Apps World (www.apps-world.net), which runs from the  30th of Nov – 1st of December at Olympia, London, is one of the first events to cover the emerging global TV App Store marketplace.  Apps World closely examines how Pay TV and consumer electronics companies have already started to integrate app store models into their services, and how open developer models can open new market ecosystems and revenue streams for content providers.

Leaders in the Pay TV market will be discussing the next generation of TV App Store at Apps World.  TV Apps are a logical extension of the smartphone world, and an app store on the TV could revolutionise how we watch and engage with TV content and finally resolve consumer demand for a-la-carte programming.  The question is whether operators will embrace them or get cut out of the equation altogether.

Leading CE companies, Pay TV operators, IPTV service and technology providers – and broadcasters – will be debating the role apps will play in driving content for the TV.  What’s more, Apps World is the perfect place to look at multi-platform app models with tracks for mobile apps and multi-platform app development for developers targeting TVs, mobile devices, tablets and PCs.

Apps World will examine the competitive dynamics between stakeholders in the TV market, with many speculating that Pay TV operators will have to act quickly if they are looking to sign up independent developers before consumer electronics companies lay claim to the opportunity to leverage their own brands in this space.

Speakers at the Apps World event on the TV App stream include:
•    Jaskirat Singh Gill, General Manager – Entertainment, Bharti Airtel Limited
•    Loo Cheng Chuan, Principal, SingTel Idea Factory
•    Dr. Randolph Nikutta, Leader New Media, Innovation Development, Deutsche Telekom
•    Gerry Gouy, Global Senior Director, MTV Networks
•    Richard Kastelein, Founder/Editor, App Market TV
•    David Gibbs, General Manager Mobile, BSkyB

The full event agenda can be found at www.apps-world.net/workshops/agenda

“With various device manufacturers announcing centralised app stores for TVs, mobile phones and other devices, the next generation of multi-platform app store is emerging” commented Ian Johnson, MD Six Degrees Events.”Connected apps stores are already revolutionising the TV industry, and bring into debate a number of different models and if the TV app store will remain a controlled environment, or go for a more open developer model?”

The Apps World exhibition is free, and delegates interested in attending the TV Apps workshop track can book online for only £225 at -www.apps-world.net/register/workshop-registration

Connect with the event:
•    Twitter – twitter.com/apps_world
•    Linkedin – www.linkedin.com
•    Six Degrees also run the Social Media World Forum events – www.socialmedia-forum.com

Application stores will exceed 4.5 billion downloads in 2010

App Store

Consumers will spend $6.2 billion in 2010 in mobile application stores while advertising revenue is expected to generate $0.6 billion worldwide, according to Gartner. Analysts said mobile application stores will exceed 4.5 billion downloads in 2010, eight out of ten of which will be free to end users.

Gartner forecasts worldwide downloads in mobile application stores to surpass 21.6 billion by 2013. Free downloads will account for 82 per cent of all downloads in 2010, and will account for 87 per cent of downloads in 2013.

“As smartphones grow in popularity and application stores become the focus for several players in the value chain, more consumers will experiment with application downloads,” said Stephanie Baghdassarian, research director at Gartner. “Games remain the No. 1 application, and mobile shopping, social networking, utilities and productivity tools continue to grow and attract increasing amounts of money.”

An application can be free because the developer is offering it at no cost to the consumer while charging for other things within the application. There are also applications that are free to use but that charge for physical goods that you can have delivered through the application. There are many applications that are free to users and derive their revenue from advertising. This can be done with banners as well as full page advertising between game levels for instance.

Worldwide mobile application stores’ download revenue exceeded $4.2 billion in 2009 and will grow to $29.5 billion by the end of 2013. This revenue forecast includes end-user spending on paid-for applications and advertising-sponsored free applications. Advertising-sponsored mobile applications will generate almost 25 per cent of mobile application stores revenue by 2013.

