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NextGuide, now with Amazon and more awesomeness

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NextGuide, my personal favorite TV Guide app (that I built at the company I run), is now updated to include Amazon Prime and Amazon Instant Video alongside live TV, Hulu Plus, iTunes, and Netflix.  It’s really a great experience to browse all providers simultaneously and to search for shows and actually know where they are watchable. You can get the update here on the App Store.

That’s the “big” news (yes, adding a streaming provider with tens of thousands of hours of streamable shows and movies is a big deal IMHO), but we also took the time for a lot of across the board improvements to the app.  Here are some of the highlights:

>> New Gestures – two-finger swipe within showcards, pinch to hide, fullscreen media gallery, and more!

One of my favorite things about a great iPad experience is gestures. One of my favorite favorite things about any app is hidden features. While it’d be fun to document them everywhere, we’ve loaded up the NextGuide experience with many new gestures.  Explore around, let us know what you find and think of them!

>> Enhanced Cast & Crew with 1-click saved searches and Wikipedia biography lookups.

File this under “finally!”  When we shipped the 1.0 version, the cast and crew view just wasn’t that useful.  Now, go to the cast and crew tab for any movie or show, and tap on a person you are interested in.  Want to find more stuff from them?  Tap “add to interests.”

>> New Category Editor with easy drag & drop category setup

While we made removing/hiding categories really easy in the app, it’s always been a pain to add them. Now, push and hold on anywhere in the “Category Bar” to get a slick interface to add genres, custom genres, and trending topics.

>> Channel Setup now part of Initial Setup Wizard

The customer is always right, and lots of ours told us they didn’t like the fact they couldn’t customize their channel lineups until after launching the app.  Now you can.

>> Improved “Your Picks” algorithms

Let’s face it, recommending content is a very hard thing to get right. Our focus is to get beyond the baseline concept of “if you like this then you’ll like that.”  We’re constantly working to improve it, and I think our users will see a lot of progress in this department.

>> Lots of other little new features for you to explore throughout the app

Thanks again to every one of our users, even the 1-star reviews in the App Store – its the best way to learn, and learning is what we’re doing!

ps – sorry about not blogging much, just been working on, you know, everything you just read about.

Introducing NextGuide

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It’s my pleasure to unveil my newest product, NextGuide.  NextGuide is a hyper-personalized TV listings guide designed specifically for the iPad™.  It’s been a six month labor of lots and lots of love, and I’m extremely excited to tell you about it.  In a nutshell?  We went to the drawing board and utterly reinvented the concept of the TV program guide.

If you think about the concept of a “guide” it’s something that’s evolved over 60 years from supporting 3 to 13 to 80 to 500+ channels.  But that’s really all it does, and let’s face it, we no longer live in a 500-channel world.  We live in a 500 channel, plus tens of thousands of hours of streaming content on services like Netflix, huge libraries of video on demand from our cable and satellite companies, as well as iTunes itself.  It’s effectively an infinite content landscape, and having so much content has crippled the formerly easy process of discovering shows to watch.

As an example, in my house at night, we start by browsing our DVR library, don’t see anything we’re in the mood for, then switch over to live TV.  After browsing (painfully) the grid for a while, we give up, turn on the Apple TV, and head to Netflix.  Netflix is great, but I have a tendency to see stuff I already know about – Mad Men, Dexter, Weeds, Breaking Bad, etc – all great shows, but not really anything new that I’m ready to consume.  Part of the problem here is catch-up TV: if I’ve never watched Mad Men before then I’m a good 80+ hours away from catching up to live, and that sounds painful.  Anyhow, after an unsuccessful attempt to find something to stream, I generally end up watching whatever’s on (either Cops, the Shawshank Redemption, or an infomercial), then go to sleep.  Sound familiar at all?

So we invented NextGuide, designed to actually help me discover things I *want* to watch. We do that by tilting the concept of Channels, Times, and Genres on its head a little, and instead focus on Shows, People, and Interests.

