Connected Entertainment by Anne-Marie Roussel

Transpera brings "video social networking" to mobile phones

2008-06-13T21:02:00Z

Transpera, a startup based in San Francisco, has developed technology that virtually turns Internet sites into mobile video channels. Riding current wave of “mobile content monetization”, it provides a mobile content and distribution network that links consumers with online video publishers and advertisers. Its magic sauce is not only serving content avaliable on the web onto mobile phones but also enabling users to share and exchange—as if they were on an online social network. For example, I can share videos from my cell with my friends on their phones, receive updates of my friends’ videos on my phone, comment on their content from my cell, and interact with real-time polls—still from my mobile phone. This cross-platform integration between web-based and mobile is interesting for both sides—consumers, who don’t have to be sitting in front of their PC to “social-net” and share videos; and for advertisers/mobile operators looking to take advantage of consumer trend to access and share video content directly from mobile devices. One the more recent content partners signed by Transpera is the Associated Press, which plans to run its news video clips on Transpera’s network for access from mobile phones. Transpera, which was funded in January 2007 by Frank Barbieri, a former member of Microsoft’s Windows Mobile group, has raised venture funding from Intel Capital, IDG Ventures and First Round Capital.

Microsoft’s new Surface computer makes its entertainment debut in Vegas

2008-06-12T15:52:00Z

Any star would love to debut in Vegas—that’s what is happening to Microsoft’s newest interactive table, Surface. Six of these Surface tables are now installed at the iBar ultra-lounge located at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. It enables bar customers to order drinks, watch YouTube videos, play touch-screen games and even flirt with each other. The Microsoft Surface team custom-built the apps for the Rio’s bar—the hotel belongs to the Harrah’s group, which is one of a handful of hospitality companies that was targeted by Microsoft for initial launch of Surface. Harrah's is the first to install Surface in an entertainment venue. A program called Mixologists enables customers to play bartender by creating and ordering mixtures of whatever cocktails they click on. The system is able to remember users' drink orders and, one day, may be able to offer customers the same drink at other Harrah's locations, such as when they play a slot machine. The table also includes a program called Flirt—aptly named as it enables customers sitting at any of the six Surface tables in the iBar lounge to chat with each other, take and e-mail pictures and even trade cell numbers. Other programs let users play video games or get information about restaurants, shows, nightclubs and other Harrah's attractions.

For those who haven’t see the cool demos by Bill Gates when Surface was launched, here is how it works: Surface is a rectangular, coffee-table type with a built-in 30-inch flat screen. the touch-screen technology uses a camera behind the screen to detect hand movements, which become visible to the camera like silhouettes once users press their fingers on the table. The screen displays high resolution images—the graphics are very compelling.

Outside the entertainment world, Surface can also be seen since April in some AT&T wireless stores. There, they are programmed to recognize eight mobile handset types and give information about their features. More retail and hospitality sightings to be announced soon…

Vollee: Gaming in 3D on your cell phone

2008-06-11T14:58:00Z

Vollee’s service basically streams 3D console gaming experience to 3G phones. It enables any virtual world game and multiplayer game to be accessible from a cell phone with amazing graphics quality. I saw a demo of a shooting game set in a 3D virtual environment—looked like Second Life in a futuristic war zone. Graphics resolution was way beyond anything I expected—especially for the small screen of a cell phone. Vollee delivers this service through tools they have developed and patented—which deliver their compelling graphics and also have an interesting time-to-market value proposition for publishers who want to bring their games to mobile platforms. Vollee can adapt the apps in a matter of weeks because they don’t touch the source code and for just about all types of 3G handsets—they support Windows Mobile, Java, iPhone and BREW on the handset side; on the server side, they run Windows XP. Their business model is subscription-based and ad-supported. They have received $11.5M in funding from BlueRun Ventures and Benchmark.

Playing games on cell phones for free: Greystripe makes it fun

2008-06-11T04:52:00Z

The San-Francisco-based startup brings an interesting twist to the ad-supported gaming experience on cell phones: not only do gamers get to play the 850 game titles that are in Greystripe’s library for free, but they are not distracted by ads as they play the games. The trick is that Greystripe inserts the ad BEFORE or AFTER he game, using the full-screen of the phone– which enables some compelling graphics, and thus higher click-thrus for advertisers. The company has deals with some 90 game publishers, supporting over 1,000 handset models. I saw a demo of their service – it was one of the rare times I was not annoyed by advertising being wrapped around my entertainment. The truck ad they showed me was a miniature version of the quality you would get on TV, which really holds your attention (even for someone not interested in trucks…). Same picture quality for the games they offer – a cool way to stay entertained for free on your commute to work… The company has already received $10 million in VC funding from Incubic Venture Fund, Monitor Ventures, and Steamboat Ventures.

