for “adult mode”:
That’s the same combination for my luggage!

While my 6yo can’t fully read, he’s got the numbers down already. Which makes the above beyond simple. Either enable a PIN-code, or have a math problem, but it needs to be a bit more serious than this.
Enable simultaneous search and playback. Just like in the main YouTube app, it should be easy to have a video playing while searching for the next one you want to watch / queue up.
Enable a queue / playlist. While search results become automatic playlists, as do channels, there’s no way to build your own simple playlist as you go. Maybe my 4yo couldn’t handle that, but the older ones certainly could.
Save a playlist. Would be great for music videos especially.
Mark/save favorite videos. If you are unfamiliar with children, there’s never ever been a video any child has ever watched only one time. More like 300 times.
Add Recently Watched/History. Per the above.
Subscribe to Channels. As you may have gathered by now, there’s virtually no personalization in the entire app. Why can’t I save my favorite channels, and have those appear on “my” home screen? The generic Home view is pretty useless after the kids have browsed it a few times. Also, being able to automatically find “latest episodes” from channels is a pretty core YouTube feature – one that the kids should get too.
Add “Show More Results” to search. Because otherwise you can never, ever, find certain videos!
Add a Web experience. Seems like a pretty natural extension, and my children do use this archaic thing I have called a computer. And once they’ve been using YouTube autonomously on the iPad, I’d like to enable them to do so on the laptop too.
Allow for age ranges. Again, there’s no 8yo who wants to see the same stuff as a 4yo. With a simple range (2-4, 4-6, etc) setting, the experience would be so much better and tailored to the individual.

I’ve tried to keep the feedback fairly “light” here – things that aren’t monumental shifts in the app, but would fundamentally improve it at every level. I could go on at much more length at how to make a truly great Kids experience, but I’ll save that for another time.

Again, it’s a great start at an awesome experience, but still falls short IMHO. Though there’s one total saving grace I may have forgotten to mention. So thank you, very much, Team YouTube Kids, for this:

her?

Why It’s a Great Time to Start a TV Startup, part 2: It’s Time For Change

Posted on March 4, 2015 by Jeremy Toeman

2015-03-04_1049 As I asserted in Part 1, I believe we are entering a “fourth generation” of television, one in which the rigid walls that have previously defined the industry are fundamentally disrupted. In the post-1.0 era, not only have consumers lived within “walled gardens” of content, but the industry itself has remained mostly closed to outsiders. When even companies as powerful as Intel and Google have tremendous struggles dealing with Hollywood, gaining access to content, etc, it’s almost comical to think of the startups who tried the same. Aereo’s $96 million in funding became about $1M in auction to TiVo this week.

This is mostly due to the incredible entanglement of contracts and legal issues pertaining to content ownership, distribution rights, release windows, playback, etc. Heck, even TV-related companies trying to change struggle with the mess. For context: We live in a world today that lets me buy NHL Gamecenter (directly from the NHL) yet not watch my hometown team (Montreal Canadiens, FTW) play “blacked out” games that air on, wait for it, the NHL Network.

The way I’ve always tried to describe the complexity to people is to think of taking a few dozen cables, neatly wound up, then throw em in a backpack and go for a quick jog. Then try to extract a single cable – good luck (for off-topic reading, here’s why that happens).

But we, today, are seeing important catalysts of change, and the catalysts are strong enough to make the powers that be look at how they can un-entangle their own mess. Here are the factors that I believe contribute strongest to a looming shift:

Netflix, Hulu, SlingTV, HBOGO, and TVE services break down the barriers to making content available through live and near-real-time streaming options. They also “train” content owners to think differently about distribution options.
iTunes, Google Play, and VOD services enable a la carte alternatives that are truly viable options to many consumers.
Pervasive 4G access, inexpensive smartphones, and tablets train consumers to demand anything/everything on all devices everywhere and all the time.
Bittorrent, Popcorn Time, and other piracy options have made finding and accessing high quality content for free far too easy for far too many people.
YouTube, Vimeo, and the suite of multichannel networks like Fullscreen are providing infinite entertainment alternatives to younger audiences, who may be losing the “attachment” to broadcast-quality television. This should be particularly scary to all sorts of companies – if the zeitgeist of pop culture shifts away from TV, we can expect to see more change, faster, than anyone can predict.
Cord cutting and dropping TV ratings are at the cusp of causing dramatic impact to advertisers, the unquestionable lifeblood of the industry.