High-end smartphone users today tend to be early adopters of new mobile applications and more trustful of billing mechanisms, so they will pay for applications that can meet their needs. Average smartphone users will become less tech-savvy as smartphones come down in price to have a mass market appeal and these users will be more reluctant to pay for applications.

“Growth in smartphone sales will not necessarily mean that consumers will spend more money, but it will widen the addressable market for an offering that will be advertising-funded,” Ms Baghdassarian added. “The value chain of the application stores will evolve as rules are set and broken in an attempt to find the most profitable business model for all parties involved.”

“Application stores will be a core focus throughout 2010 for the mobile industry and applications themselves will help determine the winner among mobile devices platforms,” said Carolina Milanesi, research director at Gartner. “Consumers will have a wide choice of stores and will seek the ones that make it easy for them to discover applications they are interested in and make it easy to pay for them when they have to. Developers will have to consider carefully not only which platform to support but also which store to promote their applications in.”

There’s been some useful discussion recently about using the app store model for distributing enterprise software and services within organizations. Up until now, most IT needs in the majority of businesses have been met through one-size-fits-all delivery of solutions that are either hand-crafted or purchased and then imposed on all. It’s been this way for at least three decades, but now this aging and inadequate process is beginning to improve.

The premise of an app store model for enterprises is simple: By removing the middleman, the famous bottleneck between the business and IT demand can be reduced in many cases. Application backlogs can shrink, consumption of internal and external IT resources will increase, and fierce competition to provide the best solutions to niches can greatly improve overall quality (the long tail of IT argument), all while reducing costs. At least, that’s what is possible if we look at what’s happening to the non-enterprise software market today.

Related: The app store: A “must-have” new digital business model

Fellow Enterprise Irregular Jevon MacDonald posits this as a likely outcome of the emerging Personal Enterprise. Current trends involving the mass personalization of services and the consumeration of enterprise IT have come together and resulted in ready-to-use catalogs of IT solutions that are much easier to acquire and consume today than they from traditional channels. Jevon cites Force.com, Intuit Marketplace and Get App as current examples of app stores for enterprises and SMBs, to which I’d definitely add IBM’s Smart Market. Google is even rumored to be ready to release an enterprise app store of its own soon.

Distributing SOA, SaaS, & Mashups with The Enterprise App Store

Even the Web itself has become a sort of ad hoc app store writ large in the cloud with thousands of SaaS applications available today that most enterprise users can acquire and use with little or no provisioning or support from IT.

In this view, monolithic enterprise deployments become rarer and IT solutions begin to look more like their counterparts online: smaller, more specific apps that fit the local conditions better (and are usually cheaper too). That this might actually happen is evidenced not only by the already existing enterprise app stores today but by the work currently going into rethinking of IT in terms of emergent enterprise architecture (intentionally) and the growing use of shadow applications in the cloud (grassroots).

App Stores: Not Just For Apps

ebizQ’s own Joe McKendrick recently explored the app store’s applicability to service-oriented architecture (SOA) this week, quoting George Ravich, who promulgates the SOA-as-a-store approach to enterprise users in the same way that iTunes is available online to get whatever one needs at the time: “The SOA service catalog promises to have the same impact on enterprise computing as the iTunes playlist has had on listening to music.”

SOA has always been an approach that promotes reuse and interoperability between existing IT systems. Those who have adhered to SOA principles have been able to project their services and data into widely distributed and far-flung IT solutions, both within and between organizations. But successfully driving SOA consumption has been hard, and the focus is too often on opening up services instead of focusing on increasing usage. But the SOA industry quickly hit upon a potential solution. Proving that what is old is new again with the app store model, there have been commercial service directories for a long time now that have have helped organizations maintain open inventories of services, such as StrikeIron or IBM Mashup Center…

The Social Shindig party, the official networking party of Social Media World Forum will be taking place on the middle evening of the event.All conference pass delegates are invited to head over to the Archangel venue situated opposite the Kensington Royal Garden Hotel.  The venue is a10 min walk from Olympia & The Hilton Olympia Hotel – the official event hotel and 5 m ins from High Street Kensington Tube Station.