Delivering content to 2300 different cell phones: Fonestarz

2008-05-20T20:18:00Z

FoneStarz, based in the UK, has developed a pubishing platform that enables them to deliver video content to 2,300 types of cell phones - an amazing number giving the variety of phone screen sizes and content formats. Their business is to aggregates, hosts and manages content for mobile devices - to mobile carriers to provide to their subscribers. The other main differenciators for Fonestarz–compared to similar providers, such as Motricity are their “Daius platform, developed in-house, SQL-based with clustered architecture–connects to carriers and users over regular Internet connections. No applications need to be installed on the carrier systems or on the handset–all handsets with a browser can access the service. they also have extensive mobile carrier coverage–contracts with 25 major carriers around the world (Vodaphone, Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Orange etc) and have signed content contracts with over 130 content providers worldwide (Disney, Warner, Cartoon Network, National Geographic etc). Their revenue model is revenue-sharing with mobile carriers and advertising–their revenue for FY07 was $10.2M.

Want to win your sports bets? try Accuscore's simulation engine

2008-05-18T15:31:00Z

Accuscore, a startup based in Los Angeles, is a sports’ fan dream. It’s like an “Accuweather” for those who love to bet on upcoming games (any sport: football, basketball, Hockey, baseball etc). Accuscore’s system enables them to simulate future sporting events-so that they can generate forecasts about their outcome. for example, they can simulate tomorrow night’s game between the Yankees and 49ers to project who may win (based on what is know on the players’ lineup, their season scorecard, their pros and cons, the expected weather etc). Their secret sauce is the simulation engine that they have built – which they say can accurately project results. So far, this service is only available online, but Accuscore is working on a TV version. Founded in late 2004, the company inked its first deal (with Yahoo) in June 2005 and received its first round of angel funding ($500,000) in August 2005. Its revenue model is two-thirds licensing and one-third customer-generated revenue.

Check out their app on the following links:

Sporting News:http://www.sportingnews.com/ncaa/basketball/bracket_caster

ESPN:http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/bowls07/bracket

CBS: http://cbs.sportsline.com/nhl/gamecenter/preview/NHL_20080418_DAL@ANA(The flash graphic is in the middle of the page)

ESPN:http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/preview?gameId=280418102(Flash Graphic is at the top)

www.versus.com/accuscore

From podcasting to episodic programming: Mevio

2008-05-17T22:17:00Z

Formerly known as PodShow, the company has recently re-branded its short-form video programming site with a new name, Mevio http://www.mevio.com./

As part of that re-branding , the company also launched a new site and “vertical entertainment networks” targeting specific genres/demographics. It has become is one of the largest independent library of episodic programming on the Internet with over1 million hours of content. Last month, the site had 8M+ unique visitors consuming an average of 4 shows/visit with a total of 50M+ page views. Mevio aims to leverage the growing US audience for short-form content, by offering episodes and shows that range from 2-7 minutes in length . Some of their shows are in HD . The site hosts several channels and podcasts about Business, Comedy, Fashion,Politics and Music. So far, Mevio has produced about 2,000 original shows. The site also enables users to create their own podcasts to be distributed through the rest of the site. These podcasts are delivered as free downloads to users via the Internet, to any device (cell phone, MP3 etc). The company, based in San Francisco, is well-backed by top tier VCs: Kleiner Perkins Caufield&Byers, Sequoia, DAG Ventures.

Kiptronic offers dynamic ad insertion in video

2008-03-17T00:59:00Z

Online Video advertising remains an untapped revenue frontier – which Kiptronic is targeting. While some startups (like ScanScout) provide contextual video advertising for streaming content , Kiptronic’s focus is on downloadable media such as video and audio podcasts. The key to Kiptronic’s ad insertion technology is that it doesn’t need to be on a connected device. It allows for ads to be created and inserted on the fly, removing the need for publishers to manually insert ads. Kiptronic offers pre-roll, mid-roll and post-roll video advertisements for video and podcasts which are dynamically inserted into downloadable audio and video media. Kiptronic, which is part of Microsoft's Startup Accelerator Program, was also selected by AlwaysOn as a OnMedia Top 100 Winner in January.