As my colleague Adam Flomembaum, Editor at Lost Remote, shared with me yesterday:

“… we have seen in the last year that control of high quality content is being wrested from the hands of cable and satellite providers. Consumers are becoming increasingly aware of other great options for accessing their favorite content, and TV startups that make this process more seamless – or at the very least, more consumer friendly – have a great chance to thrive.”

"What do you mean 'Lets get rid of the middlemen' we are the middle men!" Fundamentally the thing that’s made the TV industry “work” is the requirement and dependency on the two-tiered “middlemen” between content production and audiences. But if the audiences are shifting patterns, quickly, and the producers are able to find new methods of profitable content distribution, change will come. I can’t say it’s a “this year” thing or a “10 years from now” thing – but I do believe we’ve entered the phase wherein there’s industry awareness of changing times, and reactiveness is following.

I’d also argue that this was not the case over the past decade, and is directly attributable to why so many TV startups crashed and burned. As Eric Elia, Managing Director of Cainkade, puts it:

“The technology has been here for a while, but we’ve been waiting for 10 years for the TV industry dynamics to shift. The table is now set with [hundreds of millions of] streaming devices worldwide, the unbundling boom (HBO, CBS, Sling TV, etc), and a Netflix clone for every taste and geography. It’s going to be a fun few years for tools companies, programmers, ad tech. But I would not want to be a commodity content owner that can’t flap its wings outside the bundle.”

Now with any change we’ll see some mega-corporations begin their slow road to the deadpool, while others seize opportunities. We’ll see startups rise seemingly out of nowhere and become household names. Even five years ago cable and broadcast execs could easily keep their eyes on the distant horizon fearlessly – today, they’re building survival plans.

Next up: defining “TV 4.0”, identifying short-to-long-term opportunities, and other thoughts on why I think it’s a great time to be riding the wave of change in television.

Why It’s a Great Time to Start a TV Startup, part 1: History and Lessons Learned

Posted on March 2, 2015 by Jeremy Toeman

Thinking back on the recent history of TV startups, I’ve come to the conclusion that this is likely the best time in history to start a TV or entertainment-related startup. This’ll be a two-parter from me, and I’ll start by a summary of the past 20-odd years of innovation and change in the industry. While many people would say the TV startups that came and went over the past 5 years (Aereo, Miso, GetGlue, ZillionTV, BeeTV, Yap, etc) and the ones still in play (Zeebox, i.tv, Peel, Viggle – disclosure: I work there! etc) were the “TV 2.0” startups, I’d actually argue they were the 3.0, and it’s now time for 4.0 (though I could easily go for 7.0 without a big stretch). Confused? Lemme ‘splain:

TV 1.0, or the “Plain Ol’ TV” era (1M BC to mid-1990’s): Technically we could say this is just the “three channel” era, and the advent of Cable TV then Satellite TV were the 2.0 and 3.0 endeavors. Now in reality the advent of Cable Television was unquestionably the biggest shift the industry’s ever seen, as it not only changed the financial dynamics in a massive way, but also set the stage for the huge providers that then themselves were set up to become dominant ISP’s.

But for today’s purposes, I’ll skip through to the mid-90’s, to define “TV 1.0” – a time where TV watching was all done on a “TV set”, likely with a set-top box, and the majority of TV watching was done “live” (something I’ll be explaining to my kids forever). To give it some context though, TV 1.0 startups included CBS, ABC, Comcast, etc.