Please Note: Open only to full conference pass holders – wristbands will need to be shown to gain access Networking Party Partners

About Social Media UK

‘Social Media UK’ is a networking community based in London consisting of a LinkedIn group of 850+ members, a crowdsourced blog www.socialmediamonday.co.uk and a monthly networking event ‘Social Media Monday’ with presentations & plenty of ‘social’ till late… (follow @SocialMedia_UK & tweet about #SMUK)

We’ve grown tremendously over the last 6 months and we’re really proud to be continuing these talks in the Workshops at the Social Media World Forum 2010.

‘Social Media UK’ is organised by the Digital / Social Media recruitment specialists; Fresh Resources. We’re ridiculously passionate about all things digital and absolutely believe that being an active part of the community and contributing towards the industry we specialise in, means we’re poised to consistently deliver precision services to our much adored clients. 

#SMUK loves social media, that why even this description is wrapped up in 140 words!

Monterosa (www.monterosa.co.uk) have confirmed their attendance at the Social TV Forum Europe, (www.social-tv.net) taking place on the 15/16th March 2010 at Olympia, London.

Monterosa are a creative and technology company based in central London. We’re a team of experienced producers, project managers, software engineers and designers with range of backgrounds backgrounds in broadcast, advertising, games and software development.

Ooyala’s player has always supported sharing to popular social networks sites such as Twitter and Facebook. Ooyala now supports deep linking which allows a viewer to share only a particular video within a playlist or a specific scene within a video. These deep linking sharing options are available for its player embeds, its sharing links to social networking sites, as well as the newly released URL link, also available in the player. What’s great about this is that it does not require any custom development work. A publisher can easily enable the various sharing options in Backlot for all their viewers.

Ooyala is a leading video technology company, for details visit www.ooyala.com/blog

Version 2.0 of award-winning Mediaroom TV platform enables subscription TV providers to deliver more entertainment content to more types of screens, using a single cloud-based infrastructure.

LAS VEGAS — Jan. 6, 2010 — Today at the 2010 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Microsoft Corp. is announcing Microsoft Mediaroom 2.0, the next version of the world’s most deployed Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) platform. Mediaroom 2.0 will enable television service operators to provide their TV services to more subscribers than ever before, delivering more content to more screens than the previous version of Mediaroom — both inside and outside the home.

“Mediaroom 2.0 operators will be able to deliver their live, recorded and on-demand TV service through Windows Media Center on Windows 7-based PCs.” Click for high-res version.

Mediaroom 2.0 is scheduled to be available for operators to start testing beginning next month. Mediaroom 2.0 can be deployed by operators as their entertainment cloud powering the delivery of a complete television service, including cloud digital video recording (DVR), on-demand features, interactive applications, and access to both operator-hosted content and externally hosted content such as Internet TV. The operators’ service can be enjoyed by their subscribers on multiple screens including the TV (with Mediaroom set-top box), Windows Media Center, Web browsers (for Windows-based PCs and Macs), Xbox 360 and compatible smartphones.

Also new with Mediaroom 2.0, service providers will now be able to offer their existing on-demand TV service to their entire broadband customer base using their existing set-top box inventory, thereby expanding their service footprint beyond the reach of their IPTV network. The same on-demand service can also be enjoyed on Windows 7-based PCs using Windows Media Center,* as well as on Xbox 360. Service providers also can offer subscribers access to their on-demand programming remotely using a range of Web browsers running on Windows-based PCs and Macs and, in the near future, on compatible smartphones.