TV Viewers want their cake and eat it too…

2008-03-06T16:10:00Z

I was reminded of Queen’s song “I want it all--and I want it now” when I read a new survey about what TV viewers want to see--and what they’re willing to pay for. Findings released yesterday by Entertainment Media Research's 2008 Digital Entertainment Survey, which surveyed 1,608 consumers in the UK between the ages of 15 and 54, show that 70 percent of them would be open to ad-supported, on-demand content—if it meant the content would be free. So far, makes sense. The funny catch is that the same people who said they want ad-supported content ALSO want to be able to skip the ads !!! Now, as a TV viewer, I totally agree: the less ads I am subjected to, the happier I am. BUT, what if I am a provider of video services/platform/content/etc and I want to monetize my services?? Looks like I have to come up with some really creative approach to 1) inserting non-annoying ads into video content and 2) making them “un-skippable”.

Another notable (and counter-intuitive) learning from this survey is that the relationship between interesting on-demand content and the willingness to pay for it is not necessarily linear: there is some high-demand content that consumers are willing to pay for (live sports events and movies, for example) and then there is other type of high-demand content (comedy programs) that they don’t want to pay for. In that vein, one new development highlighted by the survey (and that we have seen on the market as well with the high take-up of digital music sites) is consumers’ interest and willingness to pay for live music concerts. With the drop in CD sales, the labels are looking for new revenue streams – they should pay attention to this emerging opportunity to monetize live concerts via on-demand channels. The caveat is, as the survey points out, that “ being „live‟ is critical: consumers are significantly less willing to pay for recorded concerts.”

Short-form content from Podshow

2008-02-25T21:04:00Z

It was a surprise to me—but apparently, the podcast audience in the US is not only rising, its’ exploding… A recent study by eMarketer shows that it was 18.5 million in 2007 and projects that it will rise to 65 million in 2012! Aiming to surf that wave, a San-Francisco-based startup called PodShow has developed an entertainment site focused on bringing video and audio podcasts to consumers. Podshow’s shows are short-form: they range from 2-7 minutes in length and several of the best performing shows are in HD. The site hosts several channels and podcasts about Business, Comedy, Fashion, Politics and Music. So far, PodShow has produced about 2,000 shows. You should go to the site and take a look - some are pretty irreverent and hilarious. The site also enables users to create their own podcasts to be distributed through the rest of the site. These podcasts are delivered as free downloads to users via the Internet, to any device (cell phone, MP3 etc). Interestingly, Podshow has received venture funding from big names: Kleiner Perkins Caufield&Byers, Sequoia and DAG Ventures.

Ever Heard of "2-screening"? Check Out Jacked

2008-02-21T18:18:00Z

I first blogged about Jacked last year http://microsoftstartupzone.com/blogs/anne-marie_roussel/archive/2007/06/07/ool-cool-video-startup-jacked.aspx. The company was in beta — It was testing its concept of “second-screen” viewing with some sports TV channels. Jacked’s idea is to provide a link between laptops and TVs, so that someone who is watching a football game on TV can, at the same time, open on their laptop screen several windows that would show other sources of information (web sites, radio programs, other TV channels) on the football game. For example, the football fan could look up individual players’ ratings on an NFL site; view how other channels are covering the game; listen to a radio commentator rather than the channel’s commentator; view the web site of advertisers for more info . According to statistics gathered by Jacked, the practice of “2-screening” is on the rise, particularly among young viewers: 70% of individuals under the age of 34 who watch TV are online; 13% of them are looking up information on what they are currently watching.

Jacked is now rolling out its SportsTops service through local owned and operated and affiliate TV stations (CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox), regional sports TV networks (Comcast Sports Net, NESN, Fox Sports Net),as well as local professional sports team sites (NBA, NHL, NFL, MLB). They are also working on closing a 3 year deal with the NHL and working towards a 29 station deal with CBS among others. its relationship with NBC now include support for all NFL Sunday Night broadcasts, Playoff games and the Superbowl at www.nbcsports.com/playaction. Jacked developed its a SportsTop service for the Redskins for their past season and will be launching a fully integrated solution incorporating Redskin's exclusive content for the 2008-2009 season.

Jacked, which is part of Microsoft's Startup Accelerator Program, also made this year's OnMedia 100 list -- the top emerging companies that are disrupting user behavior and creating new opportunities in the marketing, branding, advertising, and public relations industries.