Shows – we believe people care more about the show they watch than the channel number or time it airs.  So NextGuide uses beautiful show cover art to make it easy to find things and “escape” the grid view of numbers and times.

People – we believe TV remains a central zeitgeist component to modern society. When was the last time you chatted with any friend about a show you like (or love)?  Probably in the past day or so.  NextGuide makes it ridiculously easy to turn conversations, not to mention Facebook Likes, into easily discoverable shows.

Interests – we believe people care about finding things of interest to them, personally.  We all have interests, from bands to sports, from cities to hobbies, and these interests define so much of our lives. NextGuide connects you to your interests, and finds them all on TV and streaming services, in a seamless, organic way.  Examples of what NextGuide’s found for me over the past few weeks: Bill Murray’s guest appearance on Letterman (seriously, how would I even have known that unless I watch every night??), a live Coldplay concert on Palladium (I didn’t even know the channel was in my lineup), and Bizarre Foods goes to San Francisco (not a show I normally care for, but had to see what Andrew found in my city).

That’s enough writing already, this is one of those apps you just have to experience to get a sense of what we’ve done. It’s a complete paradigm shift for TV viewing, and I’m happy to share it with you.  You can download it from the App Store, or watch our quick intro video below.

Introducing NextGuide from Dijit Media on Vimeo.

I can’t wait for your feedback, thanks so much for trying out the app.  Thanks to Apple for inventing the iPad so we could have such a cool platform to bring something like this to life. Extra special thanks to my family, friends, coworkers and investors who have made the process of inventing something disruptive more fun than I think I really deserve.

We are getting some amazing press so far today, here are some great pieces:

Oh, and here’s the actual announcement on our newly revised site!

The Only Two Ways People Watch TV

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Over the past 30 years we’ve evolved the television experience from something where everybody watched the same shows on the same channels on the same devices in the same rooms at the same time to a world where that’s almost never the case.  Today, with the exception of appointment TV, it’s such a fragmented landscape that it’s almost a challenge to find other people watching the same stuff you do.  But with all the variance in content, services, devices, location, price, etc, there’s still really only two ways people choose to watch TV.  This is a subtle, but extremely important concept to anyone in the business of changing television.

Deliberate viewing: you go to the TV with a specific piece of content in mind.  This includes live TV (“let’s watch Idol at 8pm tonight”), your DVR (“I need to watch last night’s 30 Rock”), and any VOD/OTT platform such as Comcast OnDemand, Netflix, Hulu, etc (“I’m going to watch the first season of Breaking Bad”).  We could also include a deliberate type of content in this category (“I’m going to watch a comedy” – not necessarily something you’d say out loud, but if you are in the mood for something funny, that’s a pretty deliberate concept).  I also refer to deliberate viewing as “search mode” for TV, since you will specifically search for the piece of content you want, whether by changing the channel, navigating your OnDemand menu, or going to your DVR library.

Random viewing: you go to the TV with no idea what you want to watch.  This includes simple channel surfing (“nope, next!”) as well as direct channel changing (“I wonder if anything good is on TNT now.  Maybe Shawshank or Blues Brothers??”).  It also includes browsing the OnDemand options (“I wonder if there’s anything new on Netflix?”) and even your DVR (“Maybe we recorded something we haven’t watched yet?”).  I also refer to random viewing as “browse mode” for TV, since you are just perusing lists of stuff until you find something you are content to watch.  Note the last phrasing here, as random viewing is less about the “excitement” factor of watching something deliberately, and more about the “good enough to pass the time” factor, with the potential for excitement.

Now for the cold, hard fact: any “future TV” service or product which doesn’t account for both types of TV viewing, will fail. This includes OTT services, smart TV apps, second screen apps, third screen apps, eighth screen apps, widgets, websites, gadgets, platforms, and everything else under the hood.  Again, if you cannot service both primary needs of a viewing audience, your system is a goner – unless, that is, you are specifically aiming to replace an existing component of those services (in other words – if your live TV service is designed to replace another live TV service, that’s viable, since the consumer’s ecosystem will still include whatever else it had before).