Mediaroom 2.0 also adds support for Microsoft Silverlight and Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) Smooth Streaming for the access and delivery of on-demand content. This enables viewers to enjoy an exceptionally high-quality playback experience, because IIS Smooth Streaming adapts the video stream to the user’s network connection to enable optimum video quality. In addition, support for Microsoft PlayReady preserves the service providers’ ability to secure their content libraries and monetize consumer experiences.

“Our strategy with Mediaroom is to combine the power of client software and cloud-based services to greatly enhance the way consumers experience digital entertainment. We want to make it easier for consumers to find and discover great content, to watch, listen and engage in new ways, and to do so anywhere and on any screen,” said Enrique Rodriguez, corporate vice president for the TV, Video and Music Business at Microsoft. “Mediaroom 2.0 is a key milestone in our strategy, providing the software platform to power operators’ service clouds to reach more screens, and more people, with more content than ever before.”

More Screens

Watching TV on a PC is a growing trend. For some, it is a second or third screen in the home or is used for watching TV when on the go. For others, the PC may be their only screen for TV. Mediaroom 2.0’s new support for Windows Media Center in Windows 7 means operators can now deliver their premium TV services, including live high-definition (HD) TV, DVR and on-demand programming, to virtually any Windows 7-based PC with no additional hardware tuner required. In addition, DVR and on-demand content can be enjoyed on Xbox 360, a broad range of Web browsers for Windows-based PCs and Macs, and, in the near future, playback on compatible smartphones while on the go.

All of this gives consumers more freedom in where and how they access their TV service, with the benefits of a familiar experience across multiple screens. For example, they could start watching a show on one screen and finish watching it on another. They also could build a video queue on their smartphone and watch it later on their TV or PC. While traveling, they could watch recorded TV on their smartphone and later watch an on-demand feature film in HD on their laptop, accessing the same storefront they enjoy at home.

More Networks

To date, Mediaroom deployments have been delivered over a fixed-line managed Quality of Service (QoS) IP network. By integrating IIS Smooth Streaming technology into Mediaroom 2.0, Microsoft enables operators to offer a premium, HD-quality video-on-demand service, with minimal buffering and fast startup times, even over IP-based networks of varying bandwidths.

This significantly expands the service reach for operators and enables them to serve customers on fixed-line as well as wireless and, in the future, mobile broadband networks. For operators wishing to deliver only on-demand TV-video services to customers via the Internet, Mediaroom 2.0 includes a set-top box client that supports this functionality and is designed for self-installation by the subscriber. This client is upgradable to full Mediaroom functionality without the need for hardware changes.

For consumers, this advancement means that more people in more places will be able to experience the benefits of cutting-edge Mediaroom-powered TV services than has been possible before. It also means that whatever the speed of their network, they will enjoy an optimal viewing experience thanks to built-in support for IIS Smooth Streaming.

More Content

Consumers are demanding access to ever-larger libraries of content, and IPTV operators are looking to meet this demand and further differentiate their services by augmenting their existing content lineup with TV and video from the Web. With Mediaroom 2.0, operators can now easily bring together live and on-demand TV with externally hosted content from Internet TV partners and other Internet-based content sources, all in one place with a consistent, easy-to-use interface. New support for playback of content protected using PlayReady, Microsoft’s advanced content access and protection technology, further expands the base of potential content for operator TV services. In addition, operators can further distinguish their services with applications that provide rich interactivity and seamless blending of Web and TV content using the Mediaroom application development platform, Mediaroom Presentation Framework.

Once a Mediaroom 2.0-powered service is deployed, subscribers will be able to enjoy the content they want to watch in one place on their TV or PC — no more having to visit a multitude of sites to find what they are looking for or connect a PC to the TV. Instead, they will be able to easily find and watch TV shows on demand across different networks using one easy-to-use guide, or simply search through the programming available to find the shows they’d like to watch, all in a consistent playback experience.

More Revenue

According to analyst firm Screen Digest the top five Mediaroom customers generate on-demand average revenues per user (ARPUs) that are on average three times that of the incumbent pay TV operator in their market.