Emotiv Systems in the press

2008-02-19T18:02:00Z

Since I blogged about Emotiv Systems last week, the company’s unique “brain-reading” headset – which enables gamers to control actions in games (like lifting and rotating objects, moving avatars left/right/forward/back etc) through the power of their thoughts – has received lots of press attention.

The San Francisco Chronicle mentioned them in an article yesterday as part of the new generation of peripherals that will shake the gaming world. Newsweek wrote up Emotiv as part of an article about how video games are moving into the mainstream like movies and television. Emotiv’s headset was mentioned as breaking the “high barrier to entry” for video gaming, especially on consoles with all their complicated controls. Newsweek mentioned Rock Band, Guitar Hero, Emotiv, Dance-Dance Revolution, and the Wii as examples of how video games recognized this limitation and broke it.

Emotiv, which is part of Microsoft's Startup Accelerator Program is launching its hot headset tonight at the Game Developer Conference in San Francisco during a much-expected event at the Sony Metreon.

Startup Veveo gains traction with Microsoft’s Windows Mobile Group

2008-02-18T16:07:00Z

I first blogged about Veveo last Summer, because I found the company’s technology to search video content from “input-constrained” devices (ie, devices with small keyboards such as cell phones, MP3s etc) very cool. Their interface enables consumers to use simple character search instead of keyword search—which is cumbersome on a small keyboard.

Since then, they have achieved good traction with Microsoft: They are now part of our Startup Accelerator Program; and their vTap service—a free way to find and view videos from Web sites including YouTube, Dailymotion, Metacafe, Myspace etc—has been certified by Windows Mobile. It is listed on Microsoft's Mobile2Market Web site, which promotes "Designed for Windows Mobile" applications for Windows Mobile-based Smartphones and Pocket PCs to a worldwide audience of mobile operators, e-tailers, retailers and consumers.

The company is based in Andover, MA and has already received $14 M in venture funding from Matrix Partners, North Bridge Venture Partners, Norwest Venture Partners, and OmniCapital Group.

Tune in to GDC this week with Xbox Live

2008-02-18T16:04:00Z

The Xbox Live service, available to Xbox console users, will offer free HD access to sessions at the Game Developers Conference – being held in San Francisco from February 18 to 22. Gamers can access the video content - which will include keynotes coverage, conference demos, game-play, screenshots, game trailers and interviews from the show floor - by logging into the Xbox Live Marketplace. GDC always attracts the best and the brightest in gaming from around the world, this is a great way for those who can’t make it to San Francisco to check out the coolest new stuff in gamer world.

Cool Video Search Startup: Viewdle

2008-02-17T17:04:00Z

It’s still in private beta, but my colleague Beti Cung and I have seen demos of Viewdle’s impressive facial-recognition-based video search technology. It’s a full search engine on all video feeds that use face recognition/speech2text/OCR in the ability to do in-video facial recognition. The company provides frame-by-frame indexing that can take a viewer directly to the video clip where a subject actually appears without relying on meta-tags or speech-to-text indexing. For example, their engine can search and show automatically a video of Hillary Clinton when she pronounces single words or phrases such as "President" or "elections", or "I don't get up every morning to go out and make a great speech". The search can be run on real-time feeds or against archived assets. The company’s IP is based on 35 years of research funded by the KGB with patents in preparation. The development team is based at the University of Ukraine in Kiev and the company’s corporate headquarters are in New York.

Viewdle’s engine indexes 55 frames per second (roughly equivalent to 1 viewable second of video processed per second) and can process a thousand streams simultaneously with a 1:1 stream to server ratio. On the conservative-side, the company should be able to process 24,000 hours of video in a day compared to 6000+ hours a day for a competing company that does speech-to-text video indexing. Viewdle is already working with Reuters lab, and has received recognition in the market: they were selected to present as a TechCrunch40 in September 2007 and were one of the finalists at the Crunchies 2007 in the category "Best Technology Innovation/Achievement". The Viewdle business model focuses on white-labeling their solution and monetization via search ad-revenue of video assets. Other companies in the video search space, such as Truveo, Blinkx, CastTV and EveryZing –do not employ facial recognition in their video search function. Companies in the facial recognition area include Polar Rose, Neven Vision (acquired by Google in 2006) and Riya (which has abandoned much of its face recognition in photos efforts) – none of whom currently provide in-video facial recognition.