TV 2.0, the “TV My Way” era (mid-1990’s to late-2000’s): Started with the DVR/timeshifting, included streaming media devices and placeshifting, ended with streaming. It’s almost impossible to explain how profoundly different TV is today than it was a mere decade ago. But to explain the difference between the previous decade is equally profound. First, the DVR moved TV off the default schedule, and onto our own personal schedule. Back then the only way a show could be “spoiled” was because you hadn’t watched your VCR tape, or some idiot friend from the East Coast called you (on your landline) and ruined a moment. My friend Richard Bullwinkle, former Chief Evangelist at TiVo says:

“The DVR was an excellent stopgap technology to help us all understand that Live TV was, if nothing else, inconvenient.”

With the advent of the Slingbox, and to a lesser degree a variety of streaming devices/services, TV then moved not only off schedule, but off-device. This change, called placeshifting, was the underpinnings of all forms of TV Everywhere, Netflix streaming, and everything else that moved the TV experience from primarily a “living room” activity to a “wherever I am” activity.

And then came a little video streaming site combined with Lazy Sunday, and poof, the world exploded. YouTube led to all forms of uploading/streaming, which led inevitably to the advent of Netflix streaming. Combine these pieces and you end up at the beginning of the 2010’s with the commonly accepted notion that “I watch *anything* I want, on *any device* I want, at *any time* I want, in *any location* I want. TV 2.0 startups included TiVo, ReplayTV, Sling Media, Roku, Netflix, YouTube, Hulu etc.

TV 3.0, the “Enhance TV” era (2010-2015): Combine the maturity of “Web 2.0”, which allowed developers to “mash up” any Internet services any way they saw fit, with the radically new availability of content and services from/related to the TV industry, with widespread access to powerful mobile devices and everywhere-access to high-speed Internet. What entered next was a wave of startups all focused on finding ways to “improve” the TV experience. Also sprinkle a dash of Venture Capitalists looking to find the next hitherto-undisrupted industries, and young entrepreneurs with visions of change.

Unfortunately we need to sour the story for a moment, as most of these ventures went belly-up. In some cases the companies needed deeper pockets and longer runways. In many others we were seeing technology solutions seeking out consumer or industry problems. Some are still up and running, and thriving. Most aren’t.

And with failure I think the most important thing to look at is what we should learn from it.

The TV experience was far from broken. For people who liked traditional/broadcast TV, aka the majority of TV audiences, all these new apps and services just put barriers between them and their beloved content. For people adopting streaming, on-demand, well, it’s already pretty awesome. Far too many startups went out with the proposition of “TV is broken” – it’s not.
People don’t want to multitask within TV. I can find a few dozen studies on how people are “second screening” their TV watching experiences. But this equates more to distracted living than some latent desire to watch a TV show and read “background” info written by an intern at the exact same time. Sure there are a few wins in this field, but not nearly enough to support a young startup.
YouTube is the best YouTube experience. While I can throw out a few ways to make YouTube a better experience (ahem – search while watching? better search algorithms? verified accounts?), fundamentally people are perfectly fine using YouTube as is. And as Hunter Walk put it best: “[YouTube discovery startups” struggle because video discovery just isn’t a venture scale business.”
SDKs and APIs don’t make TV an “open” business. I’ve watched a bunch of startups go after opportunities they see because companies like DirecTV and Hulu make API’s to access or interact with content. But these API’s are not the deep, raw access to services like Google Maps and Yelp provide, they are shallow services to enable very simple and basic access to limited feature sets. Maybe one day that’ll change, but until it does, there’s just not enough meat on the bones to support a startup.
Cord Cutting isn’t real enough. Want to hear an UN-sexy headline from a tech blog? How about “Pay TV Industry Alive and Well” or “Turns Out Almost 90% of Americans Like Paying for TV”? Ain’t gonna happen. So we’ve seen cord-cutting mania across the landscape, causing entrepreneurs and investors alike to think its a huge market/opportunity. We can all argue the numbers, but fundamentally until the past 3-6 months, there’s been no evidence, whatsoever, that there’s a big swell of people dying for some cord-cutting product that they’d then in turn pay for. Don’t get me wrong – this market will emerge one way or another, whether by cord-shaving or cord-nevers or cord-cutting itself. But it’s nascent today, and that’s a problem for a current startup funding climate that expects hockey-stick growth after two weeks of growth hacking.