Mediaroom 2.0 includes a compelling new on-demand storefront that further enhances the monetization potential for Mediaroom service operators. The new on-demand storefront is designed to help drive subscriber usage and satisfaction by providing a richly visual browsing, discovery and playback experience, and offering easy access to other elements of the operator’s service directly from the storefront.

Features

About Microsoft Mediaroom

The award-winning Microsoft Mediaroom Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) and multimedia software platform is the most widely deployed IPTV platform in the world. Mediaroom is driving the future of television by enabling broadband service providers to deliver new connected TV and entertainment experiences to consumers worldwide. It provides new ways for consumers to experience TV as part of their connected, digital lifestyle, while also creating new business opportunities for broadband service providers, hardware manufacturers, content creators, advertisers and application developers. Over 20 of the world’s leading service providers across four continents have selected the Mediaroom platform to drive their digital TV services. More information on Mediaroom and the opportunity to deliver the best in TV plus all your media in one place is available at http://www.microsoft.com/mediaroom.

Social TV is buzzing in the US, but what is it and what does it mean for the UK?   One of the more social uses of TV in the UK many years ago were basic multiplayer interactive TV games like those offered by PlayJam that allowed a few people to participate at the same time or on different devices like those offered by gameplay.  Sms to the TV screen and formats like Idol which have increased the level of audience participation and influence over the years continues to gain momentum.  News programmes using video captured on mobile phones enabled citizens to participate in journalism and has become an accepted practice.  Overlays of sms interaction like AQA’s Mr. Know it All on MTV became common amongst channels targeting younger audiences.

Current TV and other mainstream channels started to use more semi-professional content within or alongside professionally produced programming.  Social networks like bebo and MySpace began “broadcasting” original online TV formats produced by Indies like Endemol.  Then during the the American election night, twitter got into the TV game.  For the first time, the Twitter stream of public conversations about the election, mostly vocal pro-Obama supporters, were broadcast on TV.  Although there wasn’t anything too new about the format since the UK has been doing it for years – it was momentous in that it was Twitter joining the conversation on TV.  Any of these activities as well as many others could be construed as social TV since they are inherently more social than the previous decades of passive viewing where the only social aspect was discussion at the water cooler the next day at work.  Many of the talented executives we’ve gathered here today are responsible for designing and delivering future TV experiences now.  With them, we will explore how we can offer more ways to communication, share and create more value from TV whichever screen your audience chooses and through inter-device interaction.

Those “water cooler” conversations were a crucial form of viral marketing – word of mouth recommendations from people you know and trust.  The US buzz about social TV largely has to do with the creation of recommendations engines that display suggestions from others based on your viewing habits.  Amazon’s “If you like this you may also like this” or “Others who bought this also bought this” approach to programme discovery is  taking “social media TV” to another stage in it’s evolution.  Sky and Virgin are looking at these applications now.  Is this is the best we can do to catapult TV into a new immersive conversation?  Our panellists are here to share their views and inspire your creative imagination.

The most social activities that occur while people are watching TV are the millions of people texting, instant messaging and interacting on social networks while they watch TV.  TV viewing may be passive, but the viewers are actively socializing on other media.  There are some companies that are looking to tap into this social behaviour by enabling device to device peer to peer communications displayed on the TV screen.  What does this mean?  While most 16-24 year olds spend their TV time texting friends or following friends on facebook they can opt in to display their messages on the TV screen.  One person can text another friend on their mobile phone and both friends can choose to see the message on their mobile and the TV screen.  They can also participate in group chat amongst friends on TV with some people communicating from a PC and some on their mobile with the entire chat displayed on TV.  This private chat replaces public chat with people you don’t know and connects you via your preferred communications device.  You can imagine the banter about the ManU Chelsea match.  You can experience the pub with your mates without having to leave your home.  For younger audiences, conversations are about their lives – the stuff they’re already talking about while the telly is on, but now it’s displayed on TV too.  The power of recommendation in this environment is even more powerful since it adds the key time based element causing a real time recommendation with immediate effect.  Seeing a facebook status update from one of your real friends while watching TV means you can stay connected and socialize with friends who may or may not be watching TV and without having to use a keyboard (which never took off).  This, combined with recommendation applications, could create a more social TV experience at least until the development of screens creates immersive in-home environments that teleport you into the location you’re viewing for a true virtual reality entertainment experience.