How do I back this up without cold, hard facts?  Because people don’t really change much, and TV, specifically, is not merely “another” activity up there with Angry Birds, Facebook, Pinterest, reading books, etc.  Watching TV is a very specific type of activity, one about entertainment and more importantly, escape.  Life is hard, TV lets you escape for a period of your day – why on earth would Americans spend 4-8 HOURS per day in front of it otherwise?

So if people don’t change, and people need escape (especially as they age – I’m not talking about 13 year olds here, for the most part), they need some version of deliberate and random lean back TV watching.  Could this include YouTube videos? Sure. How about an all-on demand lineup?  Doubtful.  How about a “TV is just an app” concept? Doubtful. It’s why most cord-cutting theories aren’t holding water.  It’s why #SocialTV is still mostly just a fad. It’s why most “second screen” apps are just barely gaining traction. It’s why Google TV is such a mess right now.  It’s why Apple TV is still a hobby.  Sure, these things work absolutely great for some, but absolutely don’t for most.

The future of TV involves a lot of change.  And the more things change, the more they stay the same.  Long live TV.

My Top 10 iPhone Apps in 2011

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Sharing your favorites seems to be the hip thing to do, so I thought I’d share my absolute favorite apps on both my iPhone and iPad (not including any default iOS apps).  These are basically the apps I use all the time, and really enjoy using. There’s also quite a few apps I use daily, but might not like as much, as well as apps I think are amazing, but only use on a very infrequent basis.  And there are also apps I don’t much like and rarely use, but I didn’t really see the point in including those…

One other note – I picked apps from all categories, including games, social, etc. Also, I didn’t deliberately pick 10, it just worked out that way.  First up – iPhone fave’s (in no particular order, btw).

Chef’s Feed

Chef’s Feed is a fun app for foodies (wannabe foodies as well).  The app has a list of the “top” chefs of a city, and said chefs have picked their favorite dishes (not restaurants) to eat.  The app lets you make a bucket list of dishes that appeal to you, and also is a handy way to find a good bite when you aren’t sure what to eat. Free app.

Words With Friends

It’s like Scrabble, only more “balanced” so players at many levels can really enjoy the game.  Vocabulary and knowledge of “Scrabble words” is very helpful, and tile placement strategy is essential to win, but regardless, it’s possibly the best non real-time game time waster app out there. Free and paid versions.

Camera+

It’s a good photo taker, but more importantly it’s a fun photo editor/filter.  Simple effects, easy cropping, and simple sharing (though I wish they’d just let me send images instead of creating a whole new link/web system). Paid app.

Test Flight

Simply put: Test Flight lets app developers send you their apps prior to putting them in the iTunes App store. It’s great for previewing or testing out apps in development. If you are an app developer and are not using Test Flight, you should start now.  Free to consumers, paid by developers.

GrubHub

GrubHub is an app that replaces all the crappy little delivery menus restaurants leave on your door (though hey, free rubber band).  They have tons of local restaurants, plus in-app ordering, and, as pictured above, an order history which makes it super convenient to remember where you liked (or hated) to eat.  Free app.

Starbucks

Yeah, I know, cliche, whatever. You prefer Blue Bottle, great, so do I, but $12 for a latte that takes 45 minutes to make doesn’t always work out for me. The Starbucks app does one main thing: let me not have to carry my Starbucks card around.  Nice.  Free app.

Flashlight

Guess what this app does?  Free.

Temple Run

After Words, Temple Run is the next best time-killer game I know.  Basically, you run, and run, and run, and then run a bit more.  You jump, duck, pivot, and you turn yourself around, and that’s what it’s all about.  Free.

Pandora

Free personalized radio on your iPhone.  Any questions?  Nah, I didn’t think so. Great for road trips.  Free.

Zite

Gosh I love Zite.  Zite brings me articles I want, on topics I like, and does so with sickeningly good accuracy.  While Twitter (and vis-a-vis Flipboard, Pulse, etc) are great for bringing me feeds on a variety of topics, the one thing these apps fail to deliver for me is topical content based on my interests, not my followers or those I am following. I open Zite, I find content I like.  Life is good. Oh, and – free.

That’s my list of favorite iPhone apps, hope you enjoy.  Here’s the quick list of “runners up”:

  • Plants vs Zombies – it’s fairly new to me, I’m having fun playing but I’m not sure how long it’ll hold my interest.  Could be a winner, not sure yet.  Paid.
  • WhiteNoise – self explanatory. Free and paid versions.
  • Flixter – movie lookups (solid app, just don’t get to see many movies).  Free.
  • IMDB – satisfies inner movie nerd needs. Free.
  • Path – just started experimenting.  Beautiful app design. Does all that Facebook stuff, only without the massive invasion of privacy.  Also, just for your real-world friends (you remember those, right?). Free.
  • Twitter – read description of Path above.  Now think the opposite of it.  Free.
  • Yelp – great to look up restaurants I already am thinking of going to. Not useful as a restaurant recommendation/finder app.  Free.
  • CardMunch – take picture of business card, scans it, sends to the Internet, comes back as LinkedIn contact.  Previous version of app was notably better than current, but still works great. Free.
  • Expensify – if you do a lot of business expensing, you must have this app.  Free.
  • Sonos – controls my Sonos.  Would be on the must-have list, but I know not everyone has a Sonos.  Free.
  • AppShopper – great app, lets you create a “wishlist” of apps you want, then notifies you when they go on sale.  Free.
  • iHandy Level – it’s a level.  comes in handy.  Free.

Anything you think I should check out – leave a comment!  iPad version of this list coming soon!

ps – I’d include Dijit, but that’s cheating. 🙂

Talking Future of TV & CES 2012 With Robert Scoble

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I first met Robert back in my Slingbox days, and now we get together a few times a year to chat tech in general, kid stuff, but especially gadgetry. He sat down with myself and Maksim (the CEO of Dijit) this past summer, and a couple of weeks ago I went to see him and his new digs at Rackspace HQ. Here’s the video:

A quick summary of what we discussed:

  • CES 2012
  • Gadgets
  • Future of TV
  • Social TV
  • CES 2011
  • Kids
  • Tech
  • Facebook
  • CES 2010
  • Gadgets
  • TV
  • Dijit’s iPad app
  • CES (all others)

And for a fun flashback, here’s the video from our chat right before CES 2009:

good times, Robert, thanks!

12 by 2012: SXSW panels on the Future of TV

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I’ve been in “Future of TV” startups directly and indirectly since 1999, yet haven’t once made it to SXSW Interactive (I was even supposed to speak this year, but my third child arrived way too close to the conference for me to make it unfortunately).  For 2012 I’ve proposed a talk entitled “Why the Future of TV has Four Screens” and hopefully the conference organizers will find it interesting to include.  This is obviously a space I have a lot of passion about, so I decided to go peek around at what other interesting and related presentations and panels are in the “PanelPicker”.

Here’s the ones I’ve found, in no particular order:

Title: Why the Future of TV has Four Screens

Speaker: Jeremy Toeman, Dijit Media

Studies have shown that over 70% of TV watching happens with a second screen in hand, whether it’s a phone, tablet or laptop, people are no longer just watching TV. They are tweeting, checking-in, Facebooking, searching the web for information and more. The rise of this social TV trend is causing companies across the entire TV industry, including content providers, TV manufacturers and startups in the convergence space to take notice. They are now trying to blend content, social and additional screen interaction in a variety of ways, from social networking on your TV screen to controlling your TV with your phone. However this is causing more confusion, not more entertainment. In this panel, we will explore: How are consumers using the second (or third or fourth) screens? Why are the additional screens important? How do those additional screens affect the way consumers interact with TV? And how are the additional screens are changing the entertainment landscape for the next decade?

Title: Why Digital May Forever Alter TV As We Know It

Speakers: Michael Aragon (Sony Network Entertainment), Jason Spivak (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment)

With 24/7 internet access on our mobile phones, Blu-ray players, HDTVs, laptops and gaming consoles, the ability to easily stream movies, TV shows, and other digital content has forever changed the way we consume film and video. People older than 50 are more likely to tune into TV broadcasts, while people younger than 25 are actively watching online video. The revolution in business models and digital distribution that disrupted the music industry has turned the TV and film industry on its head. As a result we are seeing a paradigm shift where producers, TV execs, gaming publishers, and print authors are paving new roads to build business models around on-demand video that is accessible across multiple devices. This presentation will discuss where the present round of convergence is leading, what the opportunity is for monetizing content beyond ad-based revenue, and what forms of new interactive media we can expect to see on network-enabled devices

Title: The Future of TV: Bigger, Brighter and Greener

Speaker: Amit Jain, Prysm

The way we interact with our television is changing. Submissive TV watching is a thing of the past. What does the demand for larger, interactive video displays mean for the future of in-home entertainment? The days of passive television viewing are gone. Today’s audiences are savvier and more engaged in the technology around them and expect more from their television screen than simple 2-D moving pictures. Television screens continue to get bigger and deliver a more immersive viewing experience accompanied by high-def picture quality and 3-D capabilities. As these technologies continue to improve, in-home entertainment is getting more and more life-like. Unfortunately, the current television market cannot keep up with the consumer demand for a bigger, better viewing experience at home. While 55” plasma screens seem like the next best thing, they offer a logistical nightmare. From the transportation between store to home, to the installation and additional infrastructure needed to support them, to the mass quantities of power they consume, it seems the larger the screen the bigger the headache. In this session, Prysm CEO, Amit Jain, will explore the future of television and discuss the changes in technology needed to make this a reality.

Title: Brave New World of Smart TV: Myths & Misperception

Speaker: Mario Queiroz, Google TV

The age of convergence is finally here, but the landscape remains complex and confusing. In this session, Mario Queiroz will work to address the common myths and misperceptions around smart TVs and the promise the category holds for consumer electronics manufacturers, content owners, and consumers. Like the smart phone before it, the smart TV will bring a new layer of functionality to your existing home entertainment experiences. Mario will explore the value the web will bring to your living room experience. This platform will be targeted, personal, and discoverable with a touch of the button, and it will be integrated across multiple screens, from mobile phones to tablets to TVs. The developer transformed the world of smart phones and is doing the same for tablets. Mario will also address why smart TV is the next frontier for application development and why the prospects for killer apps that will fundamentally change the way we view and engage with television look promising.

Title: Second Screen and Social TV: Which way from here?

Speakers: Carlton Cuse (Carlton Cuse Productions), Brad Pelo (i.TV), Lisa Hsia (Bravo Digital Media), Alex Iskold (GetGlue)

For years we’ve debated the promise of interactive TV. Until now, the promise has not been realized but with the advent of real-time social services like Twitter and TV-specific social apps, we seem to be on the cusp of a sea change when it comes to how people watch and engage with television. This session will discuss the state of the second screen, why it’s important and what it will take to finally make interactive TV a reality.

Title: Can a Social Web of Things keep TV cords connected

Speaker: Alison Moore, HBO

It’s 2015 and over half of the devices in your home are connected to the Internet. On the drive home you consider taking a longer route, but when you ask for directions the GPS system reminds you that you need to get home soon – you have a viewing party. The television recognizes you when you walk in the door and suggests that you pour a glass of wine since everyone else is online and waiting for you to join the Game of Thrones premier party. In response, the wine cooler switches on, illuminating the last bottle of red – a 2007 Scarecrow. You cringe but open it anyway. Your HBO app automatically loads a summary of last season’s characters since you still seem to have them confused, and then asks if you’d like to join the group video chat. “Go ahead”, you say, “I will catch up as we go.” Join Rhonda and Allison as they think aloud about the future of media immersed in a world where everything is connected, and television becomes something that you live instead of just watch.

Title: Power Shift: Gadgets Rock Entertainment Ecosystem

Speaker: Richard Bullwinkle (Rovi Corporation)

We love our gadgets — all three, four, or even five of them. Daily, we constantly use our iPad, smart phone, laptop, iTouch, and devices that interact with our TV. Research confirms that we love to multi-task with our media — while watching TV, we surf the web, text and instant message. Generation Y may not have grown up with electronic gadgets but they face it full on as corporate America is grappling with how to use the iPad as a business tool while for many Generation Z ankle-biters, the iPad is their Fisher-Price busy-box. Today, technologists and content owners struggle to make content flow freely from one device to another, but we all know that day will come. This session will take a look at our fascination with being connected anytime, anywhere as it weaves itself into the very fabric of society, forever changing how we live, work and play. It will address how touch screen, connected, and high-resolution technologies are shaping consumer and social behavior, and defining what consumers expect their gadgets to do for them tomorrow.

Title: #futureoftv: Breaking through the noise

Speaker: Maureen Costello (Little Cannonballs)

New TV technologies are being launched at a breakneck pace, yet, right now it is all noise until some standards are set. Our industry is poised for a future of innovation, but the landscape still looks like a jumble of wires. Who are the current players breaking through the noise? What intellectual capital have we netted from the world’s investment in the Internet and its standards? What have we learned from the mistakes of the music industry? How can industry players—new and old—work together to define standards for success? Can we predict who will be left standing in the greatest reality competition ever—for TV’s digital future? Let’s break through the noise and get with the program folks!

Title: Enriching TV experience with companion apps

Speaker: Perry Cooper, NHL

As TV audiences age, marketers are challenged to appeal to their prime demographic of 18-to-49-year-olds. The younger demographic is definitely watching TV, but they now require a second screen to enhance their viewing and steer away from the traditional TV experience. The second screen of choice, being the mobile device, is now accessed by 86% of mobile Internet users simultaneously while watching TV to browse the web, social network, and text, according to a recent Yahoo! study. To appeal to this younger, more tech-savvy demographic, the NHL will be offering an in-game experience for the mobile users that will stimulate behavior and keep fans engaged throughout the entirety of every game. What will be referred to as “predictive gaming” will combine the attraction of fantasy sports to live games where users can compete with friends to predict what their favorite player or team will do next in real-time, adding a new layer of excitement to the game. The proposed presentation will examine how the second screen will become the virtual requirement for future TV programming.

Title: Convergent iTV Apps: Factors for Great Products

Speaker: Wes Williams, Scripps Networks

Many factors distinguish great apps from coulda-been-a-contender apps. We’ll do a deep dive into questions you should ask when producing convergent apps for connected TVs, smartphones and tablets. The framework will be an unbiased review of apps in the real world, balancing user-oriented thinking with business needs. This will reveal factors to consider when building interactive apps related to TV viewing. Learn how to determine which features you need to reach marketing, advertising and audience goals, whether on just the TV screen or multiple platforms.

Title: Tablets & TV – Building Second Screens Experiences

Speaker: Klemens Wengert, Turner Broadcasting

Creating phone and tablet companion applications for television shows presents a unique opportunity for content providers. By linking the two screens together we have a new way to engage and deliver content to the users, integrate advertising and enhance the experience of watching television. This presentation is going to focus on how to create a second screen experience that makes sense for your audience, for your brand and your advertisers through case studies from Turner Broadcasting as well as some best practises and lessons learned.

Title: 3 Screen Minimum: Convergence of TV & Social Media

Speakers: Fred Harner (SportsNet New York (SNY)), Stephanie Agresta (Weber Shandwick.com), Eric Bruno (Verizon), Soraya Darabi (Foodspotting)

A full 70 percent of US tablet owners say they use their devices while watching TV. Companies like Verizon are baking social into their products and enabling users to tweet, watch online videos and update Facebook directly from their TVs. Channels like Bravo capitalize on this by weaving emerging tech like Foursquare, Foodspotting and Shazam into their TV output, as well as having personalities engage actively with fans and critics on Twitter and other social media. Google Hangouts allows people to watch web video together online. Join as forward thinkers from Verizon, Foodspotting, SportsNet NY (SNY) discuss what’s next for the convergence of social media and TV.

Eating Some Words – a Smartphone's a Pretty Sweet Remote After All

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So last Fall when I first heard about companies turning phones into remote controls, I thought it was a silly idea.  I’d like to kick this post off by saying I’ve come around fairly full circle on it.  In other words? I was wrong (yes, it’s happened – but don’t worry, it’s just this once). So I’m going to counter my own post with my revised feelings on the matter.

To begin with, my fundamental argument against the phone as remote is similar to my feelings as the phone being used for anything other than a phone (+apps) on a recurring basis.  In other words, my phone is a lousy GPS device if I need to make a call while I’m lost.  My phone is a lousy cooking timer if the alert doesn’t remind me to get my eggs off the burner because I’m playing Words With Friends.

Over the past ~8 months, I’ve evolved this argument into the following state: users must conditions themselves to the concept that their phone can be a pretty good  ____, but will ultimately default to be a phone first and foremost.  In other words, your iPhone is a phone that can also be a GPS or also be a kitchen timer.  But at the end of the day, if you really really need a super reliable GPS or kitchen timer, you probably don’t want to solely rely on your phone.

So in that context, and now highly specifically related to Dijit (where I work, remember?), I’ve come to find my iPhone makes for a really good remote control.  I just sometimes still want the physical one nearby – and that’s okay.  In my media room (aka mancave), I have 6 devices, their remotes, and a Harmony 880 as well.  I’ve got it working pretty nicely with Dijit/Beacon, and I think it’s overall a better solution than I had before.  Here’s why:

1. Completely customizable controls – as much as the Harmony unified all my devices, there’s just no way to have all the relevant buttons accessible at the same time.

2. Line of sight – two of the devices I own have mediocre IR sensors, which makes the task of perfectly pointing the physical remotes a challenge which the Beacon’s stronger IR emitter solved.

3. IP-enabled – at least 3 of my consumer electronics devices are “smart” and can be controlled over IP, meaning I can have absolutely perfect control without any need for IR whatsoever – and there’s only more Smart TVs and related products to come… (btw Roku owners can see what I’m talking about already – download the app here)

4. Upgrades and the Future – not totally fair, since I know what we’re actually building at Dijit, but suffice it to say the future looks incredibly bright for what the fully integrated app has in store.

I think my final comment on using the iPhone as a remote is this: for my personal use, I still like having a physical remote around (not 6, but 1), and that’s okay.  I like having mute, pause, and volume controls accessible 100% of the time with no risk of sleep, battery, app switching, etc.  Some people won’t have these issues and will go iPhone-only.  Some people will never get past a touch-screen remote.  But I have a hunch there’s going to be a lot of folks like myself, where a hybrid solution presents an amazing experience for the digital living room.  Can’t wait to share more about what we have in store down the road!

They Pulled Me Back In! I’m Joining Dijit Media as Chief Product Officer

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A week ago I announced that Jim Schaff would be taking over active duties at Stage Two, and that I’d be focusing on “other stuff.”  Today I’m excited to share the stuff:  I am joining the management team of Dijit Media as Chief Product Officer, where I’m responsible for product and marketing (here’s the official update).  Not only that, my virtually common law married colleague (business partners for much of the past 14 years) and very close friend Adam Burg is the company’s VP of Business Development.

What???

Last Fall, I gave a presentation at the Set-Top Box Conference in San Jose, and the entire drive back I had a feeling of near elation.  Not that I had said anything extremely profound, but it was wrapped up in the feeling of doing something I had a lot of passion for – in this case, discussing the future of television.  Over the next few months, I spent a lot of time doing research in the Smart TV (also called Connected TV or Internet TV) space, and started seeing some trends emerge, and realized there were some very interesting business opportunities on the horizon.

Adam and I spent months developing a prototype concept of the vision we had, and went to meet with some of the brightest folks we know in the convergence field.  One such bright folk was well-known VC Stewart Alsop, who I’ve known since the late 1990s, who introduced us to Maksim Ioffe, CEO of Dijit.  In our very first meeting with Maksim it was clear he shared much of the same industry and product vision and philosophy with Adam and me. I’ll keep this part of the story short, as we’ve all seen this movie before – we ended up agreeing to join the company. And there was much rejoicing (yay).

Why Dijit?

The grand vision of Dijit is to create the ultimate “four screen” (phone, tablet, computer, TV) social entertainment experience, one which seamlessly merges disparate products and platforms and content into one single, easy to use, consumer offering.  The company is well on its way, and its first product is an iPhone app that enables a really sophisticated, yet elegantly simple control experience for home media centers.   As Maksim put it, “Consumers have 21st-century home entertainment experiences but are stuck with remote controls that haven’t been updated since the 1980s.”  The company partnered with Griffin to produce the Beacon, a clever take on the “IR blaster” product, and one that’s already receiving solid reviews (and I haven’t even done anything yet!).  This is going to be a very exciting company to be a part of, and I’m thrilled to have such an opportunity.

Reminiscing.

I still recall the early days at Mediabolic, where we enabled networked home entertainment solutions that interfaced with legacy, analog consumer electronics devices (yes, we were networking the living room in an era where there were virtually no HDTVs, no YouTube, no Pandora, and no… iPod!).  At Mediabolic I learned what it takes to design and build embedded entertainment devices, to work with consumer electronics manufacturers, and the deep set of challenges surrounding the connected home industry (fun trivia: I heard the phrase “this is THE year of the digital home” every single year starting in 2001 – possibly earlier).  It was a great experience, and key people from that team now work at amazing companies like Netflix, Rovi Corp (Rovi acquired Mediabolic in 2007), etc.

At Sling Media I had the unique opportunity to work for and with some outstanding individuals, not to mention the position of being tasked with figuring out how to deliver the perfect “living room experience” – only over the Internet.  The company’s CEO, Blake Krikorian, taught me the meaning of focusing on every detail and nuance, remaining truly innovative, and keeping the consumer’s wants and needs in the forefront of every product decision.  I also had to learn the ins and outs of social media, back in the era before it was called “social media,” where “the bloggers” were a special, hard to understand subset of humanity (or, as I rapidly learned, just cool people).  We accomplished a great success building the Slingbox, and I’m proud of the product, the team, and the experience.

Over the past four years at Stage Two, I’ve had tremendous exposure to startups, big companies, CEOs, visionaries, the media, and managing a great team.  We literally put companies like Boxee, Bug Labs, and Pogoplug on the map, and have also had the chance to work for well-established firms like Electronic Arts, Best Buy, and VUDU (now Wal-Mart).  I’ve learned from entrepreneurs like Jim Lanzone (now president of CBS Interactive), Peter Semmelhack (Bug Labs), David McIntosh (Redux), Rahim Fazal (Involver) and so many others (I’ll write another post in the next little while chock full of shout-outs).  I’ve redesigned product experiences for dozens of products, and created marketing/PR/social media campaigns for dozens more, and had the pleasure to work with great teams along the way.

The Future.

And now I’m taking all of the above, and putting it to work at one place.  Welcome to Dijit.