Coming tomorrow(ish), part two: the rise of TV 4.0 and keys to success. Which focuses on a the following theme (well-said by Dana Loberg, founder of MovieLaLa):

It’s definitely an exciting time to be working in a startup in the entertainment /technology cross-section. There’s a lot of changes occurring because technology has fundamentally changed the way we communicate, engage with each other and even consume content.

When Will TV Shows Get Surge Pricing?

Posted on February 21, 2015 by Jeremy Toeman

There’s a lot of mixed feelings about Uber’s “Surge Pricing” concept, which described in a nutshell is: if lots of people are trying to get Ubers in a certain region, the price goes up. Economic-minded folks will call it simple supply and demand, whereas others feel the company is attempting to gouge their customers, manipulate pricing, etc. Assuming for this discussion it’s more the former – a simple case of supply and demand – I’ve been wondering about applying a similar model to TV shows.

When Better Call Saul premiered, it launched as the number one series debut in cable history. I was/am very interested in watching it, but without a pay TV subscription, I had no option to see it in/near-real-time. Within hours the episode was available in a variety of Video on Demand (VOD) formats, either for free or a low fee ($2.99 in iTunes at this moment). Older shows in iTunes tend to run at $1.99 per episode.

I’d argue the TV industry, specifically content owners, are missing opportunities right now by having equanimous pricing. The value, to an interested audience, of a piece of content is much, much higher in a short window. Especially for content that has any kind of zeitgeist/cultural value. Being “in” the crowd who sees the premiere matters to some segment of the population. Similarly, older content has less inherent value. Do I really find an episode of WKRP in Cincinnati is “worth” the same as others? WKRP in Itunes

And yes, there is a range – Game of Thrones is $3.99 per episode, for example – but I’d argue there’s a lot being missed out in both directions. Older, library catalogs are worth less, and hot/newer shows are worth more. I’d probably also argue that anything more than 2-ish years old should have free S1E1 viewing to all viewers.

This takes a lot of new-style thinking for an older-style industry. And I see the hazards as well – if content gets priced too high, audiences may well seek out illegitimate sources. But I’d assume there’s a lot of opportunity to be had in a real-time priced marketplace. As content owners seek out new methods of monetizing their huge inventories, I hope to see experimentation in this space. Then again, I’d hate to see a snowstorm make a good show cost 2.8x the normal rate!

Viacom, the TV Industry’s Canary in a Coal Mine

Posted on February 18, 2015 by Jeremy Toeman

When people ask me about the future of TV, I frequently tell them “just watch Viacom.” Their ratings have plummeted in recent years, and the recent loss of Stewart and Colbert may well be irreparable. Or is it the beginning of a brand new approach to big media?

yutes Viacom’s in a fascinating position to watch. They obviously own a lot of content, but if you look into the brands, it’s very youth-oriented. Which puts the company squarely in the targets for where the bulk of change is occurring. If “those kids today” truly prefer YouTube and Netflix to Saturday Morning Cartoons, that impacts Viacom heavily. And while I have a whole other series of thoughts regarding how younger audiences behaviors shift as they age, it’s also safe to say at this point that today’s 20-year-old will act like today’s 30-year-old in a decade. They won’t.

If “those kids today” are actually cord-nevers, that is about to impact everybody. And “about” in TV industry terms could be a year, or maybe ten – hard to say.

The two biggest challenges networks face are changing audience behaviors and an advertising industry shift toward more data. This combination puts Viacom in the position of having to react to the changing times in near-real-time if they want to be relevant in 10 years. And a-changing they are! Viacom is pushing ahead in so many ways, trying new technologies, looking for what’s working (and what’s not). In a way they appear to be trying to avoid the classic Innovator’s Dilemma conundrum.

They may make it, they may not. All depends on how good their ability to be a media giant and a scrappy startup at the same time. But watch them, I shall.

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The early days

Launching NextGuide

Partnering with Hollywood for TV Reminders

Viggle Acquisition and Journey

Moving on

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