Today we will explore these themes in depth, providing you with insights and case studies that you can apply to your businesses now and a view into the the not so distant IP enabled future of TV where engagement takes centre stage.

Angel Gambino, Vice President, Business Development, Sonico

Since the launch of BBC iPlayer in 2007 online catch-up services from UK broadcasters have attracted much attention. This segment is growing rapidly – in the UK online TV (including TV shows, sport, news and niche) generated £48.2m in 2008 according to Screen Digest, projected to grow to £92.4m in 2009. The broadcasters’ own websites accounted for 53% of UK free-to-view online TV consumption in 2008.

But how can broadcasters increase their share of online eyeballs and, by extension, revenues? Online, TV is not the only source of entertainment for web users and it must compete with a host of sites demanding users’ time – from passive consumption of music to active participation in social networks and user-generated video sites.

Broadcasters cannot ignore the fragmentation of the traditional TV audience or the swell of traffic which has grown up online. In order to tap into it there are two obvious strategies which can be adopted. One option is to license shows to other online video sites, taking a cut of the ad-revenue (usually around 70%). But third party providers often cannot sustain CPM rates equivalent to those for a broadcaster’s own site. The process of reselling shows to an affiliate may also be complicated by rights issues – for example, many premium shows are from the US, making UK broadcasters’ ability to resell content more complex than if its catalogue was purely locally-produced.

The alternatives are syndication and viral distribution which are likely to be more lucrative for broadcasters on a per-view basis. This involves embedding the broadcaster’s own video player into third party sites leveraging popular destinations and allowing shows to be embedded in blogs directly into the conversation. Although the broadcaster carries the cost of ad sales and video delivery, the benefits of this system are two-fold. Firstly, by centralizing ad sales the broadcaster can maintain the typically higher CPM rates associated with their own catch-up services. With no third party sites competing to sell ads against the same content the downward pressure on these ad rates will be minimized. Secondly, the broadcaster will be able to retain a greater percentage of ad revenues compared to a straight licensing deal.

In the US Hulu, ABC and CBS all syndicate their video players. According to web metrics firm comScore CBS recorded nearly three times as many viewers for its videos across the 300 partner sites which make up the CBS Audience Network as it did visitors to cbs.com in July 2009 thanks to this strategy. In the UK Five is emerging as the most forward-thinking when it comes to tapping into the disaggregated audience. The broadcaster announced in June 2009 that it would begin syndicating its video player to a number of websites, extending its reach beyond five.tv.

Dan Cryan, Editor, Screen Digest

Social TV Forum will explore these topics in conference format – visit www.social-tv.net for more details.

New for 2010, we have introduced a Bloggers Pass for the event.   Bloggers Passes are available for New Media/Social Media bloggers looking to cover the show and become a Blogger Supporter for the event.

All bloggers passes will include the below:

• Access to all five conference streams over the two days – Social Media, Social TV, Mobile Social Media, Enterprise Social Media, and Cloud Computing
• Full access to the conference exhibition
• Access to the bloggers lounge
• Invite to the evening networking party
• Free WiFi

Bloggers Passes are limited and to receive a pass we ask the below in return:

• Display of an event banner/Blogger Supporter badge on your main website
• Post at least two blogs pre show about the event

Once your blog has been published and your supporter’s button is live, please email eva (@) sixdegs.com.  Once received you will receive your Bloggers Pass invite.

For full event details visit www.social-tv.net

(subject to organisers